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Humans have been around for over 200,000 years, and during that time, we've demonstrated the incredible potential of our bodies. We have the ability to run, jump, twist, cool ourselves down, exert immense strength, and perform countless other amazing feats.
Our extraordinary minds further distinguish us from other creatures on Earth. This intelligence has allowed us to communicate, construct magnificent societies, invent groundbreaking technologies, and express ourselves through all forms of art: music, painting, sculpture, and beyond.
When you pair our astonishing, versatile bodies with our boundless imagination, you can come up with some truly bizarre uses. Here are 10 unusual ways people put the human body to work.
10. Cooking With Semen
Semen is the male reproductive fluid that contains sperm, the cell responsible for fertilizing an egg in females. For most, its sole purpose is reproduction—creating life. However, for some, this isn't enough. They choose to incorporate semen into their cooking and even consume it.
Whether you approve or not, semen has moved beyond the bedroom and into the kitchen. There are even cookbooks that offer various recipes on how to include semen in meals. The justification for this is that semen is seen as nutritious, affordable, easily available, and offers an appealing texture for cooking.
As the description of Natural Harvest: A Collection of Semen-Based Recipes states, “Like fine wine and cheeses, the flavor . . . is complex and dynamic.” There are also cooking classes on the subject. In fact, a “Cooking with Semen” class was held in London just last year.
Some foods made with semen include alcoholic drinks, caramel sauce, and kiwi smoothies.
9. Earwax Candles
Bees produce wax to build honeycombs, and it was the first material used in wick candles back in ancient Egypt. Other animals and plants also produce wax, which shares similar properties with beeswax. While this wax is similar to fat, it is more solid, brittle, and less greasy.
Human earwax is composed of fatty acids mixed with other substances. Its main function is to protect the inner ear by trapping dirt and bacteria. At some point, humans—specifically, the stars of the popular Discovery Channel show MythBusters—decided to experiment with making candles from their own earwax.
Their inspiration came from the animated film Shrek, where the main character—the lovable green ogre, Shrek—used a chunk of his own earwax as a candle. If an ogre can do it, why can’t humans, right?
The MythBusters team decided to test it out, and the outcome was either disappointing or relieving, depending on how you see it. While it's technically possible to make a candle from human earwax, it won't burn like the usual candles made from paraffin or beeswax.
Since earwax is made up of various substances, it burns at different speeds and unevenly. However, despite the failure, it's worth noting that humans did manage to create a candle using their own earwax.
8. Eating Your Placenta
The placenta is an organ in females that attaches to the inside of the uterus during pregnancy. It nurtures the developing baby by delivering nutrients and oxygen through the umbilical cord. After childbirth, the placenta is expelled as part of the afterbirth.
So once it's delivered, what should you do with it? Some, like socialite Kim Kardashian-West, suggest taking it home and consuming it. To be fair, she had hers turned into a pill, but it’s not uncommon for people to literally cook and eat their afterbirth.
Recipes for preparing the placenta are abundant online, and there’s even a cookbook you can buy along with that semen recipe book. Some of the ideas include smoothies, desserts, and even lasagna.
Many people believe that consuming the placenta helps the mother recover by boosting energy levels and combating postpartum depression. However, the Food and Drug Administration has not fully endorsed this practice. Still, there are devoted supporters, and it's likely to remain so.
7. Urine To Make Beer
This is the latest human innovation in biology. In 2017, a Danish brewery unveiled a new beer, Pisner, which incorporates human urine in the brewing process. As we know, human urine is the liquid produced by the body to expel waste.
To clarify, urine isn’t actually found in the beer itself. Instead, the brewery uses urine to fertilize the barley that will later be used in the brewing process.
The first step in brewing involves malting barley. This is done by soaking the barley in water (or urine) to soften it, which helps convert the starch in the barley into sugar. The malt is then heated and combined with water to break it down further, resulting in a liquid called wort.
Afterward, the mixture is heated again and hops are added. Following this, it is cooled down. Yeast is introduced, and it is left to ferment for a few weeks. After that, the final steps are cleaning and bottling, and voilà, beer is ready.
There’s no need to worry when drinking Pisner, but that doesn’t make it any less strange!
6. Menstrual Blood As A Plant Fertilizer
Each month, women of certain ages go through their menstrual cycles. The body prepares for pregnancy, and when that doesn’t occur, it sheds the preparations by expelling blood.
