Lewd Food

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Debunked: Cannibalism was a common means of sustenance for past cultures.

In Dispute: Culturally-approved cannibalism existed in past cultures.

Documented: Sometimes starving people eat other people.

Documented: Some people are weird and eat other people.

Debunked: The existence of "kuru" proves cannibalism.

The generally-accepted belief that cannibalism was common in many cultures (African, Pacific Island, North and South American) was challenged (quite successfully) by W. Arens in the book "The Man-eating Myth: Anthropology and Anthropophagy" (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1979). Arens showed that the belief had been uncritically accepted, and careful examination of the evidence showed that it was very weak. Arens suggested that NO culture had EVER had culturally-approved cannibalism. Since then careful archaeological work has strongly suggested that at least some cultures have had more than incidental cannibalism, but that it certainly was much less common that previously believed.

Kuru is commonly believed to prove that the Fore (a misnomer for the group in question, by the way) were cannibals; careful examination of the original articles that drew the connection shows that the evidence is at best circumstantial, and doesn't address the possibility that the disease spread via funerary rites (which is much better supported by animal studies than oral infection).

References:

• Book review: The Man-Eating Myth
• Marvin Harris's reply to Arens