Does this make me a cannibal?

From:  "Pete"

Eating human flesh makes one a cannibal. Is skin flesh? I sometimes bite off a piece of skin off my finger tip and eat it, does that make me a cannibal? What about eating scabs, like every kid does at least once?

Are scab-eaters and finger-tip biters cannibals?

Webmistress Lauren: Ok so many of you might be going... ok... they just had a question on cannibalism... well apparently we did not clear up that question enough, so lets see what we can find to try and solve this question once and for all...

Keith Barnett sent us his ideas on the situation: 

Are you a cannibal. Well you say that you have eaten small pieces of your own skin and scabs.. Besides being absolutely nasty there is really nothing else wrong with it. I would not think that it would make you a cannibal either. Cannibals are people that actually SUSTAIN themselves on human flesh. I doubt you would live for long eating the occasional piece of skin and scabs. Cannibals on the other hand make a real meal out of it.
Oh and not every kid eats scabs... YUCK!!!!!!

Durk added his thoughts: 

Is eating scabs and fingernails cannibalism? If you swallow any of your flesh you are a flesh eater. I believe that auto-cannibalism, while disgusting, is widely accepted in society. This may apply to hair, but probably not excretions. I have to go now, dinner is ready.

Todd helped us answer this question... again... 

I was one of the people that answered the older cannibal question. I used the word flesh for defining what a cannibal was. Flesh is mainly muscles and fat. If you eat dead skin, you're not eating your flesh nor are you being a cannibal. So have fun eating that dead skin now!

slyguy1603 concluded the discussion with this: 

no your not scabs, nails, hair and the skin you eat are all dead. to be a cannibal you would have to kill some one and eat parts of the body like heart lungs liver brains and drink the blood plus eat muscle tissue