Have I Murdered Hufu?

Two weeks ago I linked to the website of a company with plans to sell human-flavored tofu. I thought it was kind of funny at the time, but after posting the link I didn't think much about it until a few days ago when I received an email from Mark Nuckols, CEO of HUFU (the human tofu company). Mark requested that I remove the post about Hufu from my site, because by mentioning his product on the Museum of Hoaxes, he was concerned that people might think that Hufu wasn't real, or that it was some kind of hoax. Specifically he wrote that, "having it even come up on "museum of hoaxes" implies something not true, and as a debunker of hoaxes I am sure you don't wish to inadvertently or carelessly libel people trying to undertake the difficult enough task of starting a business."

I told Mark that I thought his product was funny and I definitely supported it, but that I wasn't about to remove the post from my site. I have a real problem about removing things from my site unless they're shown to be false.

My response didn't satisfy Mark, who is now up to his third email to me. He seems like a nice guy, and I'm not certain that he isn't pulling my leg about this whole thing (although his emails sound very serious). But he really wants the post about his company removed. In fact, he's making me feel very guilty. In his last email he said that "being on your website is going to kill this undertaking in its crib... I am sure putting our business in jeopardy is not your intent." Ouch. But I'm not ready to accept that kind of blame. Sure, my site is called the Museum of Hoaxes, but that doesn't mean that everything on it is a hoax. Plus, the question I raised is a valid one: how would any customers know if this stuff really does taste like human flesh?

Anyway, my purpose in posting about this is so that if people google 'hufu' and find my site, they'll also see this post where I'm going to state that I don't want to be responsible for the death of Hufu. I genuinely think it's a funny marketing concept, and Mark Nuckols insists that it's real. However, I still don't understand how he can know that it really tastes like human flesh.

Food

Posted on Wed Jun 01, 2005


Comments

I think this is a great product with enormous potential... this isn't bad publicity, it is free publicity!

I wonder if my dogs would like it
Posted by Brian  on  Fri Oct 28, 2005  at  12:24 PM
Have you seen this stuff? It looks more like human turd than meat. Mmmmm. I can't wait until mine gets off back order...
Posted by Marcus Dupree  on  Fri Oct 28, 2005  at  06:00 PM
And in response. Yes, I googled hufu and came up to your site.
Posted by just me  on  Fri Oct 28, 2005  at  06:03 PM
I think this is not so black and white. This guy is clearly trying to make this a "legitimate" business but his approach and comments bely that seriousness. For ex., this from his blog18/10;

"So I grew up, went off to New York City, and left behind my boyhood dreams of baby seals. Oh, sure, I'd see the PETA people handing out flyers about clubbing baby seals, but I'd never even bother reading what they said. (I assume PETA is a tour operator that offers adventure tours, doing cool stuff like going to participate in the baby seal hunt, but I could never afford that kind of vacation. I bet a week up in Canada going on the hunt runs into the thousands of dollars, and I just didn't have that kind of money.) Of course my great food enthusiasm has always been cannibalism. You know what I mean, the visceral thrill of chewing the sinewy flesh of another human being, there's nothing that can beat that. But old desires tend to linger in the forgotten corners of our heart, and baby seals were never far from my thoughts. With the launch of eathufu.com, sales of our healthy human flesh substitute soared past our wildest expectations. As I watched our business grow, I thought, "if you can make tofu taste like human flesh, why not baby seal?" Well, we at eathufu.com accepted wholeheartedly the challenge of developing a healthy soy textured product that captures the uniquely delicate flavor and taste of baby seal meat. Take one bite of Delicious Baby Seal
Posted by Norman Jackson Ford  on  Sat Oct 29, 2005  at  03:32 AM
I actually expected something like Hufu to come along as an intermediate step to commercial cannibalism. (See my website.) But so far Hufu seems like a hoax to me. If it's an actual product, why aren't there photos of the packaging ? Go to any other food company's website and you'll see pictures of their products prominently displayed. There are none at the Hufu site.
Posted by Lastkrell  on  Mon Oct 31, 2005  at  06:56 PM
I'm with you 100 percent. There's no way that Nuckols can claim that Hufu tastes like human flesh without having conducted taste-tests involving the real thing, and no way that he can admit in a court to having done so, or been party to such tests. Therefore, even if he's completely sincere, there's almost no way for us to know if Hufu isn't a hoax. It might as well be.
Posted by Thomas  on  Tue Nov 01, 2005  at  02:27 PM
well his product WAS on the Daily show..........
Posted by Schafe  on  Sun Nov 06, 2005  at  01:53 PM
Just because you don't believe something, that doesn't make it a hoax. You're obviously not accustomed to this kind of thing. It's strange to you, but it may not be strange to someone else from another culture.

