Why do I eat roadkill deer? That is a
question that a lot of people have for me.
First, I want to say that I do not call
them roadkill deer. I call them deer that
were hit by cars. Now, why? First, it is
sustainable, it is abundant, it is free,
and it is a resource that would otherwise
go to waste. There are a lot of reasons
why it makes sense, and in this video I
am going to share why I choose to do it.
[music playing]
Before I explain why, I want to make a few
things clear. First off, why I do not call
it roadkill deer and instead call them
deer that were hit by cars. The reason why
is that the moment before that deer was
hit, it was a deer walking through the
woods. If I was hit by a car, I would not
be a roadkill human, I would still be a
human when I was on the side of the road.
And first and foremost, that deer is still
a deer. Now, people's imaginations run
wild when they think of roadkill deer.
They see the transformation as something
completely other, but the point is that it
is still first and foremost a deer. Now,
when media has reported on the fact that
I have eaten deer that I have collected
from the side of the road, they like to
say things like "he scraped it up from
the side of the road," and that is when
the imagination has run totally wrong,
because of media, because of maybe seeing
things on TV, or because of seeing really
messy ones on the side of the road. But
the messy ones, the ones that have been
splatted, of course you simply do not mess
with that. Often, deer that are hit are
very minimally damaged, and they are
laying on the side of the road as you
would see a body. When people talk about
eating animals that were hit by cars, they
are not talking about scraping things up,
they are talking about perfectly good
animals that were recently, very recently
alive, and are still in really excellent
condition to be able to harvest. To make
sure we are really on the same page, I
want to show you a couple of pictures.
First, this is a picture of a doe that I
harvested, and you can see the condition
that it is in. No scraping, no splatting,
it looks like it is in very good shape,
and indeed it was. Now, here is a picture
of the first deer that I ever harvested,
and it was a fawn. You can see that it has
ruptured in the intestines a little bit,
but the rest of the body is still intact
and in very good shape. So now that you
have seen a couple of those pictures, we
can really be on the same page in
understanding this and moving forward into
why I actually do it, the benefits of
doing it, and why I think it makes a lot
of sense. First of all, the biggest reason
for me is that it is a truly sustainable
source of meat. In Wisconsin, where I am
from (I was born there, raised there, and
lived there until I was about twenty-three
years old), close to twenty thousand deer
are killed by cars per year. It is an
incredible amount. That is not even
including all that are hit, that is just
the ones that are killed. So that is a
very, very large number of deer that
are killed by cars. There is no shipping,
there is no packaging, there are no farms
with pesticides and herbicides and all of
that. It is a resource that is sustainable
to harvest, and for me by harvesting a
deer that is hit by a car, I do not have
to go hunting for one myself. People who
know me know that I am very much an
advocate of not wasting things, and of
utilizing wasted resources, so a deer that
is hit by a car is a perfect example of
making good use of a resource that was
otherwise waste, so it makes perfect sense
to harvest these rather than them going to
waste. In some municipalities they are
actually picked up and taken to the
landfill, in some they are dragged into
the woods, and actually in Minnesota there
is a wolf research center that they are taken to.
But a lot of the time they are completely
wasted, so it is a way to utilize a wasted
resource, and this to me is basic common
sense. The next reason why I harvest these
deer is because it is free! This is
non-monetized, no money needed, and I
do not need to go to the grocery store and
buy the food, buy the meat, because it is
right there and it is completely free. A
lot of the time people do this when they
are driving down the road, already going
somewhere, and they see it and they can
pick it up, so it costs no money
whatsoever. So that to me makes a lot of
sense. You can save hundreds or thousands
of dollars per year by harvesting these
animals. One deer alone could be worth
hundreds of dollars worth of meat, so
financially it makes a lot of sense for
myself, and for a lot of other people as
well. The next reason is because it is
really easy. A lot of people think it is
this really complicated thing, and before
I ever did it, I was pretty clueless.
