Chewy Cuyes and Honey Bees

Peruvians eat guinea pigs. They are not pets, they are food. Today we learned how to raise them. Then we learned how to snap their necks and serve them up for dinner. The neck snapping part was about the time I ran out of the room and decided not to participate in the rest of the lesson.

“Supposedly” cuy (koo- ie) is extremely high in protein, and really low in fat and therefore are really “healthy”. In addition they multiply faster than bunnies, eat almost anything and their poop makes great fertilizer. You sold yet?? Hell, what could be wrong with eating such a cute cuddley creature? Ummmm…. everything.

There are definitely some huge advantages to being a vegetarian. It’s a great reason to not have to eat the little fellas. Seriously, how could you????





After learning about the cuyes, we learned all about bees and how to raise them to make honey. Selling honey is a really easy and cheap way to make money in Peru. It’s a great small business idea that many of us could end up doing in our sites. I never really cared for honey in the states, but this stuff is to die for. We ate it fresh from the hive; we scooped it straight out of the honey comb with our fingers – you don’t get much more fresh than that.