Can You Eat Rats and Mice?
WouterRats and mice love to eat seeds and grains. They also love to eat meat and will happily eat rotten meat. You can feed rats and mice by making them a diet of seeds and nuts. The food that rats like best is not much different than what people would eat.
You can eat rats and mice if they are cooked properly. However, they are not suitable as your daily calorie intake. Instead, it’s better to eat them in Asia. For instance, in China, rats are sold skewered on sticks. In these places, it’s not uncommon for rats to weigh up to two pounds.
Although rats and mice are not considered to be very clean animals, they don’t typically cause disease if handled properly. Rats should be cooked thoroughly and cleaned well before eating them. If you’re considering consuming a rat, make sure you’re careful to find wild rats and not poisoned ones.
Besides spreading diseases through their bite, rats and mice can be dangerous to human beings. In fact, they spread over 35 different kinds of bacteria. Among them are hantavirus, leptospirosis, salmonella, and tularemia. These diseases are usually contracted through bites or contact with their excrement. Moreover, they can be carriers of parasites. These parasites can cause disease and are spread to people through their saliva. Hence, it’s better to avoid consuming rats and mice.
However, there are still some people who will eat rats and mice. There are some Chinese who even prefer eating baby rat pups and even live ones. Although, this is not a common practice, some Chinese restaurants have started specializing in the animal meat.