I was trying to watch YouTube videos, I
was trying to figure out how this works,
but I realized it is actually really
simple and really easy. I was amazed at
how easy the process is. The next reason
is because it is not as uncommon as a lot
of people would think. I would venture to
say that millions of Americans eat animals
that were hit by cars. I would actually go
as far as to say it is a very American
thing to do, it is a part of a lot of
cities' and counties' systems. In some
places what happens is if a deer is hit,
they call the local police or department
of natural resources, and there is
actually a waiting list where they then
call people to come and pick them up.
So it is actually quite common, it is not
something necessarily that a lot of people
talk about because there is a social
stigma. The reason you are watching this
video right now might be because of the
social stigma in the first place. So a lot
less people talk about it than actually do
it, but is very common to eat animals that
were hit by cars. And the reason it is so
common is because it is not dangerous.
Like I said, it is not scraping up animals
from the side of the road, and it is not
deer that are covered in maggots. Deer
do not go from living beings to being hit
to the next moment being covered in
maggots, there is a time in between, a
safe time to harvest, which is actually a
pretty decent window of time, depending on
the weather, depending on the environment.
It really comes down to using common sense.
Unfortunately, we have lost our common
sense when it comes to food. Our suggested
sell-by dates and our expiration dates and
our best-before dates are a perfect
example of that. Most people just look at
those dates and they think the food is bad
afterwards; they do not use their common
sense or their senses, they just look at
numbers on a package. Now, when I am
harvesting a deer that is hit by a car, I
am using, first of all, common sense,
which is not so common when it comes to
these things anymore, and next I am using
my basic senses. I am using my smell. I
am using my sight. I am using my touch,
and at the very end I would use my taste
as another sense. So these basic senses
allow this to be done completely safely,
and it is not dangerous at all. That is
one of the reasons that I do it—if it was
dangerous, it would be a different story.
And the very last reason I am going to
share today is simply that it is not
gross. I have mentioned that multiple
times already, but to prove that point and
make you think about it a bit more, I
would say that any of the deer that I
have harvested, I could cook it up at your
home for you, and if you eat meat, you
would never know, you would never question
it, it would just be like any other meat.
Although way better than any of that
factory-farmed pig, cow, chicken, fish
that most people are eating. That is
another thing that I did not mention,
this is really good quality meat. Deer to
me are one of the best quality meats out
there. They are raised on the land, they
are eating good-quality food, living a
good life up until that moment, and that
is one of the biggest things that I did
not even mention: it is really extremely
good-quality food to eat. Those are the
reasons that I choose to eat deer that
were hit by cars. I am not going to go
through how to do it or how to harvest it,
how to tell if it is good or not. Those
are all details that are kind of a next
level, that is for people who are really
wanting to possibly do this, not just
learn about why I do it, understand that
perspective. If that is the case and you
want to learn more, let me know in the
comments and I will make a video that
teaches how to tell if it is still good,
and then I can do another video that
teaches how to do it. If there is a lot
of interest, that is something I will
definitely do. I know that this
conversation for many people is just
completely out of this world, and
still, even after everything I have
described it would be considered gross or
socially taboo for them, or a hit to the
ego to do something like this, and I just
want to say that does not matter to me.
I do not live a life based on labels. I
think labels create a false sense of
security and an ability to really detach
from reality. I aim to live a very real
life, and to me this is real. This is my
real life and this is the real life of
millions of people, whether they talk
about it or not. This is something you can
expect from me: to go to the grey areas,
to not be black and white, because the
world is not a black and white place.
I hope that this video has shined a light
on why I would do this, on why other
people would do it, and really has gotten
you thinking about your food, about your
relationship to your food and where it
comes from, and a little bit more about
another perspective in life. If you got a
lot out of this video, make sure to
subscribe. There are a lot more to come.
And if this is something you want other
people to see, make sure to share it,
comment, and like it. On that note,
I love you all very much, it has been
wonderful sharing this perspective with
you, and I will see you again real soon.
Subtitles by the Amara.org community