Dr Kinsley Opoku Agyeman, a medical practitioner in Ghana, Africa, openly prescribes cat meat as a treatment to boost the immune system of his patients. He said:
“Cat meat is a very healthy food which is good for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases.”
He claims that it contains high levels of protein, low levels of cholesterol and low levels of saturated fat which helps the human immune system. He recommends that all Ghanaians of any age should eat cat meat.
I have learnt that cat meat is thought of as very delicious in Ghana. In one region of Ghana (the Volta region) they call cats “Joseph”. I’ve also heard that Ghanaians call cat meat “St Joseph”. They also call it “fine girl”. It’s all very bizarre to people in the West. I can’t be too critical because it’s Ghana and Ghanaians live in a different world to people in the West. But I don’t like reading about cats being killed for their meat. In fact a journalist writing for the Ghana News agency, Maxwell Awumah, describes pets being killed for their “sumptuous meat”. Dog meat is referred to as “baah” and equally treasured.
He says that in many homes no weekend passes without a communal feasting and merrymaking on cat and dog meat! What are we to do? They are killing pets in Ghana for the purpose of preparing a delicious meal in the army barracks at the weekend. Perhaps they wash it down with Tiger wine (made with the bones of tigers) imported from China.
Maxwell’s article is in fact about animal tuberculosis and he gets it all wrong as far as I can see. He thinks that eating cat and dog meat can transmit animal tuberculosis to the person dinning on this delicacy. My research indicates that this is not true. Animal TB is not transmitted in this way but by drinking unpasteurised milk and breathing in the virus from the animal.
I wasn’t aware until today that cat and dog meat was so prevalent and popular in Ghana. It seems to be a mainstream source of meat. Ghanaians, as mentioned, consider it to be very fine and delicious. I can’t see the habit of turning pets into meat changing very quickly in Ghana. Can you?
Associated page:
My sources are: Fight Dog Meat.com and Ghana News Agency.com.
People in India are similarly upset with your franchises of McBurger joints and every last store shelf where you live. Especially repulsed by those that buy cat-food made with beef.
At some point there won’t be any animals left, only people, and of course they will become food. I say why wait and just go there now… save the animals and cut down on people over-population. I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that said “If you can’t feed ’em, don’t breed ’em” (pertaining to the faction of people here who have large families they can’t afford).
The saying Don’t breed’em if you can’t feed’em has been used with horse breeders for a long time. On one hand you have the big breeders making huge foal crops looking for the few good ones and flooding the market with substandard animals that end up being sold for meat.
Right on the other side of the fence are the people who demand no horse be sold for meat. They have no answer to the problem but demand no horse or any animal be sold for meat or be euthanized in shelters.
I have always said you can’t plug the sink and leave the faucet running. I see this with the number of dogs/cats/horses and all non factory produced meat animals ( which is a whole other ball of wax )
Again it’s not the small number of breeders preserving a breed their animals are out of reach for most median incomes. It’s the numerous fools who play breeder and the lax laws that let anyone breed their pets with very little financial deterrent. The mere fact that puppy mills and kitten farms exist flies in the face of any animal cruelty laws.
Cats in many parts of the world are seen as one step above vermin.
In many countries dogs and cats are a regular item on the menu. While I find it repulsive I see that most of the nations pointing the finger have far to go in making animal abuse a real crime that carries a real penalty. Countries around the world are miles apart in how they view what we consider pet only animals.