Blood
Me: Dear G: These days, I am enjoying the process of integrating your food security chapter with the rest of the report. It is a pleasure to read and I am learning a lot. I have a question, though, concerning your discussion of pastoralists. You say they need access to milk and to … blood? Really? What do they do with it? I would have thought you meant “meat,” but after your reference to “bleeding the cows,” I realize I need to be a bit more informed.
G: Louise — The east African pastoralists often bleed cattle for two nutritional purposes as far as I know - for the iron and for the protein/carbohydrates in the blood. The Somalis, Borena and Masai all do it, getting the blood from the animal’s jugular. Blood and milk seem to be the main things they get from their cattle - rarely meat.
Me: They DRINK the blood? Sorry, but you really have to paint me a picture.
I am eagerly awaiting his reply.
Update: He responded:
Try this link.
Actually, I think they do eat meat quite a bit, but since they don’t have to kill an animal to get the blood (and animals denote wealth and status), I think that blood is consumed more than we realize. I know the Masai mix it with milk as well. The animal doesn’t feel too much and after they have stopped the bleeding — it just carries on as though nothing has happened.
The practice contributes a lot to the sustainability of the pastoralist lifestyle. If you had to keep killing your animals to live (and you don’t hang around long enough in one spot to grow a crop), you would need an awful lot of animals to survive. This way, a family can live on much less. I am sure they have lots of different ways of using the blood.
(I think the bit with the bow is tradition for the cameras, and not always done like that - a sharp stone or a knife would be easier!)
July 19th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Yeah, discriptions of this practice turn up in books about Africa.
July 19th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
This was a Survivor challenge on season 3 when they were in Africa. They shot the arrow at the carotid, then took the blood and mixed it with milk to do speed-chugging challenges.
July 20th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
In Sweden, duck-blood soup is a delicacy: and I’ve heard of blood sausage and blood pudding. It is pretty nutritious stuff.
July 21st, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Did you ever cut your finger and automatically stick it in your mouth for relief?
July 22nd, 2010 at 5:23 am
Sure, just recently, in fact. I gave your son two paring knives for his birthday, but sliced my finger as I tried to remove the second one from its packaging.
But I did not drink the blood for nutritional purposes! And please don’t get any ideas about how we can supplement Evie’s needs as a vegetarian .. !