Mad Cow - from a hunter's perspective?

[sayala]

LAST EDITED ON Jan-06-04 AT 06:11PM (MST)[p]Hi, I'm the wife of a hunter and a fellow Monster Muley poster. I just wanted to get you all's take on Mad Cow. I'm new to eating elk/deer after being totally against it. My husband and I have learned how to clean it and cook it properly to where I'll eat it. Anyhow, I found this interesting article that you might find interesting. I'm just curious if this has changed anyone's outlook on eating game, or beef for that matter, after all this hoopla?

Here's the link http://whyfiles.org/012mad_cow/


Wife of a hunter.........

 

[HunterHarry]

As a lifelong hunter and a Butcher of 25+ years, I have seen all the food scares come and go,(Salmonella,E-coli,Mercury in seafood,bla,bla bla)I may be wrong,but I think the media thrives on scare tactics it gets you to watch the news,it sells magazines and newspapers.I as one in the food industry am getting a little battle weary of the shots the media takes at us.

 

[bobcatbess]

WELL LETS SEE

I LIKE EATING BEEF,ESPECIALLY WHEN I KNOW WHERE MY BEEF COMES FROM!!!

FOR THOSE WHO BUY IT OUT OF THE STORES,KINDA MAKES YOU WONDER,DON'T IT???

MY DEER AND SOMETIMES ELK,I KNOW EXACTLY HOW IT WAS TAKEN CARE OF,BY FAR BETTER THAN MOST BEEF!!!

SOME WILL DISAGREE,I DON'T CARE!!!

SHOULD I GET A MAD COW ROAST OUT FOR DINNER OR SHOULD I PULL A CWD STEAK OUT,I DON'T KNOW???

THE ONLY bobcat EATING ONLY WHAT HE GROWS OR SHOOTS!!!

 

[huntsonora]

I have been driving a car for almost 15 years. I am thinking about hanging up my set of car keys. Check this out:

http://www.car-accidents.net/car-accident-stats.html

Scary huh?

I think I will start riding a bike to work everyday.

http://www.massbike.org/info/statistics.htm

On second thought maybe I will walk to work.

http://www.nsc.org/library/rept2000.htm

Hell with it, I'll take my chances in my truck after all.


My point of this is no matter what we do whether its eating a hamburger, driving a car or simply screwing in a lightbulb there will be an element of risk involved. I would not allow one case of Mad Cow scare me away from beef just yet. I'll take a wait and see attitude towards this one now if you will excuse me I am going to walk out to my truck and drive to the nearest restaurant to have a big, fat, juicy steak.

Drummond

 

[txhunter58]

I am a veterinarian, and these diseases are very perplexing and complex even to me! CWD seems to be "contagious", maybe not to all the population, but some, through direct contact or contaminated environment. Mad cow disease (Bovine Spongioform Encephalopathy) seems to be contagious by contaminated feeds but not through direct contact or environment. A certain, probably small number of people, who eat contaminated meat evidently get the human form.

I suspect that if 100 people were to eat known mad cow contaminated meat 1 or 2 might come get the disease, but no one knows for sure which of us are susceptible and which are resistent.

At this point, I would not eat or let my family eat BSE meat or CWD meat. If I were to kill a healthy elk or deer and not have it tested, I would probably eat it and not worry to much about it. Hopefully we will have better answers in the future.

txhunter58

venor, ergo sum (I hunt, therefore I am)

 

[polarbear]

I also only eat meat that I have either grown myself or harvested in the wild. Since this mad cow scare I have had several people ask me to raise beef for them because they concider it safer than store bought. I dont completely agree.
We have a disease in some of our blacktail called chronic hair loss syndrome. It is a parasite, derrived from an Asian snail, that gets into young deer's lungs and back mucles. I causes the deer to lose appetite and hair. They look malnourished and have large blotches of hair missing from various parts of the body. Usually if an infected deer makes it through the first winter with the illness, it will eventually recover completely. However, if the winter is hard(extended cold spells) the infected animal will usually die of hypothermia. As of yet it hasnt been determined if this disease can be transfered to humans via ingestion of infected meat.
Is this enough to scare me or any of my hunting buddies away from eating blacktail meat? No Way! In fact there are very few people that I have run across who will not eat vennison because of it.
Like Hunter Harry, I believe that the media and the hippies have blow this disease crap way out of proportion just to scare some folks. Well, it aint workin"!
Eric

