Ethiopia: Health Risks Fail to Deter Ethiopians From Eating Raw Meat
Ethiopians continue to eat raw meat at family and festive occasions despite health risks that include exposure to tapeworms, salmonella and E-coli. While most people are taught that eating raw meat is not good for you, the tradition persists in Ethiopia. Whenever there is something to celebrate -- like a wedding, or the end of one of the many fasting weeks for the large Orthodox community -- raw meat is eaten in large quantities. The story goes that eating raw meat started during times of war. Fighters hiding in the mountains would have exposed themselves by making fire, and so ate their meat raw. Temesgen Yilma is the owner of Yilma Restaurant, one of the most famous raw meat restaurants in Addis Ababa. He eats raw meat almost every day and claims that neither he nor his customers have gotten sick from eating it. "Today we are the only butchery in the country having our own animal transport trucks and meat transport vehicle," noted Yilma. "And our meat is al