And now it’s donkey burgers.
Seriously people. Wake up. I can’t be bothered to say any more.
You want to condone vicious animal cruelty and slaughter for a few bucks and a cheaper meal, go ahead.
You want to eat cows and pigs and sheep, but not horses or dogs or donkeys – tell me the difference. They are all animals, ie sentient beings and deserve a better life than ending up on your plate to satisfy your tastebuds.
You don’t care about the world around you, the environment, your personal impact on it, or even consider how to live in harmony with everything else that shares this planet? That’s why the world is in such a poor state.
Chase money and put self first. Very good. Hope you choke on your donkey burgers quite frankly. But please don’t complain to me about it.
(This post is the slightly less moderate one regarding the ‘what dead animal is in your ready-made meal scandal’, and will no doubt have Ella_Dee laughing her socks off).
roughseasinthemed
Clouds moving in 
Where is the like button?! Great post, did not only make Ella laugh. 😉
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I don’t like like buttons, so to speak. I find them meaningless. If you have something to say, you are more than welcome. But as it attracts people searching for traffic who don’t even read the blog post I disable it. I tend to be more interested in comments than hits and traffic.
But either way, thank you for your visit and comment (I can’t imagine being vegan in Dubai!) and if it made you laugh then fine. You need to have read the previous post to realise the reason for my last sentence).
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Good point, however I have to admit I like my likes, so to speak. 😀 Some of the likes have brought me to a few very good blogs and people, and some are totally unrelated, and as you mention, fishers for traffic.
Vegan in Dubai, yes it could seem like a bigger challenge than it is other places, but actually the Middle East can be a great place to be for a vegan/vegetarian since so many of their mezzes (tapas like dishes) are vegan already (hummus, moutabal, tabouleh, fattoush, rice stuffed vine leaves etc.). I have already found several amazing stores with a wide selection of vegan and organic products, and it is becoming more and more common to label food vegan/vegetarian here. Food is also much cheaper than for example Northern Europe. I am only six weeks down my vegan journey and I will be exploring ‘vegan Dubai’ and experimenting broadly in my kitchen going forward.
Look forward to following you onwards!
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Your perspective is really interesting. For some bizarre reason, you are now the third blogger in Dubai over the last few months who I have encountered. One of them usually talks about eating meat, hence my pre-conceived view about being vegan in Dubai being difficult. You just present a totally different picture.
I don’t think I have ever gained any value from ‘likes’ either way. People have found me through other blogs (not usually vegan/vegetarian ones interestingly), or my critical comments on the Daily Post on WordPress.
Equally interested in reading your Dubai and veg posts too.
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This is good. I am going to cut my reply short this time- can’t seem to get off the comment track. I have to see if you answered my comment from yesterday.
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I’m afraid after my thoughtful considered post last time around, I lost patience at donkey burgers. Like you, I can’t imagine eating any companion animals – but I can’t imagine eating any animals. I’ve never heard of eating donkeys before. I think they are such beautiful gentle animals. I still felt sick when I read the story.
Yes, I did answer your comment, and Totty’s reply too. I hope I was fair. For me, the bottom line, is I don’t eat any animals, so I think any production and slaughter for human consumption is unnecessary and horrific. But I’m still cringing about donkey burgers.
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You haven’t disappointed me! 🙂 I’ve changed my mind… maybe we (well, us not you) do need to be told how to eat mindfully, conscientously, healthily, moderately for our own benefit, and of the planet and its inhabitants, 2 & 4 legged, feathered, furred, finned and skinned. Who are we to complain when big business takes us for a ride… Oh yes, self interest gives us that opportunity… to be outraged when we find out we’ve been scammed, not when we find out about the inhumane slaughter of animals.
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Ha! I guess I flipped at the donkey burgers. Our cultural indoctrination is so strong that we see eating some animals as acceptable, but others not, however, I just thought fuck it after reading about donkeys. It really did mine (and Partner’s) head in. Just like I couldn’t imagine eating the pigs we met that I posted about on roughseas today.
I don’t think anyone should be told what to do. Because, who is to say, who is right? As we’ve said before, people just need to become more informed. If they are happy to eat shit food, made by big business, with minimal nutritional value, a load of additives, dubious provenance of dead animals, don’t want to buy, prepare and cook fresh food, and really don’t care about a) other people b) other occupants of the planet and c) the environment – and they know they are doing that, there is little any of us can do. I do believe in freedom of choice (even if I totally disagree with the choice).
But I have no sympathy for people whining on about eating horse meat or donkeys in their crap food. Absolutamente nada.
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I’m still trying to digest “A law banning horse-drawn vehicles from Romanian roads could have to led to a surge in illegal meats”… Closer to the truth would be “profiteering and illegal business practices led to a…”
But I agree, the only person who is accountable when the consequences of your choices goes pear shaped, is yourself.
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Well I was puzzled about why they were banned in the first place. They are all over the place in Spain, in Sevilla and Málaga they are a tourist attraction (can’t say I agree with them but that’s a different topic), there are donkey traps in Míjas, and at weekends, pretentious families rattle up and down our street in them on their way to the bar (the pizza bar incidentally). In the UK milkmen and rag and bone men used to have horse drawn vehicles (eg Steptoe and Son).
