More Than You Ever Wanted To Know About Placenta

18 Apr, 2006 by John Hawkins

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Thank you, Tom Cruise. Because you’re such a wacko, most Americans are learning more than they ever wanted to know about what some deranged people do with their baby’s placenta:

“TOM Cruise yesterday revealed his latest bizarre mission..to eat his new baby’s placenta.

Cruise vowed he would tuck in straight after girlfriend Katie Holmes gives birth, saying he thought it would be “very nutritious”.

The Mission Impossible star, 43, said: “I’m gonna eat the placenta. I thought that would be good. Very nutritious. I’m gonna eat the cord and the placenta right there.” It is the latest in a series of increasingly strange outbursts from Cruise in the run-up to the birth.

…Cruise, who has two adopted children with ex-wife Nicole Kidman, will not be the first star to make a meal out of his baby’s placenta.

Rod Stewart and girlfriend Penny Lancaster took home their baby’s placenta, sprinkled it with tee tree oil and buried it in the garden.

In 1998, Channel 4 chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall fried a placenta with shallots and garlic and served it up to 20 guests, including the baby’s mum and dad.

TV watchdogs later criticised the show, branding it “disagreeable”.

But placenta-eating is considered normal in some cultures. Various recipes include one for placenta lasagne. Some say eating it helps avoid post-natal depression.”

“(P)lacenta-eating” (may be) “considered normal in some cultures,” but this isn’t one of them. Placenta eating is gross, gross, gross! And Rod Stewart buried his baby’s placenta in the garden? What, was he hoping a “placenta tree” would grow on that spot? To tell you the truth, I don’t even want to know what he was trying to do.

PS: If by some odd chance, a friend of Katie Holmes is reading this, can you pass a message on to her for me? Can you just tell her to, “RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, KATIE, WHILE THERE’S STILL TIME! TOM IS OUT OF HIS MIND!”

*** Update #1 ***: Apparently, Tom Cruise has played down reports that he’s going to actually eat his baby’s placenta…

But in a subsequent interview with Diane Sawyer on US television, he made light of the comments.

“Yeah, we’re going to do that – a whole family thing. Isn’t that normal and natural? No, we’re not eating it.”

In politics, that’s what’s called a, “non-denial denial.” He’s saying that the family won’t be eating the placenta, but he doesn’t say he’s not going to personally do it.

So, does that mean he does plan to eat his kid’s placenta?

I don’t know. Maybe it was a joke, maybe it wasn’t. All I can tell you is that if there was a contest to pick a guy in Hollywood who’s barmy enough to tell the whole world he plans to eat his own baby’s placenta, Cruise would definitely be one of the finalists.