Alternative Food - Guinea Pigs - Would you?

[TreyEZ]

I was watching an episode of Bizzare Foods with Andrew Zimmern,
and he ate something interesting while in Peru.

It is Peruvian local culture to raise and EAT guinea pigs.
Yes, these fluffy fuzzy fur balls are food to these people.

Why!??!! you ask...

First, guineas reproduce quickly, eat almost anything,
And they TASTE good!

During the show, they skinned and gutted the guineas, then
they roasted the small rodent on a stick over an open flame.

Even without Zimmern's commentary on how delicious it was,
I can say that it looked good... my mouth watered.
But, I didn't really think seriously of trying a Guinea.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Until, about 3 months ago, I was chatting with some international students
who were partying at my house. We were all sharing a few beers.
One of them was heading home in a few days, so I posed
my most common question:

When you get home, whats the FIRST thing you want to eat?

Do you know what she said?
Cooeai (or Cooey), or something like that..... I don't know the spelling.

But she said the Cooey was Guinea Pig!

-------------------------------------------------------------

This was the one thing that she couldn't wait to eat,
so I can't imagine how delicious and delicate the meat is.

I expected an answer about Mom's home cooking or something,
not Guinea Pig.

So, again my interest in Guineas is revitalized. I have got to try it!

------------------------------------------------------------

So, I pose my question.... Would you raise Guinea Pigs to eat?

My girlfriend won't let me, because she is against eating pets,
but I think its the same as raising a chicken and eating that.

--------------------------------------------------------------

I have actually taken my Guinea idea to the next level
(I haven't done it yet, just have thought about it).

In my idea, I will start raising the Guineas, and when I have some
babies, I will attempt to teach them to walk on a leash.
The leash will not be much more than a string tied around their necks,

Now, when I go out hiking, I plan to walk two Guineas beside me.
When I reach camp, one unfortunate Guinea will get skinned
gutted and fire roasted.

Yum! Fresh Meat! Its not something common when roughing it.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

So, do you think Guinea Pigs will walk on a leash if taught from early age?

Do you see any problems, ethical or legal with me eating Guineas
at a campsite?

Guinea Roast with carrots, onions and potatoes, makes my mouth
water thinking about it.............

Or, should I be institutionalized?

 

[Earth]

Never, been a vegetarian for over twenty years and refuse to allow anything to suffer to satisfy my hunger.

 

[Nile]

Probably get in trouble for animal cruelty.
PLUS
The guinea pigs you get at pet stores probably wouldnt be suitable for eating. Theyre a LOT smaller, and mostly fur.
PLUS
You're going to train an animal, bond with it, just to eat it? That's sickening.

 

[TreyEZ]

props on vegetarianism, i couldnt do it,
although i know that my health would improve.....

but, nile, are you completely against raising your own livestock.....
this is traditionally the only way to raise your own meat.....
aside from the traditonal grocery store shelf...

also, i ner said they were going to be my buddies..
i would grow them just as a cattle rancher would..
also, i would feel good knowing that i have
hormone free pesticide free food to eat on.

or, you could always trust that the grocery stores and mc donalds
wont pump your meat full of growth hormones and other contaminents.

i bet your great grandparents had livestock that they raised,
and were gracious for.....

trouble is, todays society wants all the cruel things don for them,
they dont want to butcher their meal.
but, we would be closer to nature and moe
thankful if we all did....

 

[TreyEZ]

also, if vegans view eating meat as a sin.....
dont animals eat each other...
do animals sin when they eat each other,
or is his just how mother earth designed it

 

[Weston]

also, if vegans view eating meat as a sin.....
dont animals eat each other...
do animals sin when they eat each other,

or is his just how mother earth designed it

I am not personally vegan but the idea has been in and out of my mind a few times. In response to your post about "sin" and animals I would argue that some animals need to eat one another to survive. Humans have evolved past the point of having to kill animals to eat. Our nervous systems also allow us to empathize and feel remorse for our cruel behavior toward animals and I view that as a signal of the future being a vegan universe.

 

[bryanpaul]

dogs are bigger and easy to take care of............................................
but fer real in a S.H.T.F. type situation this would def. be considered......
(for the haters.. my ideal situation would be to be vegan.....i'm not ...but i know thats the right way to live...oops)

 

[bryanpaul]

right way to live

came out kinda wrong...."is a good way to live".....
i think raising rabbits would be a good way to get yer meat too....

