Guinea Pigs As Food

[CuteButShyPig]

Today in my spanish class my substitute teacher put on a movie about Ecuador and how there live style is. It was pretty interesting untill it got to the food part. One of Ecuadors favorite and most pricey dinners is GUINEA PIG! It showed how they cooked it! Everything, I thought I was going to cry. I don't see how anyone could eat it. I felt so grossed out I had to leave the class room. I am never eating meat ever again for sure, just thinking of my guinea pig being eaten.. I couldn't think that. It's down right discusting and really really sad.

[Sara'spets]

Because of all the cultures in the US they are now shipping guinea pigs here for restuarants to serve. There is a new larger type. I guess if you live in a country where these animals run wild it isn't a big deal, but to me that would be like us going to a pet store or breeder and buying a bunny for Sunday dinner.
But, then in some countries they eat cats and dogs. Yet, in India cows are sacred so they can't be eaten.

[Slap Maxwell]

This topic has been brought up quite a bit, and is a sore spot for a lot of cavy owners.

[Sabriel]

That's one of the reasons I went veg. I can't imagine eating someone's pet. I'm sure somebody had a pet cow somewhere.

[Sara'spets]

I definitely don't agree with it. But, if you think about it people in this country hunt wild rabbit for food. I would like to think wild Guinea pigs in other countries has to be different than the domestic ones here. I hope the type they are sending here aren't the domestic type someone is breeding in their yard.

[suzy_99]

As far as I know these guinea pigs are farmed, which is the one part that I don't particularly agree with. It would be different to me if these were caught in the wild, but farming usually leads to maltreatment and inhumane killing practices. I personally have no problem with people of that particular culture to eat them, but I would never think of eating a guinea pig. This subject has been brought up many different times and it is usually vegetarians who take the most offence to it (which is completely understandable), but in my opinion, most people in these countries would not really have the opportunity to stop eating meat, because as far as I know, they do not have the variety of vegetarian foods that we have around here and they probably don't have the same level of health care. So basically, they have to eat what is native to their country, just as we eat rabbits up here.
Up to now, most of the pictures that I have seen of these guinea pigs show them as being quite wild and not all that similar to the ones that we keep as pets, however, I recently saw a picture of some that looked just like my little girl and that kinda confused me. From research that I have done, I have mostly read that wild guinea pigs are usually dark in color and for lack of a better term, not as "cuddly" and "cute" as the pets. So I am wondering if I was looking at totally wrong information or if they have just begun to breed guinea pigs and that is why they are looking more and more like the ones that you would see in pet stores all accross the country? Anyone have any ideas?

[Access]

From a resource perspective, eating guinea pigs is a genuine waste. As animals, a guinea pig is horribly inefficient. Compare the amount of eating and pooping a single pig does to any other rodent of similar size. On a resource level, the cost of getting a guinea pig to an adult is a great deal of hay, pellets, water, and such. And the amount of meat provided is minimal, at best.

Guineas are rodents, but they are also vegetarian. Vegetarians need a large digestive system to be efficient, but rodents are very small animals. Hence, most of the nutrients in the food the guinea pig digests are simply unused. A larger vegetarian, like a cow, with its 5 stomachs and large, highly developed digestive system is much more efficient from an eatability standpoint.

Therefore, when it comes to eating pigs, I can't help but be reminded of Swift's "A modest proposal". In this era of man-imposed problems like pollution, global warming / climate change, resource depletion, etc. -- such a practice is quite wasteful and should be absolutely avoided. Guinea pigs are pets and pets only, nothing more, nothing less. Just like what swift is saying (we don't eat our babies / children), we also don't eat our pets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal
http://wikisource.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal

[CuteButShyPig]

I wasn't trieing to make it sound like I had racial comments towards the Ecuadorians or anyone. I was just saying I could never picture my self doing that. It's their culture and I know it's also one of their rituals. I was just stating that I never knew that people ate guinea pigs. I agree on if they are hunted for families who really need them, then it's ok in a sense. BUT if they are farmed (which they mostly are there ((saw it in the movie :-( )) then animal cruelty is most likely happening.

Guineas are rodents

Not true, guinea pigs were proven to be their own species. They are not Rodents.

[Slap Maxwell]

Yes, acctually it is very true that pigs are rodents.

[Sara'spets]

The pictures I saw of what they consider to be eating pigs reminded me of what one's pet would look like.

My other concern is if this fad were to catch on would people start breeding solely for that purpose and would they start adopting from animal shelters where the adoption fees can be as low as $10 a pig.

