top of page

Learn What to Look for in Processing & Cooking Wild Game - Better Safe than Sorry

  • By Ken Perrotte
  • Jan 28, 2018
  • 4 min read

Updated: Nov 9, 2020


wild game cooking safe processing venison

Count me among the crowd that labels themselves as “locavores,” preferring to eat locally produced and, often, personally “sourced” food. Hunters are the original “locavores,” experts in getting and sharing the lean, nutritious meat of free-ranging wildlife.

Collecting, processing, eating and sharing your locally sourced food comes with responsibilities. Remember, U.S. Department of Agriculture inspector aren’t spot checking animals you take for your own consumption. There is a bit of “diner beware” element to noshing on wild critters.

A couple personal anecdotes help explain.

In January 2018, I shot a Canada goose in Maryland, brought it home and prepared to fillet out the breasts, and remove the legs and thighs for later eating. Upon cutting through the skin, I saw that the meat looked lighter than usual and felt a little softer. I closely inspected and saw fine, milky white lines running with the grain. They were pervasive.

Now, some might simply smell the meat and say, “Eh, good enough,” but an experience I had with a white-tailed deer caused me to discard the bird.

wild game cooking safe processing venison

I process my own deer, boning out all the meat and cutting it into primal and sub-primal cuts. One late Friday afternoon in mid-December four years ago, I took a mature buck with a nice enough rack, but very light body weight. It was clearly a hemorrhagic disease survivor. Each hoof had the cracked, damaged look that shows up after they began sloughing away due to the fever-intensive disease. Deer can recover from the disease and their meat can be fine.

I’ve processed hundreds of deer. This meat looked weird. Hundreds of milky, grayish-white lines less than a quarter of an inch long and about as wide as an extremely fine pencil mark aligned with the muscle grain. Weird isn’t good when it comes to meat. I finished boning out the deer and emailed multiple, close-up photos to wildlife biologists, including Matt Knox, deer program manager for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, asking their opinion.

The meat wasn’t quite as firm as some deer I’ve processed, but I wouldn’t call it mushy. It didn’t smell as though it was rotting or otherwise inedible. As a test, I sliced a couple ½-inch pieces of backstraps and tenderloins, heated olive oil in the skillet and fried the pieces unseasoned.

They tasted fine. The next day, two pounds of front shoulder meat went into a savory, long-simmered chili that made fine football watching fare.

Knox’s return email arrived early next week, saying, “Ken, I would not eat that meat.”

Uh-oh - too late!

Knox had consulted with VDGIF’s Wildlife Veterinarian Dr. Megan S. Kirchgessner and shared, “Our best guess without looking at these lesions under a microscope is a protozoan parasite called ‘Sarcocystitis.’”

While the meat could probably be eaten if cooked to well done, or greater than 165 degrees Fahrenheit, Knox recommended not eating it.

wild game cooking safe processing venison sarcocysts

He attached photos and text from a book about wildlife diseases and parasites. One image showed meat from an infected rabbit. It looked exactly like the deer meat. I later learned the parasite is also found in some wild ducks. The resulting condition has even been nicknamed “rice breast.” I think this was also the issue with the meat in the goose.

Kirchgessner followed up to explain, “Sarcocystitis can be passed from white-tails to humans. It is not usually transmitted during field dressing or butchering, but instead when the meat is under-cooked and consumed.” But, she added, “Sarcocystitis usually affects the GI tract of humans and does not travel into the muscle as it does in deer.”

Thankfully, nothing seemed to have percolated in my digestive tract and any danger passed, literally. I recalled past hunting camps where meals of fresh meat was served medium rare the night the animal was killed. It hit home that bad things might happen if wild game is inappropriately handled or tainted with bacteria or some organism.

Many hunters love to dine on their fresh kills, both at home and in camp. It’s a way to celebrate a successful hunt. Knox says it’s a, “bad idea.” An anecdotal example of why it can be a bad idea is also gleaned from the experience of Steven Rinella, host of the popular “MeatEater” television show. Rinella and several members of their party had shot a black bear. They cut some meat from the bear and cooked it over a fire. A few weeks later, a few of them began aching. They had been infected with trichinosis, which bears potentially carry. They underwent lengthy treatment and are, apparently, fine now, but lessons are there to be learned.

Tips on avoiding eating stuff that might hurt you:

  1. The safest first step is to freeze the meat, ideally down to -4 degrees Fahrenheit, for a couple days. This kills parasites such as sarcocysts and the equally bad or worse ones that cause toxoplasmosis. Freezing doesn’t kill most bacteria. It just goes dormant and begins multiplying when meat is thawed and reaches about 40 degrees.

