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The price of Rat meat goes up in Thailand
Living Thai ^ | Not Specified | Editorial staff

Posted on 08/17/2017 5:06:28 AM PDT by vannrox

The price of Rat meat goes up in Thailand

I rarely copy a news story but a story about eating rats I can't pass up. This story from PDN about the price of rat meat in Phitsanulok. Before you think that's it's only poor farmers eating rats, the cost of rat meat is double that of chicken and pork. This lady says it costs 250 baht a kilogram for a big rodent, not that i'm noting to buy a whole kilo of it! Still I've eaten rat meat and although I prefer fried frog, fried rat isn't too bad either. Have you tried it?

Fried Rats in Thailand

On a winter’s day, a reporter driving in Phitsanulok province noticed a big poster on the side of the road, which said “Grilled Rats.” The sign was on the roadside along the route going from Sukhothai to Pitsanulok in Tambon Phaikhordorn, about 10 km from Phitsanulok.

The reporter stopped and talked to the rat-selling owner, Mrs. Somboon Yuyen, age 50, who lives on Tharmmul road, Amphur Meuang, Chainart province.

She said that selling grilled rats is a business that provides revenues to many families in the area. In winter, many local people like to eat grilled rats and come to buy her rats. Sometimes there are so many customers, she runs out of grilled rats to sell.

Mrs. Somboon has been selling grilled field rats for about 7 years. In the decade before that, she used to mainly catch the field rats to sell to the grilled rat shops. Back then the price would be 30 THB per kg. Her revenue would total only 200 THB per day.

Then the wholesale rat prices increased to 80-100 THB per kg. However, the grilled rats had a higher price of 150 THB per kg. So Ms. Somboon and her husband began to catch the field rats to grill and sell themselves.

The rat-grilling business was going well, with a steadily increasing number of consumers. So Mrs. Somboon began to go to other provinces to buy more field rats in the lower northern and central Thailand areas.

She bought field rats from rice field owners that fetched high prices according to the demands of the sellers. Prices would average 100 THB per kg of rats, but sometimes reached 150 THB per kg. Mrs. Somboon would freeze the rats and store them, to be grilled later for hungry customers.

Mrs. Somboon said there seems to be more demand for grilled rats than in the past. So she has been traveling around and selling her rats in many lower north provinces, including Chainart province, Pijit province and Pitsanulok province. Business has been good in Phitsanulok, where she has been selling rats for five months, so she has no immediate plans to move.

The prices for her rats vary according to size. For the small size rats, the price is 200 THB per kg; the medium size rats sell for 220 THB per kg; and big rats sell for 250 THB per kg.

Although she considers the prices of rats to be expensive, the people who like to eat rats consider it a cheap price to pay. For people who want to grill their rats at home, her frozen field rats are priced at 180 THB per kg.

Some customers buy 3-5 kg of frozen rats each time to store in their refrigerators, and also buy rats for their relatives and friends. Most of her customers are local people, and some are drivers passing by who notice her shop.

Selling grilled field rats is an occupation that Mrs. Somboon is proud of, and can generate revenues up to 1 million THB a year. Mrs. Somboon averages more than 2,000-3,000 THB daily in sales. During the festivals, she can earn more than 10,000 THB daily.

Mrs. Somboon now enjoys a better financial status because of her business. She bought a pickup truck to buy more rats in many places, and can now build her own house from the money she made selling rats.



TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: asia; business; food; foodsupply; meat; rat; rodents
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Democrats are being harvested for their meat in Thailand. Who would have thought!


1 posted on 08/17/2017 5:06:28 AM PDT by vannrox
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To: vannrox

Thailand?


2 posted on 08/17/2017 5:07:12 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: vannrox

Did you find you a nice Thai girl while on that site?


3 posted on 08/17/2017 5:10:03 AM PDT by caver
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To: vannrox

Well, there’s always bat-meat.

Or you could stretch the family dollar with rat meat helper.


4 posted on 08/17/2017 5:12:14 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (Did Barack Obama denounce Communism and dictatorships when he visited Cuba as a puppet of the State?)
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To: vannrox

Visited Thailand once...stayed three or four days.All I can say is “yikes!”


5 posted on 08/17/2017 5:12:16 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (ObamaCare Works For Those Who Don't.)
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To: vannrox

Business opportunity here. Catch big, juicy urban rats and export them to Asia.

Become the Tyson of the rat trade. Free Range, hormone and antibiotic free rats.


6 posted on 08/17/2017 5:12:57 AM PDT by PAR35
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To: vannrox

The rice field rats are not as good for you as the free range rats


7 posted on 08/17/2017 5:13:16 AM PDT by bert (K.E.; N.P.; GOPc;WASP .... The Fourth Estate is the Fifth Column)
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To: vannrox

I knew I should have bought low.