Menstrual blood consists of a mixture of blood and the uterine lining, known as the endometrium. Typically, women use sanitary pads, tampons, or other feminine products to catch it. But some women take this process a step further.
They choose to fertilize their gardens with their menstrual blood.
As strange as it may sound, there’s some logic behind it, at least scientifically. Blood contains nitrogen, an essential element for plants, as it plays a key role in photosynthesis and growth.
This idea has already been adopted by the gardening community, leading to the creation of the product blood meal. Using actual blood, particularly menstrual blood, is a more recent development and is considered a natural and possibly more affordable method of fertilization.
5. Dead Hair To Style Hair
This might be one of the greatest contradictions in cosmetic history. For most of us, dead hair is something we find useless and unpleasant. But those large clumps of hair that you vacuum off your carpet and grimace at would have been eagerly collected by Victorian women.
In the past, and sometimes even today, women would gather the dead hair from their brushes and use it to add volume to their hairstyles. Today, we have teasing combs, hair spray, hairpieces, wigs, and many other tools for styling. So, to us, the idea of using dead hair seems rather revolting.
Back in those days, women didn’t have the modern tools and products we use today, so they had to get creative and make their own hair rats. This method remained popular well into the 20th century. In fact, this technique is still utilized today by DIY enthusiasts.
4. Bones For Instruments
Bones are the most resilient part of the human body, so why not make use of them? Throughout history, bones have been turned into musical instruments. One notable example is the kangling (“leg flute”), crafted from a human femur. The kangling was used in Buddhist ceremonies in Tibet.
Another example is a Central African lyre made from a human skull, which was discovered just over a century ago. As eerie as it sounds, it likely didn’t have a ritualistic purpose. Instead, it was probably created by a European trader hoping to sell it for some money.
There was also an Aztec instrument known as omichicahuatztli, which was crafted from human bone.
3. Edible Feces
Feces, poop, excrement, waste—whatever name you give it, it's a part of life, though undoubtedly a repulsive one. But what on earth could compel anyone to make something out of this unpleasant human byproduct?
Burgers.
That's right. In 2011, it was reported that Japanese scientists figured out a method to turn human feces into meat that could be consumed. This bizarre idea arose when Tokyo's overburdened sewage system began to overflow with human waste. That posed a significant problem.
Then there's the additional challenge of providing for all these people. The solution to both problems emerged in the form of a protein product made from steak sauce, soya (a binding agent), and, oddly enough, poop.
However, there are doubts about the credibility of this story. Several news outlets, including Forbes, have raised questions regarding the authenticity of the reports and the feasibility of creating such a “meat.”
While the truth of this matter remains up for debate, we can all agree on this: We'll definitely hesitate the next time we sink our teeth into that double-meat bacon burger.
2. Nail Clippings Turned Into Art
Artist Henri Matisse once remarked that “creativity takes courage,” and this sentiment has never been more accurate than when artists began using their discarded nail clippings as a medium.
For most people, nail clippings are simply discarded after trimming, and composting them is a common practice. But transforming them into paperweights or figurines worth hundreds of dollars is far from conventional and might be seen as quite eccentric.
One such artist, Mike Drake, repurposes his fingernail clippings into decorative acrylic paperweights. Another interesting artist, Rachel Betty Case, creates small figures, like animals or insects, from her fingernail clippings.
1. Teeth As Jewelry
Forget diamonds and precious stones. Why spend all that money when your own pearly whites can work just as well on a gold band or silver chain? Yes, wearing human teeth as jewelry has become a popular trend, and some individuals even earn a living from it.
Human teeth of all varieties are used in jewelry. Some pieces feature baby teeth, likely appealing to mothers whose children have grown up, or perhaps to those who simply enjoy wearing tiny teeth. Other options include molar earrings, necklaces adorned with random teeth, or purchasing a collection of loose teeth to craft with as desired. A romantic choice might be using a freshly removed wisdom tooth as the centerpiece of an engagement ring.
This is exactly what Canadian Lucas Unger did. In the fall of 2015, he used a recently extracted wisdom tooth to create his fiancée Carlee Leifkes’s engagement ring. Their unique choice garnered a lot of media attention, both positive and negative.
No matter your viewpoint, it’s undeniable how one-of-a-kind that ring is, and that’s precisely what the couple aimed for. Unger shared that they are a quirky couple, so a quirky engagement ring felt like the perfect fit.