Life long "vagitarian"

 

[Wes]

I'm goin to go along with HunterHarry on this one. I too belive it's all a bunch of bunk and hooey. I remember reading about CWD around 30 years ago in one of the outdoor magizines. They were claiming the same thing then as today. With so many anti hunting and anti ranching groups on the loose spreading their lies I don't believe any of this is true.
Wes

Screw the wolves, save the Cowboy

 

[Cass]

Drummond put it very well as did HunterHarry.
There is always media behind the big things.
whereas, as drummond has put it there is risk involved. Fish can become polluted, deer can become contaminated, elk. Everything that we eat, literally is at risk. From the water we drink to the bread we make our sandwiches with. Vennison, I absolutely adore, I prefer it WAY over beef anyday. I have about 60+ lbs of it left in my freezer. Elk is another animal I love. Not stringy like beef, but tender. Has a much richer flavor in my opinion. But, you can't let it get to you. Sure CWD is out there, Sure Mad cow is out there, but don't let it jeopardize the way you go about your life / eating habits.





-Cass

 

[Phantom (Guest)]

Well, coming from Canada, I want to thank you guys for the supportive comments concerning BSE and CWD. Quite the controversial topics, and it is nice to see that the general public is not being swayed by the media hoopla. We are not in the cattle business up here, but the economy in this area is driven by it, and it is starting to take its toll on the locals. The general mood at coffee row is reported to be depressing, and there may be a lot of ranchland available for some new outfitting companies if it keeps up.

Thanks for the support.

 

[Jeffery (Guest)]

I know I'm not the most informed about the Mad Cow disease. What is it? Does this mean we are getting really tempermental cattle in the U.S? If this is the case, I'm guessing it's a mental thing, kind of like Ahlzymers disease. Thanks for responding if you get a chance.

Jeffery Tomlinson

 

[Phantom (Guest)]

>I know I'm not the most
>informed about the Mad Cow
>disease. What is it?
> Does this mean we
>are getting really tempermental cattle
>in the U.S? If
>this is the case, I'm
>guessing it's a mental thing,
>kind of like Ahlzymers disease.
> Thanks for responding if
>you get a chance.
>
>Jeffery Tomlinson

BSE, or mad cow disease is an affliction of the brain that affects the nervous system. Cattle that are infected often lose weight, and become clumsy, progressing to the point where they can no longer get to their feet. Contaminated feed is the source of the disease, which s not contaigous to other cattle. There is little anger of human infection from consumption of the meat, unless brain and spinal cord fluid and tissue have contacted and contaminated the meat, or these tissues themselves are eaten (not likely, either). The cattle themselves do not become aggressive, actually, quite the opposite, they are generally listless and lethargic.

 

[buckchaser]

Mad cow disease is media hype. Check out this article.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,107188,00.html

This link may need to be fully copied to veiw. When I preview it does not highlight it all.

I eat meat and always will

Marc

 

[idhunters (Guest)]

Don't let the media scare you away from beef. The US has the safest food supply in the world and if your still nervous, go find a local cattle producer, view the animals and buy one!

Stay away from brains and spinal fluid, but whole muscle cuts are just fine.

Get ground chuck instead of hamburger and you will know that it was ground from a whole muscle instead of "parts and pieces".

Stick with meat graded "choice" or "prime", which is generally from animals less than 30 months old. Mad cow has not been diagnosed in young animals. "Select" graded meat can come from older "cull" animals.

Also, a nationwide ban on the processing of "downer" cattle (those to sick to stand) is now in effect. This should have been done years ago anyway, but it will be another safeguard in the food chain.

 

[cowboye]

Well being in a state where there is a lot of cattle, myself included owning several head. I have to agree with Hunter Harry, The Media thrives on scare tatics.....it has got to the point of a Joke to me...and then it will go on and on and on....

I raise cattle(hard to figure from my handle), I am not worried about this issue with the cow that supposedly came from Can. Our beef Industry in the States is one of the best if NOT the best in the WORLD!.....only thing that bothers me, is the Media and price it is going to affect on some peoples livelyhood....Dwayne