wankerjake
Member
Hunters:
Recently we've had discussions in another thread about wounded animals, adrenaline, and quality of meat. This can be a polarizing topic depending on the circumstances. Here are some thoughts I have on the matter. I feel somewhat strongly on the issue for a specific reason: when I was a young hunter I wanted to be a good one and I wanted to fit it and I loved sitting around a store or a campfire and hearing hunting tales and advice and I always pointed my ears and wanted to learn. Since I've become a reasonably successful outdoorsman I have learned that a lot of dogma in the hunting community ranges from real, to kind of real, to absolute bunk. As a kid, when my own experience differed from a known tradition or tale I constantly questioned the validity of my experiences.
So, adrenaline and meat quality has always been an interesting topic for me, starting when I was a kid hearing the old, wise hunters talk about adrenaline and how it just ruins the meat. Makes it taste bad, makes it tough. Typical tales included:
Uncle Chuck: "Billy shot a buck in the arse and it ran a lot and just tasted like garbage, had to throw it away. Whole thing was ruined."
Joe Grundle: "Johnny did the same thing two years ago with an elk. Meat was nasty, we tossed it. That’s why I always make a clean kill. Right behind the shoulder boy, I get the heart and lungs both, every time."
You’ve all heard it, perhaps you have the same stories. Perhaps you’ve told them. As children It makes us feel good to relate to a told story. It makes us feel good as adults too. It makes us feel uncomfortable to have a different idea than someone we look up to. We just want to be part of the group and what is adrenaline anyway but a nasty hormone that game animals produce when a kid or an unethical idiot doesn’t blow up their hearts and lungs both, by shooting them behind the shoulder with a single shot, usually using a venerable cartridge like Jack O’Connor? Legends are made and traditions are born and passed down the line based on oral tradition. This is not a new concept.
We always butchered our own meat. I grew up on wild game and still consume a great deal of it. I was 13 when I killed my first cow elk. Shot her in the arse, we had a little tracking job and my dad put a finishing shot in her when we caught up because I couldn’t see it. I hope the forum will forgive me. I felt bad, and I asked “Dad. Is the meat going to be ok?”
He said: “of course it is, why wouldn’t it be?”
“Because I made a bad shot.”
He shook his head and said something like “son, this wasn’t optimal but you’re still learning and these things happen to everyone at some point. This is a healthy cow, she's on the ground now, and we're going to eat her all year."
I remember being scared about the meat quality, but he was right. We gutted and skinned her, she hung in camp a day or two while the rest of the party hunted, and then we took her home and butchered her. She was kept clean and dry and cold. We cut off the fat, washed off or cut around any bloodshot, and removed fat and large tendons. She tasted awesome and I was proud to contribute to the diet. I was relieved that the dreaded chemical 'adrenaline' failed to de-tenderize and otherwise taint the meat, make it 'gamey' and unfit for my consumption.
I've always loved to hunt. I loved to hunt before I ever hunted. Performing the act was just confirmation. The sole goal of my life was to kill a buck and I did that when I was 12. It was everything I thought it could be and I hope I never lose my love of the hunt. It hasn't always been gravy. I've tracked animals, I've finished animals, and I've cut up a lot of meat. I'm not the most accomplished hunter in the world but I am generally successful and I have hunted or accompanied several hunts every year since I was 12. I have seen some things, I've been to some straight up rodeos, and I have made wild game the first and foremost staple in my diet. One thing I started to notice; the meat was pretty much always good if well taken care of and butchered well. This did not jive with the oral tradition. Sometimes we'd get an animal that seems extra tough or a little gamey... but it died well. Why was that? Sometimes we'd have a wounded animal to track and finish but the meat was fine. What the heck? Literal tons of deer and elk meat have died and passed across my table and by and large the oral tradition has seemed more like a myth. For some reason, this one was harder to let go of than others.
Then I had to take a fair mount of anatomy and physiology courses and learned what adrenaline actually is. I learned what it does, when it is released, its role in fight or flight. I paid extra attention, since hunting is usually at the fore-front of my mind, and I drew additional conclusions...and I say that animals can die hard and still be tasty. In fact, adrenaline likely has very little to no bearing on the quality of meat. This assertion will be unpopular.