His product was first aimed at anthropology students, so they could know what it is like to be cannibals. This seems reasonable enough, because to REALLY learn something about a culture, you must try and think like them, act like them. So I'm sure this product would help the students understand cannibals more.

There's nothing at all wrong with this product, as I see it. It may be a little unorthodox, but aren't a lot of new products at the beginning?

I'm guessing you did not see any stories about Hufu on the news as I did? I think it's stupid to put things as a hoax when you're not even sure if it actually is one.
"I have a real problem about removing things from my site unless they're shown to be false."
Why don't you show that the hoax is TRUE then? Maybe you'd have a better site if you actually tried to prove these things instead of basing it all on your opinion of whether it's true or not?
Thanks.
Posted by Yum!  on  Sat Nov 19, 2005  at  12:29 PM
You know, if they are truley worried about people viewing their products as a hoax, it was probably a bad idea to have it featured in a segment on Comedy Centeral's 'The Daily Show'. That just brings up more questions of validity.
Posted by JimmyDarkside  on  Mon Dec 12, 2005  at  07:23 PM
So lets go make some food that tastes like humans! lol this guy must be on drugs
Posted by Satan  on  Wed Jan 11, 2006  at  09:39 AM
To quote one of my heros, "I love the french, they taste just like chicken."
Posted by Dracul  on  Tue Jan 17, 2006  at  02:07 PM
I actually ordered some. Did any of you?

I never got a confirmation or any info from them, and after several unanswered emails, I had to request a PayPal refund. They never responded to PayPal either, so I got my money back. Lots of people seem to have an opinion on it, but has anyone actually ordered & received HuFu? Almost a year and no happy customers; doesn't sound like a legitimate business to me...
Posted by And0  on  Sat Apr 22, 2006  at  07:32 PM
I order a t-shirt from Hufu in July of last year, paying by credit card. After waiting four weeks, I began asking about my shipment. Over the next eight weeks I was promised over and over via email that my shirt was about to be shipped, would be shipped next week, or that my order had been misplaced and would be shipped right away.

The shirt was never shipped.

I began asking for my money back. None of THESE requests even got a response. It's not Hufu that's the hoah; it's Mark Nuckols: he is defrauding buyers, stealing their money, and laughing at them behind their backs for assuming he has any kind of normal business ethics.

Anyone reading this who would like documentation, please email me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) with the subject line HUFU and I will provide you with time-stamped copies of the entire correspondence.

Mark Nuckols is a fraud who should be in jail.

