Eat rats for snacks, says Indian official...as a way to beat rising food prices

[babylonsister]

Eat rats for snacks, says Indian official
An Indian welfare official has advised poor people to farm rats for snacks as a way to beat rising food prices.

Last Updated: 7:38PM BST 13 Aug 2008


Vijay Prakash, the welfare minister in Bihar state in eastern India, said he wanted to set up rat farms and sell the meat to upmarket hotels, street stalls and restaurants.

The project will start with stalls in rural fairs followed by "rat meat centres" in urban areas.

The 2.3 million members of the Musahar caste, one of the poorest in India, have traditionally eaten rats that they hunted in paddy fields.

Now Mr Prakash says rich people should also sample the meat, which he said was full of protein and tasted better than chicken.

more...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2553352/Eat-rats-for-snacks-says-Indian-official.html

[C_U_L8R]

1. Or vote rats out of office

[Gabi Hayes]

2. "Rat in a Box!" this is 25 years old....Firesign Theatre

When you can't stand the pace
In the Big Rodent Race
'Come on in where it's safe
Where the menu is tref... ###- "tref" means "non-kosher"

There's a smell in the air
that reminds you of hair
You've got something to get
and it looks like your pet!
(aren't you hungry ?)
First we take some rat parts
and fry them up real nice..
Then we skin the kitties,
and barbeque the mice!
Bridge:
Guts in a Cup! (Yum!)
Mouse on a Stick! (Wow!)
French-fried Fleas
and Beer-battered Ticks!
Chorus:
Ra-aaat in a box...
(We fry what you won't--)
Ra-aaat in a box...
(We fry what you won't--)
Ra-aaat in a box...
(We fry what you won't...TOUCH!)

[Octafish]

43. That was the first thing I thought of, too, Gabi!

I remember the kid working at Rat-in-a-Box wore a hat that had a little rat head sticking out in front and the back-end of the rat in back.



Here's hoping that soon a certain warmongering monkey will have to do the same at the prison cafeteria.

[Berry Cool]

51. Rat in a Box...new lyrics

It's easy to do just follow these steps

1: Cut a hole in a box
2: Put your rat in that box
3: Make her open the box...

[beam me up scottie]

3. They've got the right idea.

The only way to sell this idea is to make it a chic new fad.

[ladjf]

5. Yeah. Maybe choclate covered rats.

[beam me up scottie]

9. Rat sauteed in sherry with Brie.

The possibilities are endless...

[ladjf]

11. OK. This has gone on far enough. I was looking forward to eating

breakfast this morning. Now, I'm not so sure.

Deep fried rats?

[beam me up scottie]

13. Rats: Not just for breakfast anymore...

Okay, I'll stop, I'm a vegetarian and I'm making myself sick. :P

[Igel]

37. What?

You eat breakfast at KFC?

[JVS]

21. Is that brie made of rat milk?

[ProgressiveFool]

27. how on earth would you milk a rat?

You'd have to have some very small fingers. A return of child labor, perhaps?

[ladjf]

39. Tiny little battery powered milking machines.

[beam me up scottie]

50. Isn't that what it's usually made of?

I never read the labels on all that imported stuff...

[ladjf]

4. Well, I had thought that I was an objective, scientific type thinker.

However, I'm just going to have to draw the line at eating rats, at least for now.

[hlthe2b]

6. Rat in a Pita, with a little tsaziki sauce

Ratto Wraps! Oh, the image of the little guy's head peering out of the wrap with a dollop of tsakiki on top.... ???

Guess it is protein, after all, but I'm guessing they are marketing at the Muslims rather than the Hindis. :shrug:

[Berry Cool]

52. Apple Brown Ratty

G. Gordon Liddy's favorite dessert...according to SCTV.

[dipsydoodle]

7. Dead ones

presumably :shrug:

[mikeytherat]

8. No "ratatouille" jokes yet? Am I the first?

Woo-hoo!

mikey_the_rat

[beam me up scottie]

10. You have the floor!

:D

[dipsydoodle]

14. Last one I recall

was Baldrick in Black Adder serving up Rat-au-vin : a rat which had been runover by a van....lol.

[yellowcanine]

16. Roadkill Rat has definite possibilities as a pizza substitute, among other things.

A little tomato sauce, some oregeno, shrooms, onions, and green peppers. Mmmmm Umm Good!

[mikeytherat]

19. Love that bit!

Baldrick: Rat. Saute or fricassee?

Edmund: Oh, the agony of choice. Saute involves...?

Baldrick: Well, you take the freshly shaved rat, and you marinade it in a puddle for a while.

Edmund: Hmm, for how long?

Baldrick: Until it's drowned. Then you stretch it out under a hot light bulb, then you get within dashing distance of the latrine, and then you scoff it right down.

Edmund: So that's sauteing, and fricasseeing?

Baldrick: Exactly the same, just a slightly bigger rat.

