10 Ways to Recycle a Corpse: and 100 More Dreadfully Distasteful Lists

Product DescriptionPrepare to be even more revolted, flabbergasted, appalled, and completely entertained by this incredible follow-up collection of absolutely true trivia from the author of 5 People Who Died During Sex. Nothing is too insane, too inane, or too sacred for Karl Shaw’s eclectic lists of the world’s very worst.DID YOU KNOW……that according to recent estimates (2010) your body is worth between $10,000-$100,000 on today’s open market-from companies legitimately trading body parts from willing donors to recognized medical facilities …that the great plague of Athens in 404, which lead to the defeat of the Athenians in the Peloponnesian War, was probably caused by contaminated cereals …that Benjamin Franklin liked to sit stark naked in front of his open windows, calling the practice “taking an air bath” …that in the last days of his life, the actor Steve McQueen lived on a diet largely comprised of boiled alligator skin and apricot pits, washed down with urine About the AuthorKarl Shaw wrote and illustrated for UK newspapers and magazines for several years before working in advertising and marketing. He now lives in Staffordshire, England, where he has channelled a misdirected education into several books including Royal Babylon: The Alarming History Of European Royalty, 5 People Who Died During Sex, Curing Hiccups With Small Fires: A Miscellany of Great British Eccentrics and 10 Ways To Recycle A Corpse.Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.Chapter OneFOOD FOR THOUGHT10 Extreme Food Fads|1|THE BEAN DIETThe Ancient Greek Pythagoras and his followers were among the earliest vegetarians, but it had nothing to do with healthy eating or compassion for animals. According to Pythagoras, vegetarianism was the only way to ensure you were not eating your grandmother or another relative, whose soul could have migrated to your neighbor's pig. The great mathematician was said to be so passionate about his diet that he met his death defending a bean field.|2|THE YOGURT DIETThe Russian biologist Ilya Metchnikoff, winner of Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1908, was a depressive who twice attempted suicide. His second attempt was with a large dose of morphine, which only succeeded in causing him to throw up and sit around in a catatonic state. While pondering the futility of life and the certainty of death, Metchnikoff was puzzled by the longevity of peasants in the backwoods of Bulgaria, many of whom lived to be more than a hundred. He decided that it was because they ate lots of yogurt. To test his theory he binged on untold gallons of the stuff, meanwhile boasting extensively about its life-extending properties. He died six years later at the age of seventy-one, leaving behind just a handful of fellow yogurt enthusiasts.|3|THE FRUIT-AND-VEGETABLE-FREE DIETIn 1770 English physician William Stark set out to find a cure for scurvy by subjecting himself to a series of dietary regimes. Stark, a healthy six-footer, meticulously recorded the measurements of everything he ate, the prevailing weather conditions, and the weight of all his daily excretions. After spending thirty-one days on a diet of bread and water, which made him "dull and listless," he moved on to dietary experiments with olive oil, milk, roasted goose, boiled beef, fat, figs, and veal. After seven months of living exclusively on honey puddings and Cheshire cheese, he died of scurvy at the age of twenty- nine. He had considered testing fresh fruits and vegetables but never got around to it.|4|THE GRAHAM DIETAdvocated in the 1930s by the US Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham, who taught that the consumption of meat and dairy products stimulated excessive sexual desire and "bad habits," including masturbation, which he regarded as an evil that inevitably led to blindness and insanity. The Graham diet consisted mainly of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole wheat, and high-fiber foods, especially the graham cracker, which
Author: Shaw, Karl

Publisher: Crown

Binding: Paperback

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0307720403

ISBN-13: 9780307720405