The physiological and scientific basis for the phenomenon remains poor however, the explanations of what happens are varied (tough, taste bad, tastes funky etc), and the average Joe’s understanding of what adrenaline even is tends to be elementary. The idea that epinephrine, a natural hormone found in all mammals and that is routinely released during physiological stress and exercise of all forms, tastes inherently bad and causes meat to be unpalatable is not grounded by scientific evidence, nor it is really intuitive. Every animal that sees you first gets a shot of adrenaline, every double-lunged animal that runs 100 yards and dies gets a shot of adrenaline. Adrenaline is being released when animals get scared, when they get aroused, when they exert themselves, when they are wounded, when they die; clean deaths, hard deaths, medium agreeable deaths. Releasing adrenaline is a very main thing the body does to cope with blood loss and stress and pain and fear, to try and keep the animal alert and evasive and alive.
If it taints the meat, then even good clean kills should be “a little” tainted. By this line of thought, every wing-shot bird, be it just traveling or flushed, is using adrenaline. Every one. Epinephrine starts 'pumping' from fear and during exertion after all. Fight or flight, right? Migrating birds are in ‘flight’ mode, would you agree? Flushed birds even more so, obviously. And then they are stoned from the air and plummet to the ground and either lay crumpled or try to run. Do the runners taste bad? The whole mess of quail or dove usually tasted good to me...why is that?
Every animal hunted with dogs must be bad too right? Hunting rabbits with Beagles is an honorable chase, but...the meat must taste like garbage huh? Fact is that those rabbits have to be, by definition, "full of adrenaline." How did coursing for hares ever catch on? Same with lions and bears and deer chased with dogs. Deer drives? Migrating caribou? So many exceptions!
If animals killed badly taste different, there’s no reason at all to believe it to be from adrenaline. But they really don’t taste differently provided the meat is taken care of properly. I’ve butchered and eaten enough game and domestic animals for slaughter to know there’s no appreciable difference between animals who have had the meat taken care of prior to butchering, and the butchering is done rightly. I would assert that other factors are more important, namely the care of the meat during field dressing, transport, and butchering. Dirty stuff needs to be cleaned or cut around. Bloodshot should be cleaned and cut around. Fat and heavy sinews should be removed from the grind pile. The carcass should be kept as clean and dry and cold as possible. The quality of death should be a focal point for the respect of the animal and for the honor and integrity of the hunt. The care of the carcass should be the focal point of protecting the integrity and quality of the meat.
What say you hunters?
**poll added to assess prevalence of ideas
Recently we've had discussions in another thread about wounded animals, adrenaline, and quality of meat. This can be a polarizing topic depending on the circumstances. Here are some thoughts I have on the matter. I feel somewhat strongly on the issue for a specific reason: when I was a young hunter I wanted to be a good one and I wanted to fit it and I loved sitting around a store or a campfire and hearing hunting tales and advice and I always pointed my ears and wanted to learn. Since I've become a reasonably successful outdoorsman I have learned that a lot of dogma in the hunting community ranges from real, to kind of real, to absolute bunk. As a kid, when my own experience differed from a known tradition or tale I constantly questioned the validity of my experiences.
So, adrenaline and meat quality has always been an interesting topic for me, starting when I was a kid hearing the old, wise hunters talk about adrenaline and how it just ruins the meat. Makes it taste bad, makes it tough. Typical tales included:
Uncle Chuck: "Billy shot a buck in the arse and it ran a lot and just tasted like garbage, had to throw it away. Whole thing was ruined."
Joe Grundle: "Johnny did the same thing two years ago with an elk. Meat was nasty, we tossed it. That’s why I always make a clean kill. Right behind the shoulder boy, I get the heart and lungs both, every time."
You’ve all heard it, perhaps you have the same stories. Perhaps you’ve told them. As children It makes us feel good to relate to a told story. It makes us feel good as adults too. It makes us feel uncomfortable to have a different idea than someone we look up to. We just want to be part of the group and what is adrenaline anyway but a nasty hormone that game animals produce when a kid or an unethical idiot doesn’t blow up their hearts and lungs both, by shooting them behind the shoulder with a single shot, usually using a venerable cartridge like Jack O’Connor? Legends are made and traditions are born and passed down the line based on oral tradition. This is not a new concept.
We always butchered our own meat. I grew up on wild game and still consume a great deal of it. I was 13 when I killed my first cow elk. Shot her in the arse, we had a little tracking job and my dad put a finishing shot in her when we caught up because I couldn’t see it. I hope the forum will forgive me. I felt bad, and I asked “Dad. Is the meat going to be ok?”
He said: “of course it is, why wouldn’t it be?”
“Because I made a bad shot.”