[Access]

Originally Posted by CuteButShyPig

...their culture and I know it's also one of their rituals. I was just stating that I never knew that people ate guinea pigs. I agree on if they are hunted for families who really need them, then it's ok in a sense. BUT if they are farmed (which they mostly are there ((saw it in the movie :-( )) then animal cruelty is most likely happening.

Guineas are rodents

Not true, guinea pigs were proven to be their own species. They are not Rodents.

Rodents: Maybe, maybe not, but it's a matter of classification. My main point is that they are too small to be efficient vegetarians.

There is absolutely no need to eat guinea pigs, in fact it hurts the poor and needy to do wasteful things like this. Eating a single adult pig may provide enough nutrients for one person to survive a day. Now think of all the food and resources that were used to get that pig to an adult where it could be eaten. A few months gestation period inside the female, 6 months to a year to grow to an adult... that's a LOT of hay, pellets, fresh vegetables, etc. If you take the fresh vegetables alone -- 270 guinea-pig size servings, all those fresh vegetables could provide a family of ten with good, nutritious food for a day. Then factor in things fresh hay, which is grown agriculturally, and pellets, which are synthesized from primarily hay... plant grain instead of hay, use the grain to make bread... I think we can all agree that this type of thing is absolutely unacceptable in a world where a significant amount of the population is starving or forced to go hungry.

I could say it's a part of "American Culture" to build bigger, heavier, more wasteful SUVs, to pollute the earth and deplete our resources to the point where the earth will be unlivable for future generations, and so on. But that's not justification for any of these things, the same way they shouldn't be eating guinea pigs, cultural or not.

[VoodooJoint]

While Guinea Pigs are in the Order of Rodentia they are a part of a suborder called Caviomorpha or Cavy-Like Rodent.

Yes, Guinea Pig lovers there is an entire suborder of rodents that are considered Cavy-Like. Animals in this suborder are Chinchillas, Capybara, Old and New World Porcupines, Degus...to name a few.

You can read more here http://www.chaffeezoo.org/animals/guineaPig.html

[CuteButShyPig]

Yes, Guinea Pig lovers there is an entire suborder of rodents that are considered Cavy-Like. Animals in this suborder are Chinchillas, Capybara, Old and New World Porcupines, Degus...to name a few.


Hmm, I never knew that. That's cool.

[Sabriel]

I was under the impression that guinea pigs didn't exist in the wild anymore.

And even if it is wasteful, these people have been eating guinea pigs for centuries. It's like telling North American's not to eat beef. It just isn't going to happen over night. And I doubt they go to the pet store and pick up guinea pig pellets in Peru. The people of Peru were raising guinea pigs long before comercial pellets were available.

From what I've heard they aren't raised on farms, they are raised in people's kitchens and live off of table scraps. You have to realize that people in other countires don't always have meat with every meal. Meat is probably reserved for special occasions.

[Access]

"You have to realize that people in other countires don't always have meat with every meal."
Part of my family is from China. Traditional Chinese diet, which I eat when I visit the ROC, is the same way, primarily vegetables, some noodles, some tofu. Meat is used sparingly, if at all. And the meat is not very good, it is all bony and not a lot is what I consider to be 'edible' (too much fat, stringy muscle, etc.) This type of diet is actually extremely healthy, prior to the advent of fast food life expectancy in asian countries was very high.

[salana]

Cavies are very efficient as food sources in the traditional family kitchen full of cavies model. Can you turn grass into calories you can process? No, but a cavy can. (Substitute cow, sheep, rabbit, or your favorite herbivore.) Cavies are also a food source the women and children can manage, providing more protein and fat without taking away from the man's working/farming/whatever time.

The waste comes in when people want more herbivores, more meat, more quickly, than the land can handle with the amount of grass it has. Then they start feeding things humans could eat, like grains, and that's very inefficient.

[suzy_99]

You guys managed to convey what I was thinking. I absolutely have no problem with the local families raising and eating guinea pigs, however in a recent article that was posted on here somewheres, they are talking more about breeding and farming bigger and better guinea pigs. This is were is it turning into more of a business than a source of food. There is really no reason to raise them to ship to the US other than for money. This is the type of stuff that we are always fighting against. This will result in another species of animals being treated badily and transported in almost unliveable conditions. I have no problem with the small farmer, but once meat begins to travel internationally or even nationally, it can be hard to monitor or regulate things such as humane treatment, especially in countries that don't have stringent animal rights laws. I just hope it doesn't get to this point and that the people of these countries will value their guinea pigs and not turn them into merchandise such as we have done with all of our livestock.