How does the smell affect your life, how do you deal with it, do you have any stories.

Im a trivia nerd and sometimes facts connect in an “oh no” kind of way.

Today the fact of “smell is the strongest scent tied to memory and emotions” hit the fact “pigs are very close in alot of ways to human tissue”

That leads to the “oh no”

Its got to be difficult entering after a terrible fire and smelling food, possibly even remember you nyanas famous pulled pork.

Sorry to be gruesome but that’s what I’m asking about.

How do you put that aside? Do you get sick when Nana makes what used to be your childhood favorite?

I couldn’t deal with that, the thought alone shook me. How do firefighters deal with that? Do family members change meal plans if you had a bad situation that day? Do some firefighters become vegetarians? Is it something you kinda just get over after a couple times?

  • Hideakikarate@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    1 day ago

    Not a firefighter, but I have smelled human flesh burning. I worked pathology for a year, and right off the O.R., a few times a week, you could smell the cauterized flesh from tonsillectomies. I wasn’t in the room with the procedure, but you could always tell. For me, the smell never really reminded me of pork. It was its own thing. That being said, I can’t speak for everyone, but to me, it didn’t smell like pork.

    • Nougat@fedia.io
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      1 day ago

      Muscle (the pork we eat) and mucous membranes (where tonsillectomies happen) have got to be different enough to produce different odors when burnt.

    • Aeao@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 day ago

      That is a great answer thank you. That was the most horrific part of the question. I’ve never smelled it obviously but I know pirates called it long pork. I’ve heard it described as tasting like pork but only from people who probably were not cannibals. I don’t talk to a lot of cannibals… That I’m aware of anyway. So I only have what I read here and there in articles. I just assumed if humans tasted like pork then we smell like pork.

      So I was talking about smells with a friend “bathrooms and air freshener if you’re curious” and my ADHD brain just linked a bunch of useless trivia.

      I’m glad to know humans just smell different. It’s probably biological maybe even evolution. Makes sense because in the cave man days anyone who wasn’t disgusted by another dead human enough to run… Probably didn’t survive as long as those that thought “this is something I want to immediately get away from.”