I’m late to this party, but surely this makes hunting the morally better option?; Killing animals just to end up throwing them away seems to me morally worse than killing them and eating every last bit.
Well, granted, that does not happen that often (hopefully) usually, I think, they put it on “clearance” sale first. But as to your main point, if you hunt an animal and eat 100% of it that is possible (or practical, maybe you don’t want to eat the eyeballs, IDK) well, I agree, at least you are acting efficiently and the animal had a better life roaming free than it did growing up on a meat production farm. Of course, a vegetarian would say it is all immoral but that is another debate…
Large scale production and retail almost inevitably results in some waste, for short-lifetime perishable items. If you want to make sure your customers have enough of what they want, you have to provide too much of it.
Price reductions make a little dent in that waste, but there’s still a lot of food getting thrown away (some of it never even makes it out to the shop floor).
Fair point - and despite my username, I don’t actually want to eat the eyeballs, but I bet my dog would love them.
I guess large scale production does have the efficiency advantage of being able to toss the eyeballs into the sausage meat grinder and use them that way. I don’t expect that fully offsets the waste that’s happening in the retail environment though.
My best friend is a vegan, and she doesn’t consider my hunting immoral–or, more accurately, she considers it more moral than eating meat from animals raised on a factory farm.
Yes, like I mentioned above, I even knew of a couple that were strictly vegetarian and vegan, unless they hunted the animal. So their freezer contained game meat. Not sure if they also raised chickens (for eggs and meat). But when they went to parties and potlucks, their food and what they ate was strictly vegetarian/vegan.
russian heel, I’d like to know where in the hell in PA you live. Because I live here also, and I have never known a hunter who didn’t like venison. They don’t consider it crap, or just toss the scraps to homeless people. (I do know some share it with friends and relatives). YOU may not like deer meat, but that doesn’t mean others feel the same way.
Not all vegetarians abstain from eating meat because they think it’s immoral.
True. My mother-in-law just didn’t like the taste of meat. Of course, if you’d ever tasted what she did to pork you might feel the same - better suited to roofing material than dinner by the time she got done. Then again, she might have been doing that because to her that did taste better than meat. Never was quite sure on that…
Eyeballs are a nutrient-loaded delicacy, especially eaten raw. Or more precisely, cut open and the savory, slightly oily juices sucked out. Done that, many times, with a freshly killed game animal.
don’t forget elk - elk sausage is amazing.
That sounds…unsafe. Are there any relevant parasites you could pick up doing that?
I’m a deer hunter and anyone who thinks venison is “shitty meat” is ignorant.
I butcher my own animals, not because it gives me “an extra level of toughness” (cough, Bryan Ekers, cough) but because the palatability of venison is more dependent on how it’s butchered than how it’s cooked.
I don’t grind any of my venison into burger or sausages, everything is chops, steaks, roasts, or stew/chili meat. I disagree with Broomstick’s assertion that venison doesn’t taste good without additional fats. Grilled venison tenderloin is a goddamned treat.
“Shitty meat” is quite literally what you denizens of the supermarket meat aisle are eating. Your soggy, tasteless, brine injected chicken breasts have to be soaked in bleach before they’re sent to market. Your beef is loaded with antibiotics because their unnatural corn-only diet is tearing holes in their digestive systems. Your pork chops, which by the way taste exactly like your chicken, come from animals raised on a grated floor to let their shit sluice by as they gnaw on each others’ tails. That, my friend, is some “shitty meat”.
August, remind me to stop by your place for a bite next time I’m in Farmington.
I’ll be there tomorrow, BTW. 
Where I live in Western Canada, trophy hunters MUST take what they kill. It is illegal to take the head, antlers or horns and leave the carcass. Of course, there are always those that break the law. Many, if they don’t want the meat, will donate it to charities. I’ve known a few trophy hunters and all of them took the meat. One guy that hunts all over the world, will take the trophy portion and donate the meat to the local people, sometimes the guides.
As for me, I didn’t always hunt for the meat, though I always used it. I hunted for the thrill of the chase. There is a huge challenge in tracking an animal, getting close enough to it to determine if it is legal, then getting close enough to get a good shot. All the while, being aware of your surroundings and just how close or far away you are from your vehicle. I’ve packed out a deer carcass by myself over a mile through the bush.
Once I tracked what I thought was a deer, for several miles, only to finally get to see it and discover it was an elk. Turn around and head home.
I don’t hunt anymore, but I now buy grass fed beef from a friend. He raises about 25 to 30 cattle every year and sells them to friends at cost. We pick out the steer we want in the spring, and he has them butchered in the winter. In between, we visit with our friends and check out and see how our cow is doing, sometimes bringing the kids with us. The kids are aware of the connection between Daisey and the roast we’re having for supper! It’s part of the cycle of life.
As for grass fed beef, it actually has flavour, though a bit gamey at first until you get used to it. No antibiotics, or hormones and he doesn’t even feed them grain.
The cows have a generally good life, until the day comes that they go to that cold place.
A bigger and really more pertinent question is should we allow species that are experiencing population explosions due to our (humans’) removal of their native predators to overpopulate and suffer long and drawn-out “natural” deaths by starvation, or should we allow hunters to fill that role of predator and cull the population?
Also, what about non-native creatures that are invasive? Here in Texas, the feral hog is a tremendous pest, and while there are technically rules on when and where to hunt them, the unofficial mandate is to kill every one you see, regardless of age, gender, time of year, phase of the moon, or whatever weapon you have.
I live in the southern US so my ideas are based on the culture of the south and may not necessarily apply to every area, but I think most of the major points will apply to most of America. The history of the south, along with most areas not next to or in major city areas, is much closer to a time where the only way to protect yourself or lay any kind of foundation was through the use of a gun.
A lot of hunters come from mid to lower class families in some of the poorest states in the country, in some of the most rural areas, who are living in situations that are really tough on their finances. Hunting provides a cheep way to feed your family a protein filled diet that they wouldn’t have access to without a way to get it otherwise. I think that people who aren’t familiar or didn’t grow up around it get most of their exposure to hunting from celebrities or stories of rich businessmen going to Africa and killing lions, but the truth is that these people just aren’t your average hunter