Edmund: Well, call me Old Mr. Un-adventurous but I think I'll give it a miss this once.

mikey_the_rat

[Fumesucker]

12. Anyone ever read "King Rat"?

A tale of the Allied prisoners in the Japanese POW camps during WWII.

The prisoners saved the cockroaches they scooped from the latrines to make a nutritious stew for the weakest and sickest prisoners.

I wouldn't laugh at hungry people eating rats, get hungry enough and you'll eat damn near anything. My father grew up during the Depression and was hungry quite a bit as a child, he would eat _anything_ and enjoy it.

So many things are a matter of perspective, and our perspective as spoiled Americans is a very myopic one.

On edit: Here is a link to the book.

http://www.amazon.com/King-Rat-James-Clavell/dp/0440145465

[babylonsister]

15. I'm not laughing and actually agree with you. What you're

willing to eat depends a lot on where you've been brought up. What might repulse us can be considered a delicacy elsewhere. And I'm sure we'd lose our distaste for many things if we were hungry enough.

[Fumesucker]

18. A friend of mine is from Germany

His dad grew up during WWII and got nostalgic for the "delicious" stew that the German government distributed with carts going through the neighborhoods so he decided to cook some up..

Friend's dad took one taste and threw the whole lot in the garbage, it was pretty vile but his memory was of something that smelled and tasted delicious.

Hunger is by far the best spice.

[JVS]

20. Where did he get the recipe?`

And if you could give me the recipe, I'd appreciate it. I want to have a bad dish to take to potlucks.

[babylonsister]

22. Hahaha! You're mean! nt

[Fumesucker]

23. I have no idea where he got the recipe..

And dad is long since gone so there is no chance of asking.

On reflection, I realize I've eaten rodent before. I lived in south Louisiana among the Cajuns for a while and ate Nutria, a large swimming rodent. Not bad really.

Nutria get so big you can actually pick them up on the boat radar, I was riding in a tug boat one night and the Captain kept looking in his radar, swiveling his spotlight and then turning it on. You could see something dive under the water when he turned on the light.. It was Nutria.

Then one winter the canals froze over and all the Nutria were skidding along on top of the ice.. Pretty humorous.

[isentropic]

32. I recall numerous times in Asia and Indonesia when I did NOT ask what they were feeding me.

knowwhatimean?

:shrug:

[beam me up scottie]

49. But they're trying to get the poor people to start rat farms so they can sell the meat.

And the government is willing to help develop a market in the urban areas.

It really does look like they've done the research and think it can be profitable.

[yellowcanine]

17. Actually rice rats have been eaten for a long time in parts of Asia, including the Phillipines.

I understand that they get quite large.

[Romulox]

24. Wouldn't it be easier not to triple our population every 50 years?

Or is it forbidden to discuss such things? :hi:

[GliderGuider]

26. Surprisingly, no it wouldn't

This is because of the fundamentally inverted notion people have about the relationship between food and population. We believe that our rising population requires us to find ever more food to feed it. In fact, as this perception causes us to increase the food supply our population naturally follows along.

Asking, "How will we ever find enough food to feed this growing population?" is exactly analogous to asking, "How will we ever find enough fuel to feed this growing fire?"

As the food supply tops out, our population growth will gradually slow -- as it's already doing. I think this thread is a subconscious recognition that the food supply is pretty well maxed out.

Will we be able to reduce the population proactively to stay within the resource limits of the planet? As long as there's enough food, my answer is "No".

[Hannah Bell]

28. the majority of the world's population is at or near replacement birthrate.

[GliderGuider]

34. No, it's not.

At least depending on what you mean by "near". The global average TFR is 2.6, which means that the majority of the population is above the accepted replacement rate of 2.1

The global average TFR is dropping (down from 2.8 in 2000) but it's not at replacement yet. Demographic inertia would also cause the global population to keep rising after it hit 2.1.

[Hannah Bell]

40. average: if 9 are below, & one is above, but very high, it brings up the average,

in the same way that with me & bill gates in the room, our average income is in the billions.

look at the chart: average fertility rate 2.58 (cia chart), 223 countries: 127 are below that average. including china (1/6 of world's population).

[GliderGuider]

42. True. What's needed is the world's median fertility rate.

According to this OSCE document (PDF) it was 2.6 in 2005.

[Hannah Bell]

56. the chart you linked was taken from the same UN data as chart 2:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rate

it's not a median.


according to this ined document, in 2003 1/2 the world's population lived in countries where tfr was 2 or less.

http://www.ined.fr/en/everything_about_population/graph_month/world_population_fertility/

[GliderGuider]

57. I just did my own workup of the data

I used the UN TFR ranking and obtained the population figures from the linked statistics page for each country. I used this data to compile a spreadsheet of the TFR and population for all the countries in the list with a TFR over 2.1.

The result is that there are 3.7 billion people living in countries with an average TFR over 2.1. The world average TFR as given in the UN chart is 2.55, and the median TFR from my calculation is 2.21. The fact that the median is below the mean indicates that there is a significant skew towards higher fertility rates -- the distribution is not normal.

