Eating Rat Meat

In our culture, rat is not eaten which is considered dirty (but not poisonous though). But there is a province here where they eat rat meat as a revenge against the rats who ravage their farm crops. Some say that rat meat is like rabbit meat. I am posting this thread because I had been camping in some forest with rats. I don’t really know if rats are wild animals but I’m sure they can be eaten. When talking of survival mode, we cannot be choosy with food, we should be eating anything that is edible and that would include rat meat.

 

Rats taste good but they can carry some bad stuff with them best to burn the hair off and be careful when cleaning them I have eaten them and it's no different than squirrel

 

In the "for what it's worth department", it's Weil's disease.
https://www.cdc.gov/leptospirosis/symptoms/index.html

Rodent-borne diseases:
http://www.rentokil.com/rodents/rodent-borne-diseases/

Me, I'll stick to squirrel & squirrel gravy. Maybe the occasional groundhog, but oh-man are they ever greasy!

 

I would rank trying to clean and eat rats up there with dynamite-fishing for carp.

 

Weil's Disease can be carried by almost any furred animal. I had never heard of it and just looked it up. The thing about rats is where you find them. If they are woods rats then they are about the same risk as a squirrel for diseases. City sewer rats are another thing all together though. There is a certain risk of contacting some bad bacteria from almost anything you do. Armadillos can carry leprosy yet I've never heard of it actually happening. All members of the rodent family can carry the bubonic plague. It is all a lot like the warnings that they give now with any medicine that you might take. It will be great for you if it doesn't kill you in any one of several ways or make your hair fall out or your junk shrivel up and fall off!

Survival in any situation is going to be a crap shoot. You roll the dice and hope for the best but know that it may not always be so. If I am hungry I will eat just about anything. Rats, Dogs, Cats... You can't spend too much time worrying about the little risks when death is chasing you. I have often felt that in a survival situation the "alternative" meats may be the easiest and best to go for. They won't be getting as much attention at first. It is all a matter of cultural perspective. I remember when the Vietnamese boat people were settled in South East Texas where I lived. Two or three families would move into an area and in short order there would be no stray dogs or cats left. They grew up eating dog. Americans sort of freaked out but then they consider eating horse to be gauche at best too.

 

I agree but like to keep my mind and options open. I remember when I didn't think that I would ever eat raw fish (Sushi) or squids (Calamari) either.

 

If your not practicing now when the time comes to do it you won't be able to

 

I never have liked Raccoon. They are clean little critters but d are gamey tasting to me. Possum is a lot better and if you will eat a possum then a rat is no problem. I haven't tried one yet but armadillo is supposed to be real good. Where I live we also have and eat a lot of gators, crawfish and frogs. Lots of wet lands makes finding something to eat pretty easy. I was raised in cajun country and my wife is part cajun so we are pretty open minded about what might land on the dining room table for Sunday dinner.

 

If you parboil the coon first it's really good also makes it tender we also have a lot of crawfish gator and frog gar also

 

I bet that would help. I've only had coon BBQ-ed. I've had gar as gar balls and it was real good. I'm going to try one soon parboiled and then fried or just boiling the "back-strap" I watched a Cajun cleaning them with a big meat cleaver and it didn't look to hard. Basically he was just pealing the back-strap off the top.

The only thing in the water that I've never heard of anyone making eatable is a bowfin/grindle. They are fun to catch but the flesh cooks up like cotton. YUCK!!

Actually we do eat rats here...Nutria rats. They are pretty good and their hides are a lot like beaver. You can trap and sell them for the hide and the meat and draw a bounty for the tail. They give the rice farmers a hard time digging holes in their dikes.

 

Yes the only thing on a gar to eat is the back strap salt pepper coat in flower a yellow corn meal deep fried is really good eating don't eat gar row it will kill you

 

One guy told me that if I cubed it up and boiled it in crab boil it was like a poor man's lobster. I could get behind some of that. I probably catch and release a couple dozen a month in the 4' size while catfishing.

 

Many province eat rice field rats and its not even for survival but its a way of life. Manila Philippines.

 

I worked in a rice drier when I was a kid and we hunted rats all the time since you can't poison them and they are too smart to trap. I often considered eating some of those fat grain fed rodents. We actually tried cats but the rats killed them!!!