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College denies promoting dog meat as delicacy

By JOHN NJIRU February 4th, 2014 1 min read

A hospitality training institute has denied its “roasted dog” advertisement was meant to promote the local appetite for the canines’ meat.

The East Africa Utalii Institute said the advertisement was meant to open an objective debate on unorthodox international cuisines to cater for the increasing foreign visitors.

Animal rights activists protested over the provocative advertisement in the Daily Nation on Friday (January 31,2014) depicting roast dog meat in a menu.

“This is a necessary debate if our hospitality industry is to compete at the international level. If done in an objective manner, the debate will break from the taboo ceiling that limits the array of our cuisine, especially for the Far East visitors,” said Mwangi Mbithi the Director of the institution.

The institute, which has three campuses in the city, has been accused by animal rights groups of craftily encouraging dog meat consumption.

“We have been told that the advert portrayed dogs as a finger-licking delicacy which might end up tempting residents here to opt for dog meat which is not the case at all,” added Mwangi.

But the director of Kenya Society for the Protection and Care of Animals (KSPCA), Ms Jean Gilchrist, is totally opposed to the idea of dog meat as food.

“Kenyan veterinary regulations prohibit dog meat consumption, given the health threats posed by dog meat such as rabies. Dog meat should not be consumed nor the idea encouraged,” said Gilchrist.

Despite many high-end hotels in the city offering international cuisines, none openly serves dog meat as a delicacy which is part of Chinese and Korean traditional cuisines.

This debate comes on the heels of yet another social storm surrounding an elderly woman from Turkana County who recently prepared a meal of two puppies for her grandchildren.