There's a character you can't miss in NV who has dialogue telling you about someone selling "strange meat" which he goes on to tell you was human flesh. I thought that kinda established it's the same in NV as Fallout 3
Strange meat is people!

This. There is no debate about it. Its a long pork kebab

Maybe Mick & Ralph were a part of a tribe we're familiar with that enjoys a little Soylent Green as a delicacy. When I found it in their fridge I was surprised. I'm pretty well convinced it's people. I'd have to see some definitive confirmation opposing that for me to believe otherwise. Also doubt it was oversight. I'm thinking that's an "on purpose".

In the words of a great person: "What? I don't eat PEOPLE! That's disgusting! I eat cannibals"

I don't see why we need a definitive answer to the question. I like that it adds a bit of mystery... Is it, or isn't it? If you just found piles of 'human flesh' everywhere, there would be no doubt... but if it's 'strange meat'... well... you never know, right?

Personally I think it is, at least most cases of the time. It's just sold/passed off as 'meat' to people who don't think of themselves as cannibals and who would be squicked out by the idea of eating human. So, they just don't tell them where the meat came from...

strange meat... think of it this way, humans are just meat on the hoof. food is scarce so why allow good meat to go to waste if humans don't eat human meat, animals will. and they will use the energy they gain to attack humans.

Do you REALLY want to make that claim? I'm sure if I drained the pull in the Ultra-Luxe, I'm sure I could literally swim in the amount of food I've found in the Wastes.

So you support Cannibalism?

Uh oh.

WITCH WITCH, ITS A WITCH, BURN 'ER, BURRRN 'ER!

Well, they could have simply bought it from someone not knowing what it really is.

Once someone becomes a cannibal, it is very difficult to lose the taste for human flesh. I'd imagine that it is some sort of psychological thing. At one point or another, Mick and Ralph AND individuals in the NCR found themselves in difficult positions where they had to eat people to survive. Once a cannibal, perhaps you are always a cannibal, regardless of the available alternatives.

Just look at the White Gloves. They have numerous alternatives to eating Strange Meat, yet since they have already eaten the forbidden flesh before, they feel compelled to continue to do so.

Strange Meat is human flesh.

In tighter times, I can see the need to resort to cannibalism just to survive. The Capital Wastes were a good example... A lot of food there was just plain old difficult to get, and there didn't seem to be much in the way of agriculture. Everything was pretty much hunted or scavenged... Stored supplies only last so long, and when 80% of the wildlife is more likely to eat YOU than you eating IT, well food's gotta come from somewhere, if you don't want to starve.

In the Mohave Wasteland though... isn't really much of a wasteland. Animals are plentiful, including lot of relatively peaceful ones like brahmin and bighorners. Even geckos, coyote and giant ants are in plentiful supply in some places. Even more importantly, people have ranches and farms dotted all over the place. Even places like Goodsprings everyone has little gardens to tend. So the presence, even abundance of strange meat is.. well, strange.

Um, No.

If you eat Human Meat if you HAVE TO survive, Then that does'nt make you automatically crave for "HMAN FLESH ZOMG KILLLL" or anything, It's traumatizing most likely.

Only some of the White gloves want to eat human's still, Not all.

I never said 'all'. My point still holds water if 'some' of the White Gloves still eat people aka 'Strange Meat'. Explain to me why some or even one of the White Gloves would want to continue to eat people?

Because they were raised eating people.

Thats why, But just because you eat someone, Does'nt. Auto. Matically. Make. You. A. Cannibal.

They enjoy it? The taste or the feeling of power over another human being, the ultimate power. Or the perverse pleasure of it. There is nothing addictive or compelling in eating human flesh. Stories of people 'craving' it are hocus and fake to demonize cannibalism. Setting aside the Family and Andale from FO3, as these people were clearly disturbed mentally. Not to mention fictional representations to reinforce that stereotype. Though if that's the way it works in this fictional world, that's the way it works... but I have yet to see any evidence of that outside of confirmed and willing cannibals.

Just because you think cannibalism is taboo, not everyone believes this. In fact, there are tribes to this day that continue to partake in cannibalism. Some people prefer human flesh to any other meat. It may not be something you want to accept as it so ghastly, but it is what it is.

In the Capital Wasteland, the Family had alternatives, but they craved human flesh. By only drinking the blood of people (via Blood Packs) they were able to hold off their craving in order to keep from being ostracized by the rest of the Wasteland.

Some people just LOVE human meat.....plain and simple.

What is with people asking this question?

It's People! FO3 makes it clear. Andale a town with families that are eating people, their basemants full of strange meat and bodies. "Hunters" killing wastelanders and they have alot of strange meat in their invantory. Fallout New Vegas its talked about how a man started selling strange meat at a cheap price and put the other meat seller out of business and later on they find bodies in the new guys basemant after people started getting the shakes.

I never said that people craving human meat were sane. I would consider them quite insane. Actually, what defines 'sane' and 'insane' is the difference between a person acting in accordance to society and a person not acting in accordance. I would consider Mick and/or Ralph, and those cannibalistic members of NCR to be quite insane. Even crazy people can be productive members of society. Just look at the number of sociopaths that live in our society undetected because they know how to 'act' normal.

I am not saying that there aren't groups of people who eat human flesh or even crave it. I am just refuting this concept that anyone, once they eat it, feels the need to continue eating it. As mentioned about the meat seller who sold human flesh to unsuspecting people, and with things like Mad Cow disease, eating the flesh of your own species can be detrimental. Not always, but it can be. And there is no proof that people who unintentionally eat human flesh crave it afterward. Just people who know they are cannibals, like the Family or the White Glove society. For people like the ones who live in the Grey, or Mick and Ralph, we just don't have enough information to know if they are intentional cannibals or people not buying from trustworthy vendors...

This was my original statement. "Once someone becomes a cannibal, it is very difficult to lose the taste for human flesh."

Based on whats been said and after thinking about it, I retract this statement. It claims that any person 'even a sane stable person trying to survive' would ALWAYS become addicted to being a cannibal. Looking back, I'd have to say that I can't agree with that.

I still feel that Strange Meat is people though

Oh absolutely. I never touch the stuff.

Except you know.. on my cannibal characters.

There seems to be two topics on this - now there is only one. http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1143371-strange-meat-what-is-it/