8 posted on 08/17/2017 5:15:34 AM PDT by KC_Lion (If you want on First Lady Melania's, Ivanka Trump's or Sarah Palin's Ping Lists, just let me know.)
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To: vannrox
Democrats are being harvested for their meat in Thailand.

Sign me up....we can load up a refrigerated boat and flood the market, baby.

I wonder what they prefer? Ones that are tofu fed or ones that grew up on a welfare diet.

Need to find out quick before someone else gets in front. Seems I always miss out on these easy pickin' deals

9 posted on 08/17/2017 5:16:55 AM PDT by eartick (Been to the line in the sand and liked it, but ready to go again)
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To: vannrox

The patoot is the best part.


10 posted on 08/17/2017 5:20:04 AM PDT by Mr Ramsbotham (Laws against sodomy are honored in the breech.)
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To: vannrox
I have eaten, and enjoyed, fried squirrel... not really so different from a rat.

A meal of fried squirrel, squirrel gravy, greens and mashed potatoes is great!

I have been offered fried possum...I took a small taste and then declined.


11 posted on 08/17/2017 5:21:16 AM PDT by Bobalu (Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to be freeloaders.)
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To: a fool in paradise

-—Well, there’s always bat-meat.——

While at Subic Bay, I was privileged to go camping with my scout troop back in the Bataan jungle. We were visited by a Negrito who taught jungle survival to the Navy pilots.

He downed a big fruit bat with a slingshot. He cut a section of 3” diameter bamboo with his bolo and made a lengthwise slit and created a sliding panel. He put in some rice and the bat meat. punctured the sliding lid with a hole and placed the whole deal in the fire.

He had crafted a pressure cooker...... it worked extremely well.


12 posted on 08/17/2017 5:21:17 AM PDT by bert (K.E.; N.P.; GOPc;WASP .... The Fourth Estate is the Fifth Column)
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To: bert

I have an older English friend who tells the story about her dad who was a prisoner of war. He was secretly raising rats for food to secretly feed his fellow prisoners. This was discovered and the jailers cut off his hand. Her dad later was found out again to doing the same and cut off his other hand.


13 posted on 08/17/2017 5:21:55 AM PDT by lilypad
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To: PAR35
"...Become the Tyson of the rat trade...."

That would involve firing all the Thai employees and replacing them with Mexicans.

14 posted on 08/17/2017 5:34:16 AM PDT by T-Bone Texan (Trump's election does not release you from your prepping responsibilites!)
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To: vannrox
This is not as bad as it seems. The “field” rats are normally taken at rice harvest from the field. I have watched the Thai’s collecting them. So these rats are grain fed, these are not the inner city thug rats eating garbage.

So most of the year I don't see them at local markets, but during rice harvest it becomes common at the village markets.

15 posted on 08/17/2017 5:39:06 AM PDT by where's_the_Outrage? (Trump the anti politician. About time!)
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To: vannrox

Hey New York - don’t miss this opportunity. Take a trash barge, park it up against a dock for a month, then untie and move it to Thailand, food drop! You could make some bucks.


16 posted on 08/17/2017 5:43:04 AM PDT by MomwithHope (Law and Order and that includes Natural.)
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To: vannrox

While stationed in that part of the world, I would frequent the street corner vendors for ‘snacks’.

Lord only knows what it may have been BUT when between 18-24, get enough booze in you, have someone offer you some ‘smoked meat’ on a stick and one is ‘good to go’.

Back in the 50s/60s booze in the ‘watering holes’ would more than likely be watered down or maybe not the Crown Royal one thought they were drinking.

When yen was 360 to the ‘Yankee Dollah’, a good liberty could be had for less than 5 bucks and a great one for 10.

But when as a SN or RM3(E3 or E4) and your monthly pay around 90 bucks ...etc...etc.

A lot of ‘people’ retired based on loaning 5 bucks and getting 7 back - payday loan - with cash paydays and the ‘money barons’ waiting at the end of the pay line.

The phrase ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be’ makes sense today...unless you were the lender..and didn’t get caught.

UCMJ frowned on such activities..for that matter, UCMJ frowned on most anything with the infamous Article 134.
In case we didn’t ‘ban’ it in the other 150 or so Articles’


17 posted on 08/17/2017 5:44:21 AM PDT by xrmusn ((6/98)""If the earth were flat, cats would have pushed everything over the edge by now")
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To: vannrox
Andrew has no problems with this


18 posted on 08/17/2017 5:46:34 AM PDT by COBOL2Java (RuPaul and Yertle - our illustrious Republican leaders up the Hill - God help us!)
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To: bert

“R&R for Charlie was a little rat meat and rice”


19 posted on 08/17/2017 5:51:27 AM PDT by shotgun
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To: where's_the_Outrage?

Organic Rat meat


20 posted on 08/17/2017 5:53:35 AM PDT by shotgun
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