Meat Protein Sources

[Krystal Shay]

Country boys just put tracking collars on the current season's beagles and send them into the woods to push the deer out. When the season is over, many of the dogs just get turned loose to fend for themselves. The country boys are not gonna feed/maintain the dogs during the off season. I know it's a common practice, but could not ascribe a percentage to it.

I once let a local boy bring his dogs onto my place to train them to flush out rabbits. (I got tons of them.) He will take care of those dogs.

Wow, I have never heard of country boys turning their dogs loose after hunting season was over! My dad and some of my cousins always went rabbit hunting with beagles and they would NEVER let their dogs roam afterwards to fend for themselves. Never! My husband was a hunter also. He had a beagle that lived a pretty good life in the back yard in a big fenced in pen with an insulated dog house. His dog was a great rabbit hunter that was never trained. The dog was a natural hunter. My husband adored his beagle and took good care of him into his doggy old age.

 

[Hedi Mitchell]

I can live off of beans and potatoes no problem. I do eat and like meat,but do not feel the need to over indulge in it.
We eat meat, pork an chicken . I rotate the meats and also cut the quantity used. I can take 2.5 lbs of ground beef and make 3 makes. We like fish, but will only buy certain wild fish caught in certain areas. If we had ways to eat fish more, I could do that, him no so much.
We love a good rib eye, but have resorted to chuck steak on occasion because it is cheaper.
Venison, is good if cooked well.

 

[Marie Miller]

Country boys just put tracking collars on the current season's beagles and send them into the woods to push the deer out. When the season is over, many of the dogs just get turned loose to fend for themselves. The country boys are not gonna feed/maintain the dogs during the off season. I know it's a common practice, but could not ascribe a percentage to it.

I once let a local boy bring his dogs onto my place to train them to flush out rabbits. (I got tons of them.) He will take care of those dogs.

I thought you were in Virginia not Spain. Duck!

 

[Ken Anderson]

I liked venison in the UP of Michigan, but venison in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas was disgusting, and they both came from white-tailed deer. I don't hate moose meat, but it wouldn't be one of my favorite foods even if it were readily available, and I'd have to be starving to eat bear meat. Hunting gray squirrels requires a license and a season in Maine, but the bag limit is four per day, while red squirrels can be hunted without a license, with no bag limit, which seems odd to me because I see gray squirrels all over the place, while I rarely see a red squirrel. I've never tasted squirrel or rabbit, however. We had squirrels and rabbits in the UP of Michigan, but no one I knew hunted them. Snowshoe hares, gray squirrels, and raccoons are the animals most likely to trigger any cameras that I set on my land up north, but I don't hunt.

I know that people eat squirrels, although I suspect it's a small minority of people, perhaps because there can't be a lot of meat on a squirrel. I know that people have eaten rabbits for a long time, and suspect that snowshoe hares are similarly edible, although I'm not sure. I know that coon hunting is a thing in some areas, but I don't know if people eat them.

Goats are a common meat animal in some parts of the world, but I don't know if a lot of people eat goats in the United States. We had goats at various times growing up in the UP, but I don't remember ever being served goat meat. One of them was a milking goat, I know. I'd be sent out to milk the stupid thing once in a while, although I don't think any of the milk ever made it into the house because the damned thing would kick the bucket over. But we had a couple of other goats, too. I was kind of naive when it came to meat animals, and no one ever killed any of them in front of me, so I don't know for sure. I was in my 30s before it dawned on me that the pig didn't really run away.

 

[John Brunner]

Are we healthier, or are our lives somehow richer if we avail ourselves of several types of meat, or is all protein the same?

A quick web search asking the difference between beef and fish protein yields this result:

Beef protein and fish protein are not the same; they come from different sources and have distinct nutritional profiles. Fish protein is generally easier to digest and contains beneficial omega-3 fatty acids, while beef protein is higher in iron and has a different amino acid composition.

It's hard to find data comparing the different meats without doing individual searches because most information compares animal vs plant protein (with most agreeing that animal protein is superior.) One article stated that "...the egg and pork groups also suppressed protein breakdown compared with the plant protein sources." So there's either something different in the protein from eggs & pork, or there's something else in those foods that suppresses protein breakdown while their proteins are the same as other sources.

I've always tried to get a variety of foods in my diet. I never (or very rarely) eat red meat twice in the same day. If I have a burger for lunch, I'll have some non-beef meat for dinner. There may be no nutritional (or rational) benefit to doing this.

The thing I find fascinating is that before centralized production (and distribution) of food items, humans thrived on whatever was available regionally/locally.

 

[Ken Anderson]

I suspect there are advantages to increasing the variety of things that we eat. I also suspect we might eat more red meat than we should.

 

[John Brunner]

I have had good venison and nasty venison. I believe it depends on the deer's diet. Deer that live in areas with corn fields always taste better to me because of their diet. Anything taken elsewhere tastes strong. I always assumed that to be from a diet of roots and acorns.

I have had rabbit once when I was a kid. All I remember is biting into a piece of shot that got overlooked. I've never had squirrel. Considering where I live, I really should try my hand at taking at least small game and trying it. There's videos on our state Dept of Wildlife Resources website that show how to clean critters. I saw one where the guy had a technique for skinning squirrels real fast.

 

[Ken Anderson]

I have had rabbit once when I was a kid. All I remember is biting into a piece of shot that got overlooked.

My brothers didn't hunt rabbits, and I don't remember my mother ever serving rabbits, but we had to watch out for overlooked shot in game birds because they hunted pheasant, partridge, quail, geese, and ducks. I wasn't crazy about any of these game birds; they tasted okay, but barely.

Some people hunt and eat doves, too.

 

[John Brunner]

My brothers didn't hunt rabbits, and I don't remember my mother ever serving rabbits, but we had to watch out for overlooked shot in game birds because they hunted pheasant, partridge, quail, geese, and ducks.

Some people hunt and eat doves, too.

I know my father and older brother shot pheasant when we lived in Indiana. I don't recall eating it. I thought of putting some on my property here, but they are hard to establish. They lay their eggs on the ground wherever they feel the urge, and the chicks just fend for themselves. I have no idea how they survive in the wild like that.

I went dove hunting once with my younger brother on a friend's farm. There's not a lot of sport to it. There is a brief season during their migration, so you stand in an open area and wait for them to fly over, so you're more "dove waiting" than you are dove hunting. As you can imagine, there's not much meat on them. I've heard the same thing about wild turkeys, although I've had neither.

I have had duck several times at a Chinese restaurant that specialized in Peking Duck. It's very good and very rich. I've had goose once, also at a restaurant, but I was pretty young and don't recall how it tasted, although I remember that I did not hate it.

 

[Beth Gallagher]

Wow, I have never heard of country boys turning their dogs loose after hunting season was over!

Me either. We always had hound dogs of one kind or another on the farm and they were treated like family... except they were never allowed in the house. I've never heard of any "country boys" who let their dogs run free to fend for themselves, especially trained hunting dogs.

 

[Marie Miller]

If you do not know how to cook game please do not serve your first attempt to unsuspecting company. Age, feed, time of the year - it all adds up. I would not bother with a trophy buck in rut
Squirrel is not a lot of meat but tasty. Pretty much like rabbit. I cooked my first batch for a beer bet. Then SO took the sofa lion hunting. We had an invasion of squirrels. She chased them up the tree and kept them there.