Hello Meatatarian, I just added a new meat to the list of meats I have eaten. Yea! So this is my story of how I got the meat and the nutritional fact and culture surrounding it.

Y’all know that Eid Kabir was last week, right? I made a new friend here at my place of internship. We stay in the same house and he is from the northern part of the country. His name is Sadeeq (maybe in another article I will tell you guys more about him; he is a very interesting individual).

By now you think you already know how I got the meat? Yea, you do. So, he went for the celebration and came back with camel meat! Wow! Before now, I had never heard of camel meat. I had not even seen a camel in my life! So I ate the meat in a very unusual manner — we used it to cook noodles. LOL! Sounds weird, right? I mean normal noodle o, not all those garnished, ‘vegetated’, fried-rice-looking noodles. So while eating our weird-looking noodles, we started talking about the meat which could be found in almost in every spoon of noodles we scooped. He told me how special the meat in my mouth was. Funny enough, I was eating the meat for the rich! The average camel costs N350k — N450k and it is a scarce meat even in northern Nigeria.

As an Anambra boy wey I be, I felt so special after I heard the price. I even thought of importing it! LOL! I went on the internet, asked my friends on WhatsApp and I realized it really is a special meat. Then, I saw the health benefits of the camel and the interesting facts about it. And that amazed me even more! Now, I’d like to share these health benefits and interesting facts.

HEALTH BENEFITS

The camel meat has very large benefits to our health, but the milk seems to be its selling point. The camel milk is medicinal and it has a lot of benefit to us humans. I hope that after reading this article someone from the North will take my idea and go into camel rearing. I promise you will make a lot of money.

1. The Camel immune system is stronger than that of humans due to the presence of immunoglobulins which are found throughout lactation. Drinking the camel milk provides tools that fight autoimmune diseases by immune system rehabilitation.
2. The camel milk contains INSULIN which has properties that makes absorption into circulation easier, more than insulin from other sources, and this help in fighting diabetes.
3. It can help in curing allergies in children.
4. The camel milk contains hydroxyl-acid which are known to plump and smooth the skin.
5. The camel meat is highly proteinous and contains Amino Acids, minerals, fatty acids and bio-active compounds.

INTERESTING FACTS

• ‘The camel case’ used as a naming convention in most programming languages is actually gotten from the camel, due to the hump on its back.
• Camels can survive up to six (6) months without water according research by University of Singapore.
• When water is available, the camel drinks 30 gallons (113liters) of water in 13 minutes, and their body rehydrates more than any other mammal.
• In the deserts, when the travelers are in dire need of water, they kill the camel and drink the water that comes from its reservoir.
• Camels have been a means of transportations for humans for thousands of years and they can carry loads weighing up to 270kg.
• The camel is a social animal and it exchanges greeting with each other by blowing in each other face.
• The moans and groans of the camel was used in voicing the character ‘Chewbacca’ in the movie Star Wars.
• When the beast feels threatened, it throws up or spits the contents of its stomach on people’s face as a defense mechanism.
• The Average life span of the Camel is 17years.

Heyy! Here comes my business idea: help preserve this beast by rearing them domestically and at the same time sell some meat to me. Think about it, the camel is facing a very serious challenge in this 21st century and the main stream media is not talking about it, even the social media seems not to remember them anytime soon.