In spite of health dangers associated with meat butchered and fed on sidewalks, Baghdad butchers insist their meat is "tasty" and better than imported meat.

Butchers slaughter and sell meat in the open air on Baghdad’s sidewalks, hidden from sanitary controls. Doctors warn about contamination, but butchers defend their meat as healthy and tasty.

And it’s local.

The Kurdish Globe quoted butcher Hassan Sali as he dragged a lamb to slaughter as saying, "It is tasty and also clean. I feed the sheep with alfalfa grass."

But he ignored swarming flies and the stench. Salih does not work in a shop, but on a road side in the middle of Baghdad city. He is not the only one; many butchers operate the same way.

Not caring about expert opinion, the butchers defend their businesses and say they are "trusted" by their clients who see the animal beheaded in front of their eyes. "The danger is too invisible to be seen by bare eyes," said Dr. Kadhim, adding that the sidewalk meat can easily transport fatal diseases, let alone epidemic flues that are appearing.