Placenta Cookbook Now Available, Really!

What is it about consuming a human placenta, used for centuries in Traditional Chinese Medicine, that seems to capture our attention?  Other mammals eat their placenta’s immediately after giving birth, only humans have been historically out of sync.

I must qualify that statement, Westerners have been out of sync. Asian cultures have not lost touch with this idea.  There are several thousand Chinese herbs documented in use for over a thousand years.  500-600 hundred are commonly used today and human placenta falls into the commonly used Chinese herb category.  

This growing trend of bringing home a new moms placenta, has been practiced in the East without fanfare.  Moms and grandmothers have known for centuries the health benefits of preparing a placenta with Chinese herbs to help a new mother recuperate from labor and promote lactation.  The placenta is packed with hormones, vitamins, minerals, blood cells and has a wide variety of health benefits.  Most well known may be milk production but if you’ve ever spoken to a mom who has consumed her placenta all tell endless stories about improved energy, faster healing from child birth.

Recently New York Magazine wrote about the latest trend and a new book called “The Placenta Cookbook”.  Congratulations to the author for writing the first cookbook of it’s kind.   Just when we thought every possible food group recipe had been written, this authors delivers something new.  I haven’t seen the book so I’m not sure if she talks about preparing placenta with Chinese herbs. It’s a true skill and not to be undertaken without some training.

I’ve written about Tom Cruise eating placenta before and it has been a popular blog post. Personally I would opt for my placenta made into capsules.  I recommend hiring a qualified dula to prepare the placenta with herbs in accordance with Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).  The expense is certainly worth it to safety reap all the benefit from your afterbirth.  

Read more on this topic:  

Eating the Afterbirth, A Chinese Medicine Tradition