 

[CXR1037]

I couldn't ever do it and I think it's fucking sick to do so.
And same goes for rabbits. I love rabbits. I'd rather kill traveling kids then rabbits.

 

[bryanpaul]

I couldn't ever do it and I think it's fucking sick to do so.
And same goes for rabbits. I love rabbits. I'd rather kill traveling kids then rabbits.

...if shit hit the fan.... spinach and kale dont grow in alot of climates in winter.........i mean you could be canning and pickling...but fer real....if you had to, raising some kind of livestock would be smart.......... ruh roh..... thread is now vegetarianism debate ...... if you lovingly suckle on your pet cow's teat, are you still vegan?

 

[sideshowbxb]

my thoughts on this, i dont think id raise it then kill it, not unless your going to treat like livestock, no connection with the animal, if your hungry, you gotta do what you gotta do bro, on the dogs, asians i heard love them, but im not being racial, im just expressing what i heard, some dude from the Beaumont TX area, armadillos are suppose to be a source of food too, no matter what, whatever you kill, be sure never to eat it raw, cook it, well done, no blood, i mean depending on size of animal, take at least 10 minutes on the thing you kill, my grandfather use to tell me this shit all the time, 'if you kill it bobby, you eat it' i do believe that is a good rule, because these animals are apart of the ecosystem just as much as we are, they have a role they play, in fact id have to say, it would not be a good idea to raise guinea pigs just to eat them, because its most likely gonna end up costing you more than what its worth, due to the fact you got to feed them take care, all that shit, i dont doubt they eat em down in south america, hell, they are prolly abundant down there, but here, naw, i dont think its a good idea, you wanna eat something wild, go find yourself an armadillo, heres something for you http://www.eattheweeds.com/armadillo-cuisine-cooking-a-hoover-hog-2/ they dont got great vision, but they got a nose sumthin like a dogs, thats how there able to get the grubs, theres another thing too, you can bugs, i mean you got lots of choices, whatever area your in, research the native life, figur it out, take it ez

 

[TreyEZ]

Hey guys, before you get offended....
Let me just say that I am not attacking Vegans,
I usually find its the other way around.....
Vegans usually assault meat eaters for what they view
as a slight upon nature..

-------------------------------

The choice to eat meat or not, is a personal decision,
and it usually is prompted by the person's religion,
and seperate choices.

It is neither my place, nor yours to say what each other should eat

The lucky thing is, that we live in a world where we get the choice.
That might not always be the case

------------------------------

As Bryan pointed out, what if you are not able to grow
your own vegetables because of the temperature, or
perhaps a serious drought, or too much rain......

What do you do, if you can't make your weekly trip
to the grocery store.

I would wager that less than 10 percent of vegans grow
and harvest their own vegetables

------------------------------

Many societies eat different foods, someone pointed out
dogs in Asian countries. This is not just a funny stereotypical
joke, but it is a harsh reality.

There are countries that would kill to be able to eat out of
our trash cans. Again, we are lucky to be able to choose.

As for choices, it is your personal decision what to eat.
You must not force YOUR choices on the rest of the world.
Thats what the Broke Hussein Obama administration is attempting
to do to this country

India regards cattle as holy, yet we eat them by the truckload, literally.
How would we feel if all of India says that we can no longer eat our
precious hamburgers?

I would be pissed.....

What if all Muslims declared that no one can eat bacon anymore?
I would lose weight, and miss that crispy salty treat.

We can not let any minority choose what the entire populous
must eat or must not eat.

This is about personal freedoms. Your choice is your choice.....

 

[TreyEZ]

That being said about choices, What would you do if you had to
choose between an animal and your family.

If your children were going to starve, or you could feed them a
Guinea Pig, would you?

Do you think that rodent has a stronger right to live than your own
child, than your seed, than your legacy?

I don't.......

------------------------------------

I am ultimately talking about a S.H.T.F scenario.
What if we don't have grocery stores?
What if we don't have room for livestock?

-----------------------------------

Would raising Guinea Pigs be much different
from raising a coop of chickens?

You wouldn't call a chicken a pet,
but the moment that you see something fluffy,
you decide that its a pet, and can't be eaten.

These are your own personal problems.

