Not for the weak stomached

Caution: Do not read this while eating lunch!

Guinea pig festival in Peru

An Andean woman holds a 'cuy' or guinea pig dressed as a miner during a fashion show at a guinea pig festival in Huacho, Peru.

The one-day festival includes an animal show and a food and fashion contest which features the guinea pig, native to the Andes.

The guinea pigs spend the day being dressed up...

... pampered...

... and fattened up.

Yes, fattened up. Many of us think of the guinea pig as a cute pet, but in parts of South America, it is a major source of food.

Warning ... you might want to stop reading here.


Guinea pigs can be served fried, roasted or in a casserole.

Those of a sensitive disposition should probably not view the next two pictures.


Around 65 million guinea pigs are eaten in Peru every year.


The meat tastes like rabbit or the dark meat of chicken, in case you were wondering.

Source: Telegraph

Would you?

Some women in New York are paying big bucks for a facial containing bird excrement.

The Geisha Facial, available at Shizuka New York for $180, contains nightingale excrement.

The Japanese powder, also known as uguisu no fun, is rich in the amino acid guanine, said to brighten and cleanse skin. In the 18th century geishas and kabuki actors used the powder to clean heavy white makeup off their faces.

"I was a little tentative at first," said Andrea Nieto, who recently received the treatment. "But there was no smell. It was creamy and rich."

Yeah, right.

Source: Reuters

Photo: Futamer

Aussies go crazy for cat poo coffee

Cafe-crazy Australians in the last decade have embraced coffee in all its forms, but they've saved the most expensive -- and excremental -- for last.

Kopi Luwak, made in neighboring Indonesia from coffee beans excreted by native civet cats, is reputedly the world's rarest and most expensive coffee, painstakingly extracted by hand from the animals' forest droppings.

When roasted, the resulting beans sell for around $1,000 a kilogram ($450 a pound) and brew into a earthy, syrupy, coffee acknowledged by connoisseurs as one of the world's finest.

Despite the closeness of the coffee's home on the islands of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi, Australia's first civet cat brew has only just gone on sale in Queensland state, selling for A$50 a cup at the Heritage Tea Rooms, west of Townsville.