How I most likely caught tapeworm

See, I love meat. A lot. A meal without meat doesn't taste quite as fulfilling to me. My mouth even waters when I see red meat at the supermarket (something I always remind my roommate, Amy, who looks at me with the what's wrong with you face I have come so accustomed to). But my love for meat has waned since I have been in Vietnam because after seeing how meat is sold and handled here, I am traumatized, to say the least.

Meat is sold outside, like everything else here. Placed on a bloody table in an outside market and hung on metal hooks, the rare meat is exposed to all the dust, smoke fumes from passing motorbikes, and just general dirtiness that is bountiful in in this country. The meat sold also sits in the tropical heat all day, with flies and all types of unseen bugs swarming all over.

Hot pile of cow stomach

Maybe even more unappetizing is how meat is handled. Passerbyers interested in a piece of meat just come up to the meat stand and poke, grab, and hold the meat. And it isn't just one person prodding, but a whole mess of people who don't even wash their hands before or after.
Of course, there are also animal parts on full display here that we don't normally find in the supermarket. As game as I usually am to try "exotic" foods, I think I'll save my cravings for cow tails, feet, and entrails for another day.


And the primary reason why I may become a vegetarian while here?
This meat market (and many others I have seen) doubly functions as a veterinary "hospital" for cats and dogs. YEAH....