By Yoichi Shimatsu
Exclusive To Rense
9-16-24

Indeed recipes for dog meat is a traditional part of the medicine chest and dinner table from Haiti to China. As a globe-trotting journalist and educator, I can attest to hearing many doctors and cooks praising the efficacy of the steroid-rich steaks and bone soup of boiled dogs and wild cats – which accounts for missing pets and the disappearance of exotic animals from zoos. Dog meat is especially prized for “warming” the blood during winter cold, storms and rainy season in semi-tropical and coastal nations including Haiti, the Dominican Republic, parts of Central America, the Philippines, both Koreas, Vietnam and China, to mention just a few regions where dog meat is considered a health-giving delicacy.

Other animal species that are consider vermin in European-based cultures are prized for their medicinal powers, including many varieties of snakes (for their fresh gall and roasted meat), nearly every species of reptile, a huge assortment of insects, apes, elephants, rhinos and tigers. A visit to a herbal emporium in Hong Kong, for instance, provides a tour of dried carcasses of mammals, reptiles, wild birds, insects and sea creatures for nearly every human infirmity from fevers to chills.

Then why is the Christian realm and the Jews so squeamish about exotic game used for the medicinal efficacy? The ban goes back to the Jewish orphan/Egyptian healer Moses practicing medicine in an overcrowded Egypt with the single water source – the Nile, which also served as the outlet for sewage, offal and dead animals. Under those constraints for healthy living, all manner of game, reptiles and fish were banned as disease carriers, topped of course by the corpse eating hyena. The sanitary prohibition had nothing to do with God’s will other than to prevent infection by tainted food sources.

Once a land of abundant game, birds and fish, North America is beginning to resemble overcrowded ancient Egypt as a realm of pestilence and plagues. The other factor is the European privileging of dogs as hunting companions, cats as mice catchers and birds for adornment of women’s clothing and hats. These fashions led to domestication of certain favored and useful “pets” and prize creatures such as riding horses, which became a vital part of the national culture. This constrained and eliminated the use of animals for food and clothing, relegating meat consumption and leather working to hogs and cattle – those lesser species or less privileged beasts. Under this hierarchical category the domesticated cat and dog are treated as the privileged royalty of the animal kingdom protected from the ovens and soup kettle. Thus, the very thought of eating a dog horrifies American sensitivities.

Across most or much of the world, however, dog meat is prized as a health restorative foodstuff, especially in regions subject to cold and humid winter winds, including several island-nations in the Caribbean – topped by crowded Haiti with its unsanitary conditions, and also along the western Pacific. Dog meat is considered a standard health-protective fare from the Philippines, Borneo, Vietnam, Northern China and the Korean Peninsula as well as other regions.

Haiti is an interesting case because of its dual French and African cultural mélange. The French colonialists hunted for and consumed a wide range of wildlife, perhaps more species for dining that any other European population. The African slaves in bondage had few if any dietary restrictions from their native communities in Central Africa. Why dog meat? First, the fact that the French introduced the hound to that tropical island, where the species flourished on abundant jungle game. The more compelling reason is the high ratio of steroids in dog flesh (not surprising for a robust hunting creature of great physical endurance and capability for fighting). For humans suffering rheumatism, chronic fatigue and soreness due to the tropical heat, the chemistry of dog meat was a nearly instant cure of human malaise.

The Democrat outcry against Republican candidate Donald Trump for mentioning the rather taboo topic of missing pets in Springfield, Ohio, is an all-too typical example of puritanical aka hysterical response to a real-life conflict between the core values of American sensitivities as pet lovers over missing dogs versus Haitian notions of the medicinal dietary efficacy of dog meat against rheumatism and ague. To his credit VP candidate J.D. Vance insisted on the validity of local complaints from the American perspective of dogs as privileged creatures indeed a beloved part of the family.

The different set of cultural values from poorer parts of the Caribbean and East Asia are basically invalid in this cultural context, especially given the preference for modern medicine versus traditional cure. The Haitians must adapt on this sensitive issue or return to their homeland. Not everyone can adapt to the modern world and that is a matter of personal choice.