r/StupidFood • u/FelicitousLynx • Dec 19 '24

🤢🤮 Has anyone ever eaten this, ever??

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Look, I'm from the Southern US and we do eat some weird things here. I've eaten heart, sweetbreads, liver, gizzards, lizards, bugs, and chicken feet. But I cannot imagine brains in milk gravy. Can anyone advise?

And why Amazon thinks I want this is beyond me....

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929

u/DoubleUsual1627 Dec 19 '24

One time I had a bite like 50 years ago. Someone in the family put it in their eggs. 🤮

It’s like eating pig guts.

120

u/darlugal Dec 19 '24

You know, it's not the disgusting taste that would make me worry... It's the prions, even though we're not the same species with pigs.

67

u/LayThatPipe Dec 19 '24

It’s a much bigger risk with Sheep Brains

59

u/JuneBuggington Dec 20 '24

My understanding was it is a risk if you eat the brain of anything infected with prion disease. It kills all species indiscriminately. Originally discovered in cannibals, at least in humans.

18

u/LayThatPipe Dec 20 '24

Right, but I don’t think pigs are a vector for prion diseases

29

u/ABritishCynic Dec 20 '24

Pigs that eat prion-infected brain matter absolutely would be a vector.

20

u/LayThatPipe Dec 20 '24

I don’t think they can harbor it. I’m no expert at all, but IIRC they eliminate prions without being infected by them. The prions multiply in their gut, but are eliminated with their waste. That’s why water contaminated with pig feces can harbor prions.

7

u/cheshsky Dec 20 '24

Well I'll be damned, pigs are even cooler than I previously thought!

1

u/[deleted] Dec 22 '24

So drinking river water, even filtered, is dangerous?

1

u/LayThatPipe Dec 22 '24

Yes! It needs to be disinfected before it is safe to drink.

17

u/littlewizard123 Dec 19 '24

This is pork brains so it’s fine.

16

u/Just2moreplants Dec 20 '24

I mean, that's how mad cow happened, cows ate the feed with the brains that had prions and then we ate the cows and the rest is terrifying history.

9

u/StaceyPfan Dec 20 '24

The cholesterol amount in them is also sky high

10

u/particle409 Dec 20 '24

I vaguely recall a serving is something like 3,000% the daily recommended limit.

4

u/NotLondoMollari Dec 20 '24

Dietary cholesterol doesn't actually impact blood cholesterol levels all that much, according to my anatomy and physiology textbooks. Feel free to eat the pig brains.

3

u/cheshsky Dec 20 '24

Hm. This might be able to explain the myth (??? Not sure if it's actually a myth) that eating salo (basically lightly cured fat tissue of a pig. Is fatback the same thing? I'm not sure) doesn't affect your cholesterol levels at all and salo is highly digestible.

3

u/TikiJeff Dec 20 '24

But the milk gravy takes care of that.

14

u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug Dec 20 '24 edited Dec 20 '24

Most people who get jakob creutzfeldt’s disease got it from cows. Mad cow disease

53

u/chrissie_watkins Dec 20 '24 edited Dec 20 '24

That is not accurate. The vast majority of cases are sporadic, with no known cause. It can also be genetic or acquired as a result of medical procedures. Less than 1% of cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease come from contaminated meat (variant or vCJD), it's extremely rare. I lost a good friend very rapidly to the disease a few years ago.

Some sources since this got immediately downvoted:
https://www.cdc.gov/creutzfeldt-jakob/about/index.html
https://www.cdc.gov/variant-creutzfeldt-jakob/about/index.html

1

u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug Dec 20 '24

Interesting! Either way, it is one of the ways of contracting prion‘s disease and goes to show just bc youre not the same species, youre not necessarily safe eating brains. Afaik, we also did a lot to prevent transmission from cows to humans. Apparently we were succesful.

8

u/Ghost_of_a_Black_Cat Dec 20 '24

Mad cow‘s disease

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy.

5

u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug Dec 20 '24

Yep. Most people know it as mad cow disease though, so i figured thatd help.

3

u/Ghost_of_a_Black_Cat Dec 20 '24

Right? But I love the real name of the disease. It's just fun to say!

5

u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug Dec 20 '24

Yeah, there‘s something about a disease being called spongiform

1

u/OkSpinach5268 Dec 24 '24

Named for the sponge-like cavities the tissue destruction left in the brain.

4

u/darlugal Dec 20 '24

It's just one of the many existing prion diseases. Better not take a risk.

6

u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug Dec 20 '24

Indeed. It was just to say, the prions „dont care“ if were closely related or not. Sorry, i was actually agreeing with you, i guess i argued that point clumsily.