Chameleons as food?

broderp said:
:eek: Wow.... I'll keep my comments to myself on this... :D

BUT, since you DID go there ^^^^.......bet they taste like CHICKEN! :)
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I dunno... I don't think they'd taste like chicken... I have a feeling they'd be a little sweeter maybe? I dunno.
Maybe I should ask my dog - he ate my veiled last year. :,(
 
Wow

ferretinmyshoes said:
I'm sure in some parts they are but actually in most cultures native to chameleon habitats they are seen as evil spirits or people are afraid of them. So some civilizations do kill them, but because they see them as embodiments of evil spirits rather than to eat them.
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It's amazing to me what we find as a amazing and wondrous creature some actually fear. Of Course there was that one Veiled I had man was he nasty, never did warm up to me, but loved him just the same.
You being a Vet I was wandering haven't they found out here recently that a lot of lizards have some form of venom, I don't mean deadly or harmful to humans, but to their pray.
 
There isn't really a whole lot of meat on most chameleons, I suppose you could fry up and eat the little ones whole like you do small fish, but as far as getting flesh off of them it seems like more trouble than it's worth unless you're really starving. The whole torso doesn't have a whole lot to offer besides the organs.

That said, they probably do taste vaguely like chicken. I've eaten more reptile/amph species than I'd like to admit and they do all taste very similar to chicken, some more than others! Can't deny the family lineage between birds and reptiles lol
 
There's not a lot of meat on a guinea pig, but darn are they tasty! I am very "meat adventurous". I might feel bad, but I would definitely try it.
 
Olimpia said:
There isn't really a whole lot of meat on most chameleons, I suppose you could fry up and eat the little ones whole like you do small fish, but as far as getting flesh off of them it seems like more trouble than it's worth unless you're really starving. The whole torso doesn't have a whole lot to offer besides the organs.

That said, they probably do taste vaguely like chicken. I've eaten more reptile/amph species than I'd like to admit and they do all taste very similar to chicken, some more than others! Can't deny the family lineage between birds and reptiles lol
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Have you had alligator? That didn't taste much like chicken to me, didn't taste much like anything really. Just tried it because it was on the menu and I was on a busness trip. Work paid for it. (It wasn't very cheap)

There's not a lot of meat on a frog, and we only tend to eat the legs. (At least in the chinese restaraunts around me. lol)

Lathis said:
There's not a lot of meat on a guinea pig, but darn are they tasty! I am very "meat adventurous". I might feel bad, but I would definitely try it.
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So what are you saying? Someone should start a chameleon farm, grow some big juicy chams? :D

Seriously, people eat just about everything. I know squirrel's and other rodents get eaten all the time, a lot of work for little meat...I would have thought in a third world country with limited resources, they would be a common food staple. I am pleaseantly surprised that this does not appear to be the case.
 
I'm so stoked, a friend staying with my for the weekend is bringing me bear (sausages, pre-made, no plains cuts unfortunately) to try. Recently 'discovered' game meats, so I've been on a binge of trying 'new' (new to me) meats. Aside from standard chicken/duck, fish, beef, pork; I've had lamb and bison. Will be trying bear this weekend, and probably some elk. Also have some yak in the freezer, gonna try and get some rabbit. It's really interesting to see what tastes like what.

Third world countries probably don't have them as a staple because they're too high up in trees to bother wasting the time to catch? The whole "not easy to catch, no much meat" probably seems not worth the hassle. I mean, catching a deer isn't that easy (I would assume), but it yields a lot so it's worth tracking for days. Frogs, although not much meat, easy to catch, so why not.
Or maybe they have tried eating them and they aren't that tasty so that's why it's not a staple?
 
broderp said:
So what are you saying? Someone should start a chameleon farm, grow some big juicy chams? :D ... Seriously, people eat just about everything.
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I am not saying that someone SHOULD... I'm just saying if it was offered, I would try!

As far as protein sources and efficiency of resources, large herbivores are really not a sustainable option. Bugs and smaller, more efficiently raised animals really are the way of the future. Chameleons will probably never quite fit into that category since they are slow growers and slow breeders, but plenty of other animals that we consider "pets", especially rodents, will. Don't get me wrong, guinea pigs are adorable. "Cashew" is my favorite character on "House of Cards"... but I've eaten his Peruvian cousin, and "Anacardo" was delicious :)

I had alligator steak awhile back. I thought it was unpleasantly fishy and tough. Not enjoyable. I had ostrich steak on the same trip and actually really enjoyed it. Far more like red meat than poultry, but again it was pretty tough.
 
In college the wildlife department used to have an annual barbecue entirely of game and nongame species. They would announce a crate in the department freezer for anyone to donate things to (as long as it was correctly cleaned and non-venomous of course). Some items were deliberately left unlabeled...but that "mystery" meat was usually the first to get eaten.

I've eaten caribou, moose, walrus (preserved in seal oil sewn into a seal stomach and buried for the winter), smoked harbor seal, fresh and boiled bowhead whale muktuk (blubber), sea cucumber (a mollusk), herring eggs on kelp, musk ox, black bear, Dall sheep, beaver.
 
broderp said:
I don't want to be banned or anything, but I was having a discussion at work about chams and it came up.

"If they are so popular, they are probably being eaten my the native people in the area or fed to pets as food." <-- That was the comment that was said that prompted my question.

Are there any cultures or places where these guys are considered dinner?

Some cultures eat dogs, and cats and other animals that in western society would seem odd or cruel.

I mean, if I were stranded on a remote island off of of Africa and chams were there, I would eat them to survive, but other than nature (snakes etc.) do they have man as a dangerous predator? (aside from taking over thier habitat)
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In all honesty without wanting to sound heartless or anything, if I were to breed them and I got any still borns or anything like that I would probably feed the dead ones to my monitor lol
 
I've read before people in the middle east eating the Uromastyx lizard alive while travelling in the desert.

Someone made a thread earlier about eating chameleon eggs, which IMO is beyond gross.
 
Bumer

Deevo said:
I've read before people in the middle east eating the Uromastyx lizard alive while travelling in the desert.

Someone made a thread earlier about eating chameleon eggs, which IMO is beyond gross.
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Uromastyx is about the friendliest lizard I know from my experience with them. Just don't know how you could do something like that to such a gentle creature. But then again I've ate rabbet before, and you can't get much more gentile than that. As sad as it may be ya gotta eat. :(
 
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