Blood as food

Lore & Background

Blood is used as food in many religions and cultures, often in combination with meat. It may be in the form of blood sausage or other solidified form, as a thickener for sauces, a cured salted form for times of food scarcity, or in a blood soup. This is a product from domesticated animals, obtained at a place and time where the blood can run into a container and be swiftly consumed or processed. In many cultures, the animal is slaughtered. In some cultures and religions, blood is a taboo food. Blood consists predominantly of protein and water, and is sometimes called 'liquid meat' because its composition is similar to that of lean meat. Blood collected hygienically can be used for human consumption; otherwise it is converted to blood meal. Certain fractions of animal blood are used in human medicine.

Reader's Guide

Blood as food has a long history across many cultures, appearing in forms such as blood sausage, blood pancakes, soups, stews, sauces, and solidified blood curd. Its composition, predominantly protein and water, makes it nutritionally similar to lean meat. Blood is collected from domesticated animals at slaughter and must be swiftly consumed or processed. While many cultures embrace blood as a food ingredient, others consider it taboo, particularly in Judaism and Islam, where its consumption is forbidden. In Christianity, the Eucharist involves the consumption of the real blood of Jesus Christ in some denominations. The variety of dishes—from Chinese blood tofu to Swedish blood pancakes to Filipino betamax—demonstrates the global significance of blood as a food source. Its use also extends to nutrition bars in Russia and ex-USSR countries, originally created for treating anemia.

Did You Know?

• Blood is sometimes called 'liquid meat' because its composition is similar to that of lean meat.
• In the Philippines, grilled chicken blood curd is called 'betamax' due to its boxy shape resembling Betamax tapes.
• In Tibet, congealed yak's blood is a traditional food.
• Russia and ex-USSR countries produce sweet nutrition bars containing cattle blood, known as Hematogen.

A Global Cookbook of Blood

Blood as an ingredient spans an extraordinary range of culinary techniques across the world. At its most recognizable, it becomes sausage—cooked with fillers like rice, barley, bread, suet, or fat until it congeals into a firm log. Dozens of regional names exist: black pudding, blutwurst, drisheen, morcilla, kishka, mustamakkara, sundae, and various boudin preparations. Beyond sausage, blood appears in pancakes across Galicia, Scandinavia, and the Baltic states, in hearty soups and stews from Poland's czernina to the Philippines' dinuguan to Korea's haejangguk. It serves as a thickener in French coq au vin and Portuguese cabidela, lending color and depth to meat dishes. In East and Southeast Asia, congealed blood curd—called blood tofu in China, saren in Java—gets sliced into curries, noodle broths, and stir-fries. Hungary's hagymásvér pairs fried pig blood with onions and paprika for a morning meal. In the Philippines, grilled chicken blood sold as "betamax" shares a street-food cart with pork and intestines. Even raw seal blood features in Inuit tradition, and Russia's Hematogen bars turn cattle blood into a sweet treat.

Nutritional Logic and Practical Necessity

The nutritional case for eating blood is straightforward: its composition is overwhelmingly protein and water, closely mirroring lean meat, which is why it has long been nicknamed "liquid meat." This makes it a dense, efficient source of nutrition, particularly valuable in periods of food scarcity when a cured, salted form can stretch a household's supply. In Peru, chicken blood combined with organ meats was specifically deployed to address a national anemia crisis, and Russia's Hematogen bars—originally formulated as a medical treatment for anemic patients—have since crossed over into everyday confectionery across the former Soviet space. Certain fractions of animal blood also find their way into human medicine. The practical logistics matter as well: blood must be collected hygienically at the moment of slaughter, running directly into a container so it can be processed or consumed before it spoils. When hygiene standards are not met, the material is diverted to blood meal for animal feed rather than the human table. There is also a cautionary note: in genetically predisposed individuals, consuming large quantities of blood can trigger iron overload, a concern that may underpin some cultural taboos surrounding the ingredient.

Sacred and Forbidden: Blood in Religious Practice

Blood occupies a paradoxical position in religious life—simultaneously sacred and prohibited. In the Eucharist, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Oriental Orthodox, and some Anglican traditions hold that participants receive the actual blood and body of Christ; the 1662 Book of Common Prayer calls the rite "spiritual food," while many other Christian bodies treat the elements symbolically. A more unusual devotion surrounded the English martyr Thomas Becket, whose cult included drinking "water of Saint Thomas," a mixture of water and the martyr's blood said to have been miraculously multiplied. Orthodox authorities disapproved, seeing uncomfortable parallels with the Eucharist. On the prohibition side, Judaism's Torah explicitly forbids consuming blood, instructing believers to spill it on the ground as water, and Islam's Qur'an likewise bans blood and its by-products. The Christian Apostolic Decree in Acts extended a similar ban, originally tied to the prohibition of idol sacrifice. The Council of Florence in 1438 later explained this rule as a temporary bridge, helping Jewish and Gentile Christians worship together by observing a shared dietary restraint rooted in ancient Jewish custom.

Cultural Identity and the Politics of the Taboo

Whether blood is celebrated or shunned often maps onto deep cultural identity. In many traditions it is a prized ingredient, frequently paired with meat, and its preparation marks communal events like a pig slaughter in Hungary, where the morning's blood becomes a paprika-and-marjoram breakfast, or a Filipino street-food stall where boxy grilled chicken blood—affectionately named "betamax" for its resemblance to a video tape—sits alongside pork and intestines. In Tibet, congealed yak blood is a long-standing staple; in Korea, cattle-blood curd is a standard ingredient in hangover soups; in Vietnam, pig-blood curd enriches noodle broths from Bún bò Huế to cháo lòng. Yet in other cultural and religious contexts, blood is a hard taboo. The reasons are layered: Abrahamic faiths codify the prohibition in scripture, and some scholars suggest that the taboo may also reflect a genuine physiological risk—iron overload in genetically susceptible individuals who consume blood in large quantities. Thus the same substance that nourishes one community is anathema to another, and the boundary between the two often traces the lines of theology, genetics, and centuries-old custom.