Where is PETA?

The opportunity, or, admittedly, the desire, to try camel’s milk has yet to present itself. If the time ever comes when someone offers it to me, I will probably at least give it a taste, just so that if I ever have to say, “I don’t like it” then I can do so knowingly, because, as all mother’s have said at some point in time, “How do you know you don’t like something if you’ve never tried it?” However, as the Food and Drug Administration highly recommends that cow’s milk should be pasteurized, I might be just a bit leery of drinking a glass of fresh, unpasteurized camel’s milk.

Considering that camel’s milk has been a staple and provided sustenance for a country of people for as long as it has been, then it can’t be all bad. I have yet to hear of anyone dying after drinking camel’s milk. People are killed by camels, fairly frequently here, but not by consuming them.

There are other “camel” products here – cheese – that are quite popular among local folks, and they eat camel meat – although I have heard – and do not know this to be fact – that the first time you eat camel meat you will get quite sick. [Make my camel burger well-done and I’ll have ketchup on that, please!]

It is the month of Ramadan, here in The Sandbox, where people fast from sun-up to sun-down, when breaking their fast by eating “breakfast” or Iftar. An article in Arab News states that “for some, an Iftar without camel milk is no iftar.” There are ample opportunities for people to get their fresh camel milk prior to Iftar as one young explains.

Anyone who has read prior posts at this site knows that I am an animal lover; it is not a secret. I truly lose sleep at night worrying about homeless cats and kittens that I see on the streets in Al Khobar; I feed the stray cats around the compound and have actually been warned that I am not allowed or supposed to do so [but I just can’t help it!]. I have made full provisions for both The Boy and The Baby to be taken care of in the event something happens to me and DH. I have never seen The Lion King because I know that one of the Lion’s dies at the beginning of the movie leaving his son without a Dad…

So, what about the baby camel’s then, who are not getting the nourishment they so need as little cubs [I did not know that baby camel’s were called cubs until I read this article*]? Where is PETA? Would they approve of a camel’s teats being covered with fabric to prevent Mama Camel from nursing her little Baby Cub?

In the grand scheme of things – and knowing that in just a couple of short weeks we are going to be seeing sheep and goats hanging from trees as Muslim’s prepare for their Eid celebrations – that a little Baby Cub camel goes without a meal or two probably isn’t worth losing too much sleep over… I’m going to try not to. I just hope the little Baby Cub camel doesn’t have to go to bed hungry…


*Baby camels are not called cubs anywhere else but this article; this site says female baby camels are “heifers,” and this site says “female camels are called cows,” “males are called bulls,” castrated males are called “bullocks,” and “baby camels are called calves.” I’m just going to call all the little ones baby camels.