He shook his head and said something like “son, this wasn’t optimal but you’re still learning and these things happen to everyone at some point. This is a healthy cow, she's on the ground now, and we're going to eat her all year."
I remember being scared about the meat quality, but he was right. We gutted and skinned her, she hung in camp a day or two while the rest of the party hunted, and then we took her home and butchered her. She was kept clean and dry and cold. We cut off the fat, washed off or cut around any bloodshot, and removed fat and large tendons. She tasted awesome and I was proud to contribute to the diet. I was relieved that the dreaded chemical 'adrenaline' failed to de-tenderize and otherwise taint the meat, make it 'gamey' and unfit for my consumption.
I've always loved to hunt. I loved to hunt before I ever hunted. Performing the act was just confirmation. The sole goal of my life was to kill a buck and I did that when I was 12. It was everything I thought it could be and I hope I never lose my love of the hunt. It hasn't always been gravy. I've tracked animals, I've finished animals, and I've cut up a lot of meat. I'm not the most accomplished hunter in the world but I am generally successful and I have hunted or accompanied several hunts every year since I was 12. I have seen some things, I've been to some straight up rodeos, and I have made wild game the first and foremost staple in my diet. One thing I started to notice; the meat was pretty much always good if well taken care of and butchered well. This did not jive with the oral tradition. Sometimes we'd get an animal that seems extra tough or a little gamey... but it died well. Why was that? Sometimes we'd have a wounded animal to track and finish but the meat was fine. What the heck? Literal tons of deer and elk meat have died and passed across my table and by and large the oral tradition has seemed more like a myth. For some reason, this one was harder to let go of than others.
Then I had to take a fair mount of anatomy and physiology courses and learned what adrenaline actually is. I learned what it does, when it is released, its role in fight or flight. I paid extra attention, since hunting is usually at the fore-front of my mind, and I drew additional conclusions...and I say that animals can die hard and still be tasty. In fact, adrenaline likely has very little to no bearing on the quality of meat. This assertion will be unpopular.
The physiological and scientific basis for the phenomenon remains poor however, the explanations of what happens are varied (tough, taste bad, tastes funky etc), and the average Joe’s understanding of what adrenaline even is tends to be elementary. The idea that epinephrine, a natural hormone found in all mammals and that is routinely released during physiological stress and exercise of all forms, tastes inherently bad and causes meat to be unpalatable is not grounded by scientific evidence, nor it is really intuitive. Every animal that sees you first gets a shot of adrenaline, every double-lunged animal that runs 100 yards and dies gets a shot of adrenaline. Adrenaline is being released when animals get scared, when they get aroused, when they exert themselves, when they are wounded, when they die; clean deaths, hard deaths, medium agreeable deaths. Releasing adrenaline is a very main thing the body does to cope with blood loss and stress and pain and fear, to try and keep the animal alert and evasive and alive.
If it taints the meat, then even good clean kills should be “a little” tainted. By this line of thought, every wing-shot bird, be it just traveling or flushed, is using adrenaline. Every one. Epinephrine starts 'pumping' from fear and during exertion after all. Fight or flight, right? Migrating birds are in ‘flight’ mode, would you agree? Flushed birds even more so, obviously. And then they are stoned from the air and plummet to the ground and either lay crumpled or try to run. Do the runners taste bad? The whole mess of quail or dove usually tasted good to me...why is that?
Every animal hunted with dogs must be bad too right? Hunting rabbits with Beagles is an honorable chase, but...the meat must taste like garbage huh? Fact is that those rabbits have to be, by definition, "full of adrenaline." How did coursing for hares ever catch on? Same with lions and bears and deer chased with dogs. Deer drives? Migrating caribou? So many exceptions!
If animals killed badly taste different, there’s no reason at all to believe it to be from adrenaline. But they really don’t taste differently provided the meat is taken care of properly. I’ve butchered and eaten enough game and domestic animals for slaughter to know there’s no appreciable difference between animals who have had the meat taken care of prior to butchering, and the butchering is done rightly. I would assert that other factors are more important, namely the care of the meat during field dressing, transport, and butchering. Dirty stuff needs to be cleaned or cut around. Bloodshot should be cleaned and cut around. Fat and heavy sinews should be removed from the grind pile. The carcass should be kept as clean and dry and cold as possible. The quality of death should be a focal point for the respect of the animal and for the honor and integrity of the hunt. The care of the carcass should be the focal point of protecting the integrity and quality of the meat.
What say you hunters?
**poll added to assess prevalence of ideas