--rick
Posted by rick  on  Sat Apr 22, 2006  at  09:35 PM
i also had a bad experience with Mark Nuckols. i ordered Hufu and my credit card was billed, but months went by with no hufu. after repeated unanswered emails to the email address on the hufu website, i wrote a letter to the New Hampshire Department of Justice Consumer Protection and Antitrust Bureau (http://doj.nh.gov/consumer/wcl.html), documenting all of my attempts at communication with Mark Nuckols. i got very satisfying results: a detective from the Hanover police department paid a visit to Mr. Nuckols and forwarded me a money order that Mr. Nuckols obtained in the company of the detective. i highly recommend this approach for anyone who's been defrauded by Mr. Nuckols.
Posted by Ben  on  Thu Aug 10, 2006  at  12:34 PM
I have had a similar situation with Hufu that many of you have expressed. I was amusd by the idea and ordered a t-shirt in August of 2005, but never recieved it. After several emails demanding a shirt or a refund, I got no response I decided the $25 was not worth my time any longer and just accepted that I had been ripped off. I guess I should have thougt to check what others were saying before ordering from them. I now only order from individuals that use a reputable online marketplace like amazon or cafepress to sell their wares; those that I have had good experiences with in the past.
Posted by Brett  on  Thu Oct 12, 2006  at  12:53 PM
It's funny, because he could have made potentially a lot of money by even selling t-shirts from some place like CafePress. Because then at least actual shirts would have been shipped out, and I'm sure a lot of people would have bought them!
Posted by Eleni  on  Wed Oct 18, 2006  at  11:49 AM
Hufu is real. It does taste like human flesh. How do I know? I use to be a cannibal, but I turned to hufu because I wasn't comfortable eating people anymore. This site did ruin his business. Hufu is no longer sold and it's all your fault. The site has been deleted. Now what am I suppose to eat? I guess I'll just have to eat you.
Posted by Billy D  on  Tue Oct 24, 2006  at  11:20 AM
:D Hello everyone I am frequently frowned upon for the killing and decvouring of my children,cats, friends and lovers and also stray dogs. I have been a cannbial for 15 years and have been trying to find a way to get around my habits. I'm so excited that I found Hufu, I can't wait to bite my teeth into a nice slice of Hufu, and not have to deal with the guilt and also the police. That is all I have to say , thank you!
Posted by Calico35  on  Mon Nov 13, 2006  at  02:05 PM
I LOVE HUFU~ THANK YOU HUFU! ILL EAT YOU ALL! NOW WHO WANTS A COOKIE?
Posted by HESUS/ DIEABLEO  on  Mon Nov 13, 2006  at  02:07 PM
Once I'd seen the Daily Show interview with Mark Nuckols, I went to the Hufu website. I saw that they sold shirts and I wanted one, but the link to the merchandise didn't work for me. I tried again once in a while ever since, but today, I went to try again to find out that the website is closed, and it was a fake product all along.
Posted by Nick  on  Sat Nov 18, 2006  at  06:27 PM
I ordered a shirt and i got it, and was planning on ordering hufu this week. now i wont know. thanks for ruining a website.
Posted by Steve  on  Wed Nov 29, 2006  at  02:50 PM
I've tried hufu and I don't think it's as salty as human flesh. But, it just might not be prepared right. You have to make sure to trap in the juices.
Posted by Maribel Chase  on  Thu Feb 15, 2007  at  09:00 AM
I belive you did kill it. The site no longer exists. Sucks seeing as I was going to buy a package of said product.
Posted by Chrys  on  Thu Sep 27, 2007  at  02:05 PM
Actually, according to the assorted cannibals who were ever interviewed on the subject, human flesh tastes most like pork than any other animal. In fact the word / phrase that the cannibals of New Guinea use to refer to any person not of their own tribe translates literally into "long pig." As opposed to the standard "short pig" porcine variety.
Posted by Patty  on  Mon Nov 19, 2007  at  04:53 PM
I have just heard of Hufu and then came across your link in google... i beg to differ. A place called Museum of hoaxes sets up an expectation... that all the things in it are hoaxes unless stated otherwise. It also legitimises the claim as Museum connotes history science and the preservation of facts, research etc. That said... i would expect that the things in your website have been proven hoaxes... not things that have not been disproved as hoaxes (thats just a cop out lazy defense) So if he sues you... dont quibble.

As for the idea of Human Flesh I think it is way ahead of its time. And that the marketing people ripped him off... I mean who really markets with the truth... he should find the hidden persuader!! make it a hush hush elite product. and price it out of reach of the general public. Plus any euphoric qualities would be a bonus!
Posted by toni  on  Thu Jan 17, 2008  at  07:39 AM
Dose anyone know where to buy HuFu? I have looked ALL over the internet and can not find 1 website that sells the stuff. Can anyone help me out on this one?
Posted by Chris  on  Thu Jan 22, 2009  at  04:39 PM
Actually scientists have found out the taste of real human, so yes, they know.
Posted by Meg  on  Tue Jan 26, 2010  at  12:54 PM
Wow. You stood tall with your skepticism and prevailed! Hufu was determined to be a fun college experiment by the founder and CEO of the joke website meant to cause a stir and controversy. That is quite an accomplishment Alex.
Posted by Yongyoon Kim  on  Mon Feb 08, 2010  at  02:06 AM
First post! Drat. A few years late. :(
Posted by Chase  on  Sun Sep 12, 2010  at  05:17 PM
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