  2. Beware some deer jerky preparations. Knox calls it “Russian Roulette.” Most dehydrators don’t get meat anywhere near the temperature level required to kill bad organisms. Make jerky after the deer has been frozen for a week or two.

  3. Cook meat to 165-degrees Fahrenheit temperature to kill bacteria. This is especially important with any kind of ground meat where surface bacteria can get mixed into the entire product. On cuts such as roasts or anything like backstraps, a good, hot searing of the meat’s exterior (see top photo) will kill surface bacteria.

  4. Wear protective gloves while field dressing. Careful handling of the animal as soon as it’s killed helps prevent transmission of any infectious particles. A cut to your fingers or hands is another easy path to transmission.

  5. Organ meat is more likely to harbor infectious particles than muscle. Certain organs, most notably kidney and liver, may also store heavy metals or other toxins. Cook all organ meats thoroughly. I used to eat deer liver, but now stick to deer heart - just because...

  6. Beef Carpaccio, essentially raw, marinated beef, is a popular dish in some countries. I’ve made a variation with thinly sliced raw venison topped with capers and salt, then drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice. Any future efforts along this line will involve meat that has been previously well-frozen. A quick, high-heat searing may be used for additional protection.

Bình luận


Subscribe for new stories, reviews, and more. 
(Don't worry, we won't spam you)

  • White Facebook Icon
  • White Twitter Icon
  • White Instagram Icon

© 2017-2024 Kmunicate Worldwide LLC, All Rights Reserved. Outdoors adventures, hunting, fishing, travel, innovative wild game and fish recipes, gear reviews and coverage of outdoors issues. Except as noted, all text and images are by Ken Perrotte (Outdoors Rambler (SM). Some items, written by Ken Perrotte and previously published elsewhere, are revised or excerpted under provisions of the Fair Use Doctrine

 

Privacy Policy:

What type of information do you collect? We receive, collect and store any information you enter on our website. In addition, we collect the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet; login; e-mail address; password; computer and connection information and purchase history. We may use software tools to measure and collect session information, including page response times, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information, and methods used to browse away from the page. We also collect personally identifiable information (including name, email, password, communications); payment details (including credit card information – although the site does not currently engage in any type of e-commerce), comments, feedback, product reviews, recommendations, and personal profile.

How do you collect information? When a visitor to the site sends you a message through a contact form or subscribes to receive updates and other communications about new stuff on the site, we collect that subscriber’s email address. That address is used only for marketing campaigns or other information we send regarding site updates or changes. Site usage data may be collected by our hosting platform Wix.com or by third-party services, such as Google Analytics or other applications offered through the Wix App Market, placing cookies or utilizing other tracking technologies through Wix´s services, may have their own policies regarding how they collect and store information. As these are external services, such practices are not covered by the Wix Privacy Policy. These services may create aggregated statistical data and other aggregated and/or inferred Non-personal Information, which we or our business partners may use to provide and improve our respective services. Data may also be collected to comply with any applicable laws and regulations.

How do you store, use, share and disclose your site visitors' personal information? Our company is hosted on the Wix.com platform. Wix.com provides us with the online platform that allows us to share information or sell products and services to you. Your data may be stored through Wix.com’s data storage, databases and the general Wix.com applications. They store your data on secure servers behind a firewall.

How do you communicate with your site visitors? The primary means of communicating with site users is via email for the purposes of marketing campaigns, promotions, and update. We may contact you to notify you regarding your subscription, to troubleshoot problems, resolve a dispute, collect fees or monies owed, to poll your opinions through surveys or questionnaires, to send updates about our company, or as otherwise necessary to contact you to enforce our User Agreement, applicable national laws, and any agreement we may have with you. For these purposes we may contact you via email, telephone, text messages, and postal mail.

How do you use cookies and other tracking tools? Our hosting platform Wix.com and our analytical services providers such as Google Analytics may place cookies that facilitate their services. To be perfectly honest, Kmunicate Worldwide LLC, the owner of outdoorsrambler.com, never looks at cookies or any other tracking/data collection tools, only the aggregated reports provided by the hosting service or analytical services providers.

How can your site visitors withdraw their consent? If you don’t want us to process your data anymore, please contact us using the “Contact Us” form on the site.

Privacy policy updates: We reserve the right to modify this privacy policy at any time, so please review it frequently. Changes and clarifications will take effect immediately upon their posting on the website. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here that it has been updated, so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we use and/or disclose it.

 

bottom of page