Placentophagy, or the practice of ingesting the placenta after giving birth, has been inching its way into the mainstream. Animals do it, and mothers have been offering testimony that eating the nutrient-rich placenta can have health benefits, including regulating hormones that may cause postpartum depression. Granted, no empirical data exists to prove that this is true—but that hasn’t stopped some mothers from adopting the “what does science know about my body/my child” approach (a philosophy that has yielded less-than-stellar results in other health debates).

Still, no evidence has surfaced showing that placenta-eating causes any harm, so for now it remains a harmless endeavor—and one ripe for media commentary. Take a fringe health pseudo-trend and add a journalist’s personal experience, and you have Joel Stein’s witty Time magazine account of just how the mechanics of eating a placenta go down. Writes Stein:

When the placenta did come out, Cassandra, dazed from 21 hours of labor, somehow made sure the nurses delivered it to us in a flat plastic container, which I put into an ice-filled Monsters vs Aliens cooler I brought….

In a fog, I drove the placenta home, where I wrapped the container in a bag and wrapped that bag in a bag and wrapped that bag in every remaining bag we had in the house.
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