-----------------------------------

As for empathy twoards animal's deaths,
I would only have empathy for animals that are
cruelly killed in slaughter houses, and not truely cherished
for their life bringing properties.

I would reslish in the fact that I could give the animal
a quick and humane death.

I would praise the animal and my god that gives me nutrition
and allows me to continue my journey on this earth.

If you read the first book of the bible, God gave me the
animals and weed to use as I like.
I eat and smoke respectively.
You can cuddle and not partake, thats your choice.

--------------------

So, if you were on the road, hadn't eaten in a week
and I had cooked a meal, would you share it with me, or starve?

Personally, I would eat squirrels, pigeons, or whatever I could scrounge.

Luckily , we live in a society where we get choices,
I hope it stays that way

 

[acrata4ever]

guinea pigs are the houdinis of the animal world. they will chew through the string escape reproduce and fuck up the eco system. if you had a permanent residence id say ok start a hamster ranch. also if tou read your good book nobody ate meat until after the flood because all the vegetation was gone.

 

[EphemeralStick]

putting religion aside... i could definitely see the benefit of raising guinea pigs for food. but consider this, one guinea pig may be easy to take care of but multiple? once you let them start breeding it becomes really hard to get them to stop. soon you might be overwhelmed with guinea pigs. not only that but you would have to make sure theyre all clean and their cages clear of waste so as to prevent disease. not only that but rodents, unlike cows, tend to get competitive and fierce when food is scarce, they'll bite, scratch, and just overall injure each other just to ensure that they get their fill. take both disease and temperament into consideration, then think of putting up with about 30 of those little fuckers and it seems like one big mess to me.
do i have any qualms with eating them? no, not really. but you're not gonna find me raising them for feed thats for sure

 

[acrata4ever]

i worked with this guy, as a kid he had guinea pigs. he went on vacation and had another kid care for them while he was gone. the guy never came to feed them. when he came home there was only one guinea pig henritta, the survivor. and he had to take care of that thing knowing what she did. he was a nam vet but this incident seriously scarred him.

 

[TreyEZ]

houdinis huh....
i never thought of them chewing through rope, good point...

funny that you would think they would ruin an ecosystem,
i doubt it, they would be quick food for any predator...

breaking news..... theres a guinea outbreak... they have taken over the city

 

[sideshowbxb]

the original topic of this, would you eat a guinea pig, i answer yes, but if i had choice between other foods, i would most likely go for the other, depending on what it was, all meat is mostly the same, ive eaten gator before, tastes like chicken, and most people say this about other kinds of meat, now, venison, im sorry, i love venison, deer meat, im all more for the vegans though, even though i still eat meat, i just try to vary my diet . . . remember back in school when they showed you that food pyramid? . . . see the thing is before you ever kill something and eat it, remember its role, how it plays out in the ecosystem, deer are fewer than what they were millenia ago, not trying to force my beliefs on anybody, just suggesting, . . . vegetables are very good for you, its better a meal of vegetables in love than a meal of the fatted calf in hatred, that being said, vegetables are not what they use to be, so many chemicals are now used, its far better to eat produce from local, unincorporated produce, than to buy from your local grocery store, due to the fact they are less likely to be using chemicals than those like the farmers you see on commercials for frito-lay, (this also being said, i dont think there is too much done to chemically enhance the potato, but then again i dont know for certain, im a dumbass, i dont work for frito lay), the point im trying to make is no matter what you believe, its not that you take this to heart or anything, most anything you hear from anyone in the world you have to take with a grain of salt, i believe it is good for people when they vary there diets, we are omnivores, if you eat too much meat, your body will need to find other methods of curing itself, due to the fact its only getting certain chemicals, meat is a good source of protein, but aside from that aint really much else, some meats, especially some fish, are loaded with omega 3s, this is supposedly good for brain function, plus good for blood flow, and is good for hormones, i think, . . . if you vary your, diet, eat more grains and vegetables, i believe it can sustain, and make you feel better, than eating alot of meat,

 

[acrata4ever]

http://webecoist.com/2009/05/31/wild-pets-the-worlds-strangest-feral-animals/

 

[acrata4ever]

from what i understand you can hunt pythons in florida out of season with black powder hand guns, the meat is full of mercury. but burmese python skin is banned from import and theres gotta be big money in it.