Zombie poop and other...

[Velocity]

questions one must not dwell on in order to enjoy SF and Fantasy shows. Zombies eat flesh--it goes in, but nothing comes out that I can tell. Do zombies poop or is it all used to maintain their undead rotting bods? (which really doesn't seem like it helps keep them from continuing to rot) Haven't noticed any zombie poop, so I'm thinking....no. Also, vampires are dead and supposedly cold to the touch, so why are vampire novels/shows so sexy? Having sex with a dead COLD body seems totally yucky and hardly romantic.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy both zombie and vampire type shows, but these things I start to ponder. Any one else have these thoughts to put aside to enjoy the show?

 

[RoJoHen]

I'm sure it just oozes down their leg as they hobble along.

 

[auntiehill]

But if a person is dead (er, undead) and rotting, the digestive system wouldn't function. I think this is just another "don't think about too hard" part of zombies, as they really couldn't logically exist. You'll enjoy vampire and zombie movies far more if you don't really try to apply logic and reason to it.

 

[Trekker4747]

Zombies don't eat out of a biological need (they're dead, they have no biological needs) which means their bodies are not metabolizing the food they eat to burn calories and to dispense with waste. We've also seen plenty of times zombies remaining very active even when their internal organs are decimated. They're more eating out of "habit" or some basic, animal-level, sense of "need."

So they wouldn't "poop" if anything the eaten materials would simply stay in their stomach/intestines or fall through them chewed up in the absence of internal organs. Or on the extreme side, zombies would be biological play grounds for all kinds of parasitic lifeforms and THEY'D be the ones to consume any "food" the zombies eat and they'd be the ones to defaecate.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

 

[Velocity]

Zombies don't eat out of a biological need (they're dead, they have no biological needs) which means their bodies are not metabolizing the food they eat to burn calories and to dispense with waste. We've also seen plenty of times zombies remaining very active even when their internal organs are decimated. They're more eating out of "habit" or some basic, animal-level, sense of "need."

So they wouldn't "poop" if anything the eaten materials would simply stay in their stomach/intestines or fall through them chewed up in the absence of internal organs. Or on the extreme side, zombies would be biological play grounds for all kinds of parasitic lifeforms and THEY'D be the ones to consume any "food" the zombies eat and they'd be the ones to defaecate.

I LIKE that idea! Also, my son tells me that one story has them throwing up after they are "full". Still, it seems like there would be lots of zombie messes that we don't usually see.

 

[Trekker4747]

Well, there's a LOT of things that'd be laying around or have happening in these zombie movies/shows we don't see. The Walking Dead is some two years out from the initial ZA outbreak and the grass, while high, looks pretty nicely tended, the roads are pretty well intact considering they've not been treated or repaired from weather damage and, hell, there's no even power lines dangling, overflowing clogged storm drains, or even broken water mains. (There'd still be water in the system under some form of pressure.)

Say what you will about the ZA but the public works departments and lawn services still get shit done!

 

[Sindatur]

Zombies don't eat out of a biological need (they're dead, they have no biological needs) which means their bodies are not metabolizing the food they eat to burn calories and to dispense with waste. We've also seen plenty of times zombies remaining very active even when their internal organs are decimated. They're more eating out of "habit" or some basic, animal-level, sense of "need."

So they wouldn't "poop" if anything the eaten materials would simply stay in their stomach/intestines or fall through them chewed up in the absence of internal organs. Or on the extreme side, zombies would be biological play grounds for all kinds of parasitic lifeforms and THEY'D be the ones to consume any "food" the zombies eat and they'd be the ones to defaecate.

I LIKE that idea! Also, my son tells me that one story has them throwing up after they are "full". Still, it seems like there would be lots of zombie messes that we don't usually see.

Well, there's only so much you show with an R-Rating. Eating sure, but, puking or pooping...No, that's too far for an R-Rating

The cold dead Vampire is the one that gets me. I can't imagine how uncomfortable and unpleasurable that would be to have a Vampire's cold dead "soldier" inside you. I once had a friend who tried a Cucumber she had in the refrigerator, and she said it was excruciatingly uncomfortable

 

[Reverend]

Didn't WWZ posit that at a certain point, a zombie's stomach and abdominal cavity would simple rupture from the pressure of all the rotting, undigested meat? At which point anything they consume would just fall right back out onto the floor.

If you think about it though, how much meat would the average zombie ever get to consume? After the initial outbreak, the zombie to human ratio would be pretty damn high so if one unlucky bugger gets overrun by a horde, one or two might get to gorge but most won't get a look in.

 

[Levi]

Zombies don't eat out of a biological need (they're dead, they have no biological needs) which means their bodies are not metabolizing the food they eat to burn calories and to dispense with waste. We've also seen plenty of times zombies remaining very active even when their internal organs are decimated. They're more eating out of "habit" or some basic, animal-level, sense of "need."

So they wouldn't "poop" if anything the eaten materials would simply stay in their stomach/intestines or fall through them chewed up in the absence of internal organs. Or on the extreme side, zombies would be biological play grounds for all kinds of parasitic lifeforms and THEY'D be the ones to consume any "food" the zombies eat and they'd be the ones to defaecate.

This seems bang on and pretty much what I would have tried to write out.
I'm not sure if what zombies do is even really considered 'eating' anymore, and not just mastication, or just the act of biting and chewing.

 

[Kemaiku]

Yup, body dies, they expel the full amount of waste as anyone does on death. After that they just seem to rip any living thing they see apart with their teeth and sometimes swallow portions of it, a lot of which is sinew, bone chippings, other detrius human digestive systems would reject anyway, it just...comes out somewhere.