[Gpdd] MISC: Disturbing article on Peruvian plan to export guinea pigs

[BARRINGER JAMIE MAE]

At the risk of being skewered I must admit that from the Peruvian point of
view this idea makes sense. I doubt it will take off for the majority of
American customers, but for those who can stand to eat rabbits, veal, or
any other meat that was once a cute fuzzy mammal, guinea pigs have been a
food animal for at least 2000 years, and not just in Peru, but all over
South America. They take the place of rabbits in the traditional diet of
South America. As omnivores, humans eat other animals, and as long as you
eat meat you eat animals, and almost all meat animals are mammals, which
are fuzzy and sometimes if not always cute. My 5 piggies are not food
animals, nor are my friend's 2 rabbits food animals, but the guinea pigs
being marketed as food animals and the rabbits that are raised at rabbit
farms for the purpose of meat production are potential food as long as
humans are not vegetarians. As far as I know, your average restaurant
customer isn't up to slaughtering their own meat of any kind, and piggies
are already considered reasonable snake food by occasional shelters and
pet stores, so I doubt our piggies are in any significantly increased
danger because of imported food piggies.

-Jamie Barringer, with Gus, Sonja, Max, Brunhilde, Freddy and Petunia the
Hamster