House Lizard Dishes

There are people who eat lizards either big or small usually fried or roasted. But if you are not aware even common house lizards are eaten by people. There are articles on the internet that prove them. One of them is about Vietnamese people raising house lizards in farms to be roasted later on. If you Google “lizard rice bowls” you will be taken to the articles.

Farming House Lizards

Many people think house lizards are dirty because they normally eat house insects which humans consider dirty like cockroaches, flies and mosquitoes but you can actually raise them like chickens for food. In fact much bigger lizards have been farmed and sold as food in many parts of the world.

The first thing you have to do is capture a pair for mating so you can reproduce their numbers for them to be a viable meat supply. There are articles online that teach people how to determine the sex of a house lizard. The ones I gathered inform that male house lizards have more pronounced head, bellies and tails as compared to females.

Male house lizards are also more aggressive in terms of behaviour as compared to their female counterparts. To the untrained eye of a person not an expert in lizards especially house lizards I would not notice any of these. The best bet for untrained people would be to capture as much lizard as you can and hope that a few of them mate.

Do not worry about house lizards fighting each other in enclosed spaces especially if you are in the subject of mating. They are not known to be violent towards each other and there are inconclusive research that shows house lizards fight and cannibalise each other. It is therefore even safe to farm them together in large numbers.

Once the baby house lizards have hatched immediately wean them on a diet of cooked rice. There are plenty of YouTube videos that prove that house lizards like cooked rice. Just do a YouTube search for “house lizards eating rice” and there will be several videos of it. There are also articles online about “house lizards eating rice” if you need further info.

House Lizard Eggs

You can also eat the eggs of house lizards the same way that you eat chicken eggs. They are the same but of course the eggs of house lizards are so small as compared to chicken eggs that you will need a lot of them to be satiated. I have seen articles and videos of people eating lizard eggs with no negative effects.

Applicable in the West?

Eating insects in the West is gaining ground and between eating roasted insects and eating roasted house lizards I would choose the roasted house lizards because it has the more “meat taste” in it. I believe enterprising people will find a way for roasted or grilled house lizards to be eaten in the West and other countries as well.

Very Applicable In Asia

For further reading and pictures see this article from the World of Buzz website titled Roasted ‘Lizard Rice Bowls’ are Very Popular In Indonesia & Netizens are Grossed Out!. This is a well publicised news story online. There are several online websites that feature this article and have both good, neutral and bad reactions.

But this is not a new thing as in China there are people who sell ”Lizard on a Stick. You can even find pictures online like in Pinterest. It can even be found in very urbanised places such as Hong Kong. Of course many other people from other countries eat lizard but they are normally the bigger ones whose meat content is more substantial.

Lizard Soup

Though house lizards are so small that for the most part the thing you could do for it as food is to dry them up, salt them and then grill them it would be no surprise if inventive cooks would eventually find dishes that people would like. For example there are people who sell Ants On a Stick in a state fair in America. If this exist then house lizard dishes would surely exist as well.

In fact there is such a thing as lizard soup being sold in Hong Kong and in other countries in the world like Nicaragua and the Philippines. Going much further if we Google “Insect Soup” online we will find many images proving that many people eat meat not derived from our normal farm animals.

People Have Eaten Less Palatable Food

Again the same question: If given the only choice of eating either an insect or a house lizard which one would you rather eat especially if there is no food around? Am I right in assuming that you would rather eat a house lizard than an insect especially if it is deep fried or grilled? The house lizard at least has meat that is similar in texture to the common meats we are so used to eating.

Since time immemorial many people from many parts of the world have learned to eat meat that is not derived from common farm animals due to their scarcity. As the world becomes more connected thanks to technologies like the internet a lot more people became aware that you can eat meat that is different from what you are accustomed to.

It won’t be long before some of these people would give these kinds of meat a try out of curiosity or need. As China, Indonesia, Vietnam and some other countries have proven lizard meat even house lizard meat is nothing to be grossed about. We are just not used to it. In times of need or scarcity people who don’t use to eat them may do so.

I read old European stories of people from these countries eating Rats during times of famine and war during the old days and even during such events as World War 2. If people can eat rats which are considered dirty and unsafe animals to eat then eating house lizards is no mean feat to do.

Conclusion

If people can eat meat not considered by many as normal like insects who have a different texture when chewed or rats which are considered unhealthy to eat then there should be no problem in eating ordinary house lizards. They also come with a bonus that they can lay eggs which can be eaten just like normal eggs.

Since introducing unusual products are very hard to market initially the best first move would be to market to customers who are already eating house lizards or lizards in general. Let these early adopters of eating house lizards influence other people into eating this food. This can be done by spreading the information that house lizards are safe to eat and by packaging them to look pleasing to customers.