Myself I blame everything on the EU and globalisation. In fact I would combine your harder take on the whole issue and say that EU and globalisation have led to a bigger market and greater profits for illegal businesses. You only have to look at sex slavery for example. Which of course is a different topic. Oh and the internet, I’ll blame that too.
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They don’t appear to be banned according to this article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/9859915/Horse-meat-scandal-How-horses-slaughtered-in-Romania-end-up-on-British-plates.html
You can never believe anything you read on the internet eh?
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Okay–I am laughing out loud here for two reasons.
1–straight up I enjoyed the post. It’s a rant worthy of Rick Mercer (look him up on YouTube; just search based on Rick’s Rant).
2–And here’s the part that added to it. My oldest son–the engineering student, as you might expect for a budding engineer–is pretty blunt when it comes to answering questions. So, just this evening, on the way home as I had a trying day at work (which is code for “I was too lazy to cook anything”) I decided to cop out and get pizza. While passing a well-known chain, knowing Alan hates their stuff, I suggested I get one there. “NO, Dad! It tastes like a**” was his passionate reply. So, here I am now an hour later, reading about something that REALLY tastes like a** :>)
BTW–approval not necessary, but you are required to smile :>)
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Thank you. It’s always good to make people smile/laugh.
It wasn’t even a rant – just a little exasperation perhaps?
I’ll look him up – tomorrow – when I am awake.
Of course, the humour you find in this wouldn’t occur to me. Mainly because we don’t call donkeys asses, we don’t call arses asses, ie donkey doesn’t equal arse. Linguistics linguistics. Now where was that Treaty of Utrecht again? How did our languages get so far apart?
I did smile. But more than that, I thought it was interesting.
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i did look up Rick Mercer, thanks for the compliment, he’s pretty smart.
I got totally sidetracked watching him on the ‘talking to American’ vids. I see he’s from your part of the world too.
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Found this just to show that all is not lost in Switzerland…http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss_news/Animal_lovers_question_morality_of_eating_pets.html?cid=34786370
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That’s an interesting and pretty balanced article – I thought. Thanks for the link.
Interesting that it is not illegal to eat dog and cats but it is illegal to sell the meat. Double standards or turning a blind eye there I think.
Some years ago, we knew people who went poaching, normally for hare or rabbits. And at the time there was rumour going around that they weren’t selling rabbits at all, but cats. Because, who could really tell the difference?
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How to tell the difference between cat and rabbit? Rabbit bones are round in section, cat bones are angular.
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Ah. Not that it bothers me these days, but thanks for that one. May interest non-vegetarians.
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In the 1940s there was a requirement in Spain that rabbit must be sold with its head still attached so that people could be sure they weren’t buying cat! I read that in my Norman Lewis book.
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wouldn’t suit Brits though would it? it might look like a dead animal
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That’s right. I think that is especially true of fish! Fish have heads – did you know that?
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Yes. I used to gut trout.
And cook whole plaice and dover sole.
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It still seems to apply; buy half a rabbit and you get half a head enclosing half a brain.
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Are we talking rabbits or people?
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That depends on your point of view…:)
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Eso es.
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I had a camel burger in Morocco but to be honest it tasted very much like beef. I had rattlesnake in Arizona and it tasted no different to chicken as far as I could tell.
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Oh! the excitement of eating exotic animals, so much more fun than eating boring old standard fare. A bit like eating ostrich, shark, kangaroo, etc. I ate buff in Nepal. Have to say after some crap meals in India it tasted extremely good.
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I don’t think a camel is especially exotic. Have I been chastised? It feels as though I have! I also ate a Romanesco cauliflower – I bought it at Morrisons – does that rate as exotic?
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No. It was merely an observation about current food snobbery. Years ago, it used to be based on money and elitism.
Eg, I eat oysters, lobster and I like my fillet/rump/cheateaubriand rare. Therefore I know more about food than you do, and I am rich because I can afford these expensive foods.
Now it’s based on
money and elitism. I’ve eaten locusts in Cambodia, kangaroo/wallaby in Australia, dog in China (or Switzerland), horse meat in France, or your examples of camel and rattlesnake.The elitism is still there, but it has shifted from superior knowledge about basically French-style cooking and money, to where I have been, and what amazing local food I ate. I’m so broad-minded, liberal, and well-travelled etc etc. That’s the current status symbol.
You may disagree. I do feel the makings of a skit post coming on though ….
Oh, and I don’t like the look of those cauliflowers. They aren’t organic anyway. Designer veg.
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Did you, or someone else, censor your post “W*******, seriously, of the first order”_?
It shows up in Reader, but clicking on it takes me to a ‘Page Not Found’ error page_?
Enquiring minds need to know !!!
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I took it down, having written it in an absolute blast of a hissy fit. You are the third enquiring mind to have asked now. I see I am going to have to re-instate it to satisfy my demanding public. Give me a few days though.
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