How to raise Backyard Chickens: RE: [CHICKENS-101] Eating Non-Traditional Meats

Thursday, June 30, 2011

RE: [CHICKENS-101] Eating Non-Traditional Meats

Di,

In theory, I agree with you 100% I totally disagreed with the banning of slaughter houses and horse slaughter.

I would love for all the excess deer to be hunted and killed in a humane way and fed to those who want or need it. Same thing with those big snakes.

At the same time, I am the one who buried our pet turkey, Lilly. I couldn’t bear the thought of butchering her and since we had her chemically euthanized, it wouldn’t have been advisable, anyway.

I have had a tacos in Mexico and my father said they were horsemeat…….don’t know for sure. I have eaten alligator, snake, turte, snails, frogs legs, fish, eel (YUCK) bison, beef, chicken, turkey, quail, cornish game, venison, wild goose, duck, etc. I don’t go out of my way to eat weird stuff or gourmet, but I don’t condemn those that eat foods I don’t.

Laura

Laura Roberts

R Half Pint Farm

Spotsylvania, VA

From: CHICKENS-101@yahoogroups.com [mailto:CHICKENS-101@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of dbauer7997us
Sent: Thursday, June 30, 2011 3:24 PM
To: CHICKENS-101@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [CHICKENS-101] Eating Non-Traditional Meats

I know most people abhor the idea of eating a dog - or a cat, or a horse, for that matter. While I have tried none of these, the only reasons are that a) I have not been offered it by someone who does cook it and b) I have never been hungry enough to have to eat it. It's easy to look down our noses at people who eat animals that we do not normally recognize as food sources, but we can only afford to do so because we have not been on the brink of starvation ourselves. In those circumstances, people can't afford to be picky. I'd sure as shoot cook a dog, cat, horse (or any other edible animal) before I'd let my child starve to death. I'd kill and cook rats before I'd let my child die of hunger.

What I don't know is if carnivores should be processed differently that herbivores. I seem to remember hearing long ago that human beings must be more careful with the meat of carnivores due to the risk of carnivores being more of a potential source of disease and/or parasites than herbivores are. I would have to research this to be certain of the answer.

Actually, I'm rather against the ban on processing horsemeat here in the United States. While I don't personally desire to sit down to an equine meal, horses are considered farm animals - and the only way to logically dispose of farm animals that are no longer useful is to butcher them. Better that than letting them slowly starve to death and become fodder for an episode "Animal Cops Houston", for heavens sake.

There are people who go hungry here in the United States. This is not just a Third World issue. Can we really logically ban the consumption of certain species simply because we are emotionally attached to them or because they are "cute"? That makes no sense.

ALL animals should be treated humanely and their lives made as satisfying as is possible. All animals used as a food source should be dispatched by humane methods - always. (In other words, we should treat animals more humanely than we normally treat each other.)

There is a heavy Caribbean influence where I live, and goat is routinely offered in the grocery stores are cater to Hispanics. There are other meats that I cannot identify that animal that they came from. Chris (my son) says goat is pretty good, so I may try it sometime this summer. If course, he also says hippo is also pretty good, but I don't think I'll find that offered around here any time in the near future.

With boas and pythons taking over the Everglades and other parts of South Florida, perhaps we should develop a taste for snake and make the critters worth catching. I mean, some of those snakes are HUGE and would provide a lot of meat to someone who is hungry.

But I'm still glad I buried my 22-year-old cat out in the garden by the bird bath and didn't fricassee her when she died.

Di
Central Florida Zone 9a/b