Venison concerns

[LadyHawk77]

So I love to hunt. I hunt with a traditional bow and traditional muzzleloader. I process my own meat and have fed it to may family for years.
Now as I sit and watch the neighbors fields get sprayed and sprayed with chemicals I am getting worried. We live in the midwest so our deer feed on corn and soybeans. I work hard to grow non chemically treated veggies, organic chickens and eggs. Then I feed my kids venison grown on genetically altered chemically treated crops.
Anyone else have this concern? Thoughts?

[Bret]

I am not worried. I read once that we have identified over 600 plants species that deer eat in North America. They eat more than treated crops. I understand your concern. I am more concerned about some of the diseases that they face in some areas. Looking forward to the hunt too. Have fun.

[GREENCOUNTYPETE]

I don't worry about it most of the chemicals are sprayed in spring and deer season isn't till the end of November most all the corn is down by then and even at that it is at much lower levels.

the other thing is most animals store the bad stuff in their fat , like when they find high pcb levels in fish they usually find it in the belly fat not the lean meat. and venison is a fat on the outside meat, and we trim all we can get off of it. the big chunks are rendered for other non cooking uses.

another thing to weight in is that store meat , the animal is fed near constantly in the last 30 some days of it's life almost to the point of the animal going into cardiac issues while deer can put on a fair amount of weight from a heavily corn diet they are still working and running much more than any confined feed animal.

as my dad would puts it , there is a fella in his fishing club been eating the fish from lake Michigan 3-4-5 times a week for 50-60 years the last 30 of which they have been warning not to eat to much , the fella is nearly 80 years old and doing very well health wise , he probably gets far more benefit from his time out fishing and working on his boat and a diet of lean protein and good fish oils, than he is detriment-ed by the potential stuff in the fish.

[farmerDale]

I wouldn't worry too much. The amount ingested by deer is so minimal. It's funny. People drink a chemical called alcohol directly. They know after a big drunk the alcohol is metabolized, broken down, loses its efficacy.

Yet a farmer sprays a crop with a few grams of herbicide, and a deer is harvested 150 days later, yet some think the herbicide is still there, does not break down, and is as if it were applied directly to the deers' mouth.

With a better understanding of where chemicals go, the issue becomes moot.

JMHO. A deer would have to eat an entire acre of wheat on my farm, immediately after the sprayer passed by, to ingest 70 ml, or about 1/4 cup of Clodinofp herbicide. That just aint gonna happen. And as the plants metabolize and digest the herbicide, with each passing day, the herbicide concentration gets less and less. Like a big old weekend drunk, the herbicide has limited effect timewise.

[Nimrod]

I would not worry about the farm chemicals finding their way into your venison.

Anti-hunting groups have adopted the strategy teaching people that wild game is a meat for poor people or some how unsafe to eat. The logic is that fewer hunters will eventually not have the votes to stop hunting from being banned. If there were any truth to your fears they would have jumped all over it.

When we had a few mild winters, the deer population got way too large. The regs allowed you to take up to 5 deer. Since most people can't eat 5 deer in a year, they instituted a program where you could donate your extra deer to a licensed processor who would butcher the animal and give the meat to food shelves. The anti hunters made a big deal out of lead found in deer meat and the poor people refused to eat it so the program ended. Some of the poor refused to take the deer meat because it was below their dignity to eat wild meat????? Further study found that if the meat along the bullet's path was removed the rest of the meat was safe to eat and the program was reinstated. The really sad thing is that tons of perfectly good meat was buried in landfills. What a waste.

[RonM]

Nothing better than a good deer steak.

[MikeG49]

I understand your concern since the venison would no longer be truly organic. I'd still bet its 10 times better than the hormone injected beef at the grocery store! Rest easy knowing you're still eating the best available meat.

[jwal10]

It is 50 miles to the nearest "farm" field or yard for the deer, elk or bear that I gather. I understand the thought....James

[Homesteadwi5]

It is a valid concern,but i'd have to agree with others,the risk is much lower than eating the grocery store franken foods,our meat is pretty much 90% harvested wild meat,except for the chickens we raise

[Pinetop Hunting]

Venison is all I eat except for the occasional chicken or squirrel or sumthin. We go through about 10 per year. Best red meat on the planet!!

[MichaelZ]

I have no concern about eating venison. But then again, deer around here eat more wild sources of food than farmer's fields. This is authentic free-range meat. The Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) does not even concern me - there has not been a single confirmed case of cwd transmitted to humans. I would not eat a sick deer (or any other sick animal) though.