Tell me about the downside of drinking directly from a camels hump

June 30, 2007 11:13 AM

People drank from a rumen. Although no-one died, is it really okay?

In the buff morning light, Riley saw a native boy plunge his head into the camels gaping rumen and drink. Hamet seeing Riley's interest, told him to remove the boy and take his place. Riley scooped the nauseating cavity with a bowl and poured the ropy green fluid down his throat. What he swallowed could not have been more refreshing had it been the spring water he once dreamed of turning into a spa. "Though its taste was exceedingly strong," he later wrote with his usual equanimity, "yet it was not salt, and it allayed my thirst". Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival

posted by tellurian to food & drink (17 comments total)

In the movie The Killing Fields, they showed a starving Dith Pran sneaking into a stable and cutting cows necks so he could suck some of their blood for sustenance to stay alive. I haven't read the book you're quoting from but the Sahara is not a hospitable environment so people have been known to do whatever they have to when they are in survival mode. Camels are very very valuable to the Egyptian people & while I could be wrong I'm not sure they'd sacrifice one under normal circumstances. So... I'd say the benefit of drinking from a camel's hump is that you're not dead in the desert and your belly is full. And the downside is that it's probably pretty disgusting and you now have one less camel.
posted by miss lynnster at 11:53 AM on June 30, 2007

Given that it's "A True Story of Survival," I'd think that drinking from a camel's hump is better than dying of dehydration if you've been lost in the desert for a week.

But just reading the words "scooped the nauseating cavity with a bowl and poured the ropy green fluid down his throat" made me feel queasy.

So I'm with miss lynnster: if you're stranded in a desert, it's better than the sure death of not drinking. But I wouldn't recommend putting a straw in a camel's hump in lieu of carrying a water bottle.
posted by fogster at 11:59 AM on June 30, 2007

A camel's hump is comprised of fat, not water. A rumen is part of a stomach, and has nothing to do with a hump. So in this story, it seems that people drank water from the stomach cavity (or a compartment of a stomach) of a dead camel.
posted by iconomy at 12:14 PM on June 30, 2007

The rumen is where pre-digestion happens. Usually very culturally active. In the microbial way, not the supports the opera kind of way. The microbes break down cellulose and other parts of the plant so the owner can benefit from its simpler nutritional value.

If it were the only thing available, and I might die if I didn't. I suppose I'd drink from it. But as it might have indigestible plant material and probably lots of microbes, and has been fermenting funkily in a dead animal, I'd have to be pretty desperate. I have my doubts about it's palatability .
posted by Toekneesan at 12:58 PM on June 30, 2007

I have my doubts about it's palatability .

Having worked with fresh rumen contents (although not from a camel) I can tell you it's pretty damn unpalatable. And the smell doesn't wash off, it just fades over a few days. Faeces is actually marginally more pleasant.

While we were always careful not to get it on our faces and to wash afterwards, it's not specifically toxic. Just lots of anaerobic bacteria and partially digested plants. The bacteria could make you ill or give you a tummy ache but they aren't usually pathogenic (or the animal would get sick too) and would probably just pass through. You'd want to watch out for parasites though, there are some types of worms that could be found in the rumen. You wouldn't get much sustenance from it because humans can't digest the cellulose but it would provide liquid and some nutritional content.

Given a choice between dying of thirst and drinking rumen fluid, the rumen is definitely a viable choice. Probably not a standard part of the diet (or even a delicacy) but not worth wasting.

note IANARB (not a rumen bacteriologist), just a large animal technician in a previous life.
posted by shelleycat at 3:53 PM on June 30, 2007

Tripe is made from the contents of the rumen (amongst other stomachs) and is actually pretty nutritious. The bacteria are breaking down the plant matter and then you "eat" the bacteria. They wash it to get rid of the (atrocious) smell but that's all.

andouille & haggis are both made form tripe, so is one kind of popular Mexican sausage.
posted by fshgrl at 3:59 PM on June 30, 2007

People drank from a rumen. Although no-one died, is it really okay?

I see this as a moral question: "is it right to drink from a rumen?". If it is a matter of survival, then I would say yes. A human life, in our scheme of things, is more valuable than a camel's. If the camel died of natural causes, then it would be even more right, although there might be some health considerations about drinking the crap from a camel's stomach, but that isn't a moral problem.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:30 PM on June 30, 2007

But just reading the words "scooped the nauseating cavity with a bowl and poured the ropy green fluid down his throat" made me feel queasy.

True, but these people were probably familiar with molokhiya, and therefore quite used to such things.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:32 PM on June 30, 2007

Tripe is made from the contents of the rumen (amongst other stomachs) and is actually pretty nutritious.

I always thought tripe actually was the stomach, not it's contents. Certainly the tripe in my supermarket is the clean white stomach tissue rather than the nasty rumen contents. I thought haggis was the same (i.e. made in an actual stomach) although I don't know what goes into the stuffing so it could have rumen fluid mixed in.

Tripe is a totally different type of food as it's animal tissue rather than partially digested plants. The nutrition it provides is from the mammalian cells rather than the bacteria or plant matter. Gut tissue is used in many different ways for food, for example sausage skins are made from intestinal lining, and the answer would be much more straight forward if that is what the question was asking about.

How much nutrition you can get from the rumen contents probably depends on how far along the digestive process is. Is the food fresh or has the animal been ruminating? You're always going to get more goodness from eating the actual camel so I assumed the drinking of rumen fluid was more about saving the liquid and slaking thirst than looking for a tasty meal.

Rumen fluid really is really really nasty, it's not an acquired taste or a delicacy, it's really just foul.
posted by shelleycat at 4:47 PM on June 30, 2007

True, but these people were probably familiar with molokhiya, and therefore quite used to such things.

Molokhiya is an Egyptian leafy green used in lamb & chicken dishes. I'm not quite sure I understand how familiarity with it would prepare someone for drinking foul green fluid from a camel's stomach...? The two things don't seem related.
posted by miss lynnster at 5:12 PM on June 30, 2007

I always thought tripe actually was the stomach, not it's contents.

Green tripe includes some contents, though I dunno that non-starving people eat it. Tripett dog food is green tripe, and holy shit is it nasty-smelling. Dogs love it, but... damn.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:49 PM on June 30, 2007

miss lynnster: the quintessential molokhiya dish is a soup with a horrific slimy consistency, not unlike the sliminess that results when you cook okra (sometimes called ladies fingers), only much, much worse.
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:15 PM on June 30, 2007

Yeah, keep that slimy molokhiya away from me. Can't stand the stuff. Like mucus and lawn clippings.
posted by atchafalaya at 7:28 PM on June 30, 2007

Yes. Rumen fluid molokhiya really is really really nasty, it's not an acquired taste or a delicacy, it's really just foul.
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:34 PM on June 30, 2007

We used to feed rumen to cattle that had specfic stomach(s) issues. Did the trick apparently. Unfortunately one day my dad fed it to the cow from a Lilt bottle. That was the end of my Lilt drinking days.
But to echo shellycat, it really stinks.
posted by clarkie666 at 9:49 PM on June 30, 2007

Thanks all. Sorry about the hump and rumen confusion.
posted by tellurian at 3:52 PM on July 1, 2007

I've also had personal experience of dissecting large herbivores and can attest to the unpleasant stench involved. It made me gag at first. As mentioned above, the rumen is also likely to contain a fair amount of gastrointestinal parasites (macro and micro). None of which will be at all appetising and some of which will be able to infect a human. I'd rather drink the blood, or preferably just eat the meat.
posted by jonesor at 4:39 AM on July 2, 2007