For a fascinating account of the history of human cadavers in research, look no further than Mary Roach’s book, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. Just how much a human stomach will hold depends on certain factors such as how stretched the stomach is from a life-time of overeating, but putting that aside, there is a finite point at which the stomach will burst. That point appears to be 4,000 cc’s or 4 quarts.

The grotesqueness of this is clear when stomach contents have been examined after people have (inexplicably) decided to eat this enormous quantity of food. Apparently, the record-holder was a 23 year old London fashion model who consumed – yes, in one sitting because that’s what killed her – 19 pounds of food. Her last supper included:

• 1# of liver
• 2#s of kidney
• 1/2# steak
• 1# cheese
• 2 eggs
• 2 thick slices of bread
• 1 cauliflower
• 10 peaches
• 4 pears
• 2 apples
• 4 bananas
• 2#s plums
• 2#s carrots
• 2#s grapes
• 2 glasses of milk

Sounds like she was pretty fed up with being a model.

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