It takes longer than ever before, for a body to decompose due to the preservatives in the food that we eat these days.
When anecdotal evidence pointed to a slowing in the rate of decay among human bodies from the 1960s to 1980s, some attributed this to the presence of preservatives from processed food. Nutrition and food author Seth Roberts speculated in 2009 that these preservatives may not directly impact the rate of decay but perhaps act to diminish the presence of some bacteria that play a role in the decomposition process.
