Thanks, Mary Roach!

“One of the more distinctive ways to die in the 19th century was to get knocked into the sea by a dangling sheet of blubber.”

—Mary Roach, "Something Blubbery This Way Comes," Outside

What do you call a15-ton ball made of fat? Fatberg!

It took London sewer workers three weeks of shooting high-pressure jets of water at Fatberg to finally vanquish their disgusting foe. 

The full story's here—and thanks to Malcolm G. for the disgusting news tip!

Bathing by candlelight was never more disgusting!

By Photonoumi.

There’s a lot of fat in the human body.

Even people who don’t LOOK fat have it. And do you know what you can make from fat? Soap!

Now let’s take a step back in time with this Scientific American article. Paris has a popular graveyard known as the Cemetery of the Innocents. It was SO popular, the graveyard started to run out of room. But even so, from 1100-1700, folks were perfectly fine with being buried there in mass graves (with as many as 1,500 people to a hole).

Cimetière du Père-Lachaise

So the graveyard started to stink. It stank so bad, if you walked into it, the color of your clothing would change! (Now THAT’S stinky!)

The problem was that since the bodies were all thrown in together, they couldn’t decompose properly. So instead of the people turning into compost, they were turning into . . . underground mounds of corpse fat!

The was so gross, the French king ordered all Paris graveyards closed in 1775. The fat mounds of dead bodies were dug up, and where possible, moved to the Catacombs under Paris (which are also pretty disgusting!).

And this 1852 article explains what was done with the giant mounds of underground corpse fat: It was turned into soap and candles. 

So I guess if you bathed by candlelight, you could use up a lot of corpse fat all at once! Ooh, maybe they had cool slogans:

"Great-Grandpa Pierre is in EVERY bar of Great-Grandpa Pierre’s Soap!"

Thanks to Dr. Michael Milone for the tip,

cemetery photo by Andrea Shaffer.

30 Ways of Saying "Fat" (and other fatty items!)

Fat can BE gross, but is fat ALWAYS gross? Not necessarily! After all, everyone needs a little fat in their body.

Here in the United States, we lead the world in “fatness.” It’s no big secret; we Americans eat too much and don’t get enough exercise. So we’re fat.

And just like the Eskimos supposedly have 100 words for different kinds of snow (they don’t, by the way), so it seems we’ve come up with MANY ways of saying “fat”!

COMPLIMENTARY

Rubenesque: Rubens (1577–1640) was a painter known for his “full-figured” female nudes.

POLITE

Of ample proportions, plump, stout, meaty, heavyset, plus-sized, big-boned, well-upholstered, beefy, porky.

MILDLY INSULTING

Tubby, roly-poly, overweight, chubby, portly, chunky, pudgy, dumpy, jelly-bellied, rotund.

IMPRESSIVE
abdominous, steatopygous (having a fat butt), fussock (a corpulent woman)


BRUTAL

Obese, corpulent, fleshy, gross, flabby, paunchy, tub-of-lard, potbellied, beer-bellied, blubbery, blimpy, elephantine, gargantuan.

MEAN

I once saw a friend of mine for the first time in a few years. When I saw him, I was amazed. He was HUGE! I mean, he’d gained around 100 pounds. I was so stunned, I almost said, “Who are you, and why did you eat my friend?”

A STRANGE FAT TALE

Two years ago, California state authorities investigated Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Dr. Alan Bittner. They were concerned because the doctor said that he’d created a bio-fuel for his SUV from the body fat he was suctioning off his clients! (This method of pulling fat off the human body is called “liposuction.”)

LAST FAT THING

The average human body has enough fat in it to make seven bars of soap. (Okay, now I’m done.)

Cat from I Can Haz Cheezburger,

baby from over here.

I Won't Be Eating at Quiznos Anytime Soon.

Wow. And yuck.

When Art Meets Fat!

There’s an artist named Nick Turvey who made a fat sculpture. Wait, let me have him explain it:

It's carved from a block of upholstery foam, and coated in a rubber skin, so when you grab hold of those rolls of fat you find they are actually soft. Some people are disgusted, others love it, but it's certainly provoking reactions.

Well, at least these ladies seem to be getting a kick out of the rolls of fake fat!