FWIW

It's still too many people.

[Romulox]

31. I think you've nicely elaborated the point I was trying to make! nt

[cherokeeprogressive]

45. "Will we be able to reduce the population proactively...?"

How on earth do you propose to do that?

It just SOUNDS scary. Are you talking more in the context of slowing the growth of the population, or doing away with someone who is actually breathing at the moment, thereby reducing the current number?

[GliderGuider]

47. By promoting birth control and the education and empowerment of women

[entanglement]

62. Much of this stuff is just racialism and first-worldism masquerading as "concern"

Amusingly enough, the poster is a Canadian whose consumption is likely 25-50 times that of the poor people whose number he wishes to "reduce proactively".

[Javaman]

25. Rats: their just not for breakfast anymore! nt

[isentropic]

29. If somebody could figure out how to breed furry tails onto 'em, they'd look a lot more appetizing

;-)

[ensho]

30. sorry Babylon, didn't see your thread before I posted the same

nt

[DU GrovelBot]

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[JCMach1]

35. High Caste people will out of their ass on this one

Also in a country where a huge percentage are vegetarian...

Go figure.

Let them eat rat!!!

[Matariki]

36. Huge percent being about a third of the population. The other 2/3 eats meat.

when they can get it, assuming.

[Igel]

38. Actually, one area had to to do this at times.

IIRC, correctly, that is.

Lots of rice fields next to a bamboo forest. The bamboo blossoms every decade or two; blossoms mean gobs of food for rats. After a few months of the feeding--and breeding--season, the rat population, fat and happy, has doubled or tripled. A few weeks later, the food supply returns to normal. Soon the rats are no longer fat and happy, but are starving and voracious. The remaining food couldn't support the original rat population, so there's a large exodus of rats.

By the time you manage to kill them, your rice crop's trashed. So you eat your new harvest, the rats.

[LisaL]

41. Yammi.

Gotta go and hunt me some.

[Theres-a]

44. You could do worse. They eat well,and are often lean.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=4828742&mesg_id=4828742

[Vinca]

46. I knew there was a way for my cats to make a living.

Silly me, they had a little mouse cornered the other night and I rescued it. I should've gotten out the ketchup.

[Snarkturian Clone]

48. Meat is meat... and it's made of meat.

I always thought that if there was ever a severe food shortage I would farm rats and pigeons.

[Swamp Rat]

53. THE HORROR!!!

EVIL EVIL PEOPLE!!



BAD DUers! BAD!! :spank:

[lonestarnot]

54. Swampie! Stay clear of dat place! And if they hear of you run for your life!

[MilesColtrane]

55. Mmmm....properly prepared, with sauce, cheese, and oregano....

Then for dessert...


K: (putting down his knife and fork) Well, that was really 'orrible.

M: Aaw, you're always complainin'!

K: Wha's for afters?

M: Rat cake, rat sorbet, rat pudding, or strawberry tart.

K: (eyes lighting up) Strawberry tart?

M: Well, it's got some rat in it.

K: 'Ow much?

M: Three. A lot, really.

K: Well, I'll have a slice without so much rat in it.

Voice over: One slice of strawberry tart without so much rat in it later:

K: (putting down fork and knife) Appalling.

[Tindalos]

58. Probably not a bad idea.

With rising food prices, a lot more people might be eating them already. Despite the ick factor, it's a good idea to look for alternative sources of protein. There isn't enough room or resources in the world for everyone to eat cows.

[pink-o]

59. Stories like this always make me glad I'm a vegetarian.

But seriously, for all of us who are revolted at the possibility of rodent dishes: how do we think homo sapiens evolved our big brains? Only massive protein would give us the growth we needed--do we think our ancestors brought down enough wildebeasts and ate bovine every day to accomplish that? Hell--even lions aren't successful all the time, and they have teeth and claws, not just primitive spears. So you better believe that those same rats we loathe nourished us into what we are today.

Yes, rats are revolting, but why not eat them if you eat cow, pig, sheep, et al? To me, it's all animal and I wouldn't eat it, but I have no problem with other people's nutrition. Humans are omnivores and can adapt to a diet of anything. Even Cheetos and Coca-Cola--far more frightening than a source of meat!

(edited for pronoun/verb agreement)

[GliderGuider]

60. It appears there is a bit of Room 101 in all of us.

[skooooo]

61. aren't rats often diseased??

[L. Coyote]

63. The rat family has some really tasty morsels, better than monkey for sure

One of the tastiest treats we hunted in the Amazon Basin is a rodent member. They come to water to drink at night. If you silently float the river on moonless nights, you can approach them undetected (if you can canoe silently), turn on a flashlight blinding them, and fire. These rodents, rather like nutria but not the same species, I believe, weigh in at 10-20 pounds.

[ForrestGump]

64. It's why Kentucky Fried Chicken

changed to 'KFC'...







:hide: