What are some edible pest species?
May 28, 2013 12:32 AM   Subscribe

I'm a (nominal) vegetarian for environmental reasons. But I do like the taste of meat. Somewhat of a practical compromise is that I allow myself to eat pest species, or animals that are culled then sold for good reasons. So I wouldn't mind eating some Kangaroo because they are being culled anyway, and they have a small environmental footprint. But in general, I'm not sure what is pest/culled for environmental reasons. My Google-fu has failed me here. What are some sources of meat/poultry/seafood that are suitable for a environmentally conscious diet? I'm not averse to eating things shipped from different parts of the world.
posted by butwheresthesushi to Food & Drink (34 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I believe deer are regularly culled in parts of the US (Eastern US I think), so perhaps venison?

I spent some time in South Africa, and I know they cull certain species of antelope there. I remember eating some (although I do not know if it was the same species that was regularly culled, alas) but have no idea how you might be able to get some outside of that country.
posted by Squee at 12:37 AM on May 28, 2013


Deer and geese are often killed for population control reasons in the US, but I'm under the impression that the culled animals don't end up being used as food (parasite worries in the geese, and perhaps wasting disease / transmissible spongiform encephalopathy in the deer?)
posted by hattifattener at 12:39 AM on May 28, 2013


I'm not averse to eating things shipped from different parts of the world.

Different to where?

Eat all the rabbits you want, in Australia. Also feral pigs (they make good salami, I gather), and common carp.

So I wouldn't mind eating some Kangaroo because they are being culled anyway, and they have a small environmental footprint.

Nah, eat the rabbits, with the big environmental footprint.
posted by pompomtom at 12:46 AM on May 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


(also: to be fair, if you're a vegetarian for environmental reasons, isn't flying dinner in a bit weird?)
posted by pompomtom at 12:50 AM on May 28, 2013 [22 favorites]


I am not sure if the meat is widely available commercially yet, but the lionfish is incredibly invasive throughout the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. NOAA is recommending hunting and eating of the fish to control the population, which is destroying coral reef ecosystems.
posted by topophilia at 12:52 AM on May 28, 2013 [5 favorites]


Wild boar in the US.
posted by batmonkey at 12:54 AM on May 28, 2013


Generally hunting licences in the US don't allow the hunter to sell the meat. Generally, commercially available meat is grown specifically for that purpose -- there are ranches for buffalo, elk, probably others. Rabbits are also raised to sell their meat.

So if you want to have a minimal impact on the environment, getting meat shipped from the United States isn't going to do that.
posted by yohko at 1:12 AM on May 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


If you're near Louisana you can eat Nutria and I've heard they taste rather good, if a bit gamey. What about raising your own chickens where you can feed them table scraps and use their manure as fertilizer to grow your own food. If you really want the least environmental impact I think that would be it. Possibly the best for the chickens also because they would be free range and allowed to roam inside their pen (which would obviously large enough and exciting enough to occupy their time.)
posted by koolkat at 1:15 AM on May 28, 2013


Regarding eating culled deer, here in Wisconsin one can purchase venison (often already processed into sausage) that fits this criteria from Native American sources, including tribal enterprises.
posted by carmicha at 1:22 AM on May 28, 2013


Squirrels.
posted by Bruce H. at 1:22 AM on May 28, 2013


If you're doing it for environmental reasons, you need to be a locavore. Eat kangaroo if you live in a place where they are a pest and you can get their carcasses without a lot of transportation. Shipping meat thousands of miles is not ecological.

Under your scheme and living where I think you live, you ought to eat local rodents. Bon appetit.
posted by pracowity at 2:04 AM on May 28, 2013 [3 favorites]


Come to Virginia and eat some cicadas --- I understand they're good in things like stir-fries.
posted by easily confused at 3:03 AM on May 28, 2013


I would just like to weigh in and comment that food miles are not as simple as commonly supposed, and indeed some local foods are actually, environmentally speaking, much worse than non-local foods, including shipping. As a concept, it is actually not very useful, and has as many exceptions as adherents. People tend to grossly overestimate the environmental cost of shipping, and underestimate the environmental costs of producing food in general.
posted by smoke at 3:11 AM on May 28, 2013 [3 favorites]


smoke: "I would just like to weigh in and comment that food miles are not as simple as commonly supposed, and indeed some local foods are actually, environmentally speaking, much worse than non-local foods, including shipping."

I wanted to leave exactly this link. If you are basing your eating choices on environmental concerns, realise that these calculations are very complex. How will you even ensure that your ethically-sound culled meat is actually the result of a cull or even that its production and transport leaves a smaller total carbon footprint than another efficiently-farmed meat?
posted by turkeyphant at 4:11 AM on May 28, 2013


In the western/central US, Snow Geese. Canada Geese most places in the US. Moose in Newfoundland. Deer in Pennsylvania. (Obviously I don't know where you live). Please, please eat all the wild hogs you can.

You need to take up hunting. Game species aren't available for legal sale in the US.
posted by hydrobatidae at 4:15 AM on May 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Oh, culled animals aren't available to sale either. Optimally, they are given to food kitchens but if appropriate butchering isn't available, they'll be thrown away. Making a demand for culled meat would be problematic.
posted by hydrobatidae at 4:18 AM on May 28, 2013


In the UK, American red-clawed signal crayfish are invasive and if you catch one, it's illegal to put it back in the water. Some of my friends lived at Silwood Park while getting their masters' degrees and apparently often had some crayfish in a tank, waiting to be cooked and eaten. The Guardian has a slideshow here on how to catch and prepare them. Please make sure you're not fishing where white-clawed crayfish still live, and bon appetit!

The National Geographic published some recipes for cicadas recently. There's a locust infestation in Israel at the moment and some people, at least, are cooking and eating them.

My friends and I have discussed this a few times. If I think of any more examples, I'll add them here.
posted by daisyk at 4:38 AM