I know the title implies I have half a brain, but bear with me for a moment. I'm working on a story that involves an extended stay out in the wilderness during the winter. One of the characters is very used to surviving for extended periods of time, while the other considered livestock a rare sight growing up. I had the funny idea of the latter being mortified with the concept of the former eating raw meat straight out of a deer. I wanted to know, generally speaking, how safe it is.
I got the idea from a time when I went hunting with my Dad and his buddies. One of the guys got a deer, and we were there to help gut it and get it back to camp. When we were cleaning it, the guy cut free one of the backstraps and took a bite out of it! The deer wasn't even cold yet! Of course, everything I knew told me that eating raw meat is a terrible idea, but he just smiled and said, "Don't believe what you hear, take risks every once in awhile." It sounded interesting, but I wasn't going to accept it on the word of someone who I already knew wasn't playing with a full deck.
I did some research on the subject and found a few pieces of evidence to support the idea. A lot of it is about the cleanliness of the tools you use, freshness, and the skill of the butcher. But it never really talked about meat from a wild animal. At first, I assumed that there'd be a higher chance of parasites in wild meat, but then again, domesticated livestock would have more exposure to parasites with the conditions they're kept in.
The idea seems reasonable, but I don't want to get someone sick because they read my book and thought it was completely safe to eat raw meat. What do you guys think? Should I go for it?
I got the idea from a time when I went hunting with my Dad and his buddies. One of the guys got a deer, and we were there to help gut it and get it back to camp. When we were cleaning it, the guy cut free one of the backstraps and took a bite out of it! The deer wasn't even cold yet! Of course, everything I knew told me that eating raw meat is a terrible idea, but he just smiled and said, "Don't believe what you hear, take risks every once in awhile." It sounded interesting, but I wasn't going to accept it on the word of someone who I already knew wasn't playing with a full deck.
I did some research on the subject and found a few pieces of evidence to support the idea. A lot of it is about the cleanliness of the tools you use, freshness, and the skill of the butcher. But it never really talked about meat from a wild animal. At first, I assumed that there'd be a higher chance of parasites in wild meat, but then again, domesticated livestock would have more exposure to parasites with the conditions they're kept in.
The idea seems reasonable, but I don't want to get someone sick because they read my book and thought it was completely safe to eat raw meat. What do you guys think? Should I go for it?
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