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Cannibalism, from Canibales, the name early Spanish explorers pinned on a tribe in the West Indies, is one of civilized mankind’s strongest taboos, but anthropologists know that men and women have been tossing their friends and neighbors and relatives and defeated enemies onto the fire or into the stew pot ever since there was a written or drawn record of human activity.

The heyday of cannibalism reports was the Age of Exploration when stories of man-eating savages went along with virtually every voyage to the New World. Clearly, many of the terrifying tales were true, but the cannibal label was also used to belittle or demonize unknown or resistant peoples.

In fact, cannibalism has crept into virtually every society, civilized and not, driven by religious or cultural ritual such as the idea that devouring the heart of a brave man confers bravery upon the diner, but more commonly by simple necessity of survival during famine. In 1609, for example, George Percy, an original member of the Jamestown Colony in Virginia, wrote: “ now famin beginneinge to Looke gastely and pale in every face, thatt notheinge was Spared to mainteyne Lyfe and to doe those things which seame incredible, as to digge upp deade corpes outt of graves and to eate them. And some have Licked upp the Bloode which hathe fallen from their weake fellowes.”

Although they did not reach into graves, members of the Donner Party, caught in winter storms and starving as they tried to cross the Rockies (1846–1847), were also driven to cannibalism, as were those caught in the dreadful 842-day Siege of Leningrad (1941–1944) when more than 800,000 people starved to death; in China during the Great Leap Forward (1958–1961); and high in the Andes among the young athletes stranded after the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 (1972).

But this is Nutrition For Dummies, not History For Dummies, so what you want to know is this: How nutritious is human flesh? According to James Cole, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology a lecturer on human origins at the University of Brighton in England: Very.

Human bodies, like other animal carcasses are red meat, fat, and offal. Based on data from four (dead) male adults, Cole estimates that a whole, cooked human body serves up about 82,000 calories. At a recommended 2,500 calories a day for an average adult male and 2,000 for an average adult woman, that’s about 34 days’ worth of sustenance for the former and 43 for the latter. A piece at a time, Cole rates a human arm at about 1,800 calories; a leg at 7,150; the lungs, liver, and alimentary canal about 1,500 calories each; the bundle of brain, spinal cord, and nerve and trunk about 2,700 calories. The brave heart? A mere 122.

Of course, while law-abiding folks are unlikely to slice, dice, and serve other folks anytime soon, other species are doing in their fellows day after day. The list of cannibalistic creatures who eat their enemies, their lovers, or their offspring includes fish such as the tiger shark and walleye, cute and cuddly prairie dogs, hamsters, hedgehogs, some snakes, caterpillars, ladybugs, spiders, some toads and tadpoles, hermit crabs, ducklings, cats, dogs, and polar bears (the last three often kill and sometimes consume sickly newborns). Chickens also make the list — but their cannibal dish is eggs not chicks.

And by the way, cannibalism is a species-neutral term. The word for people eating people is anthropophagy from the Greek words anthropos meaning “human being” and phagein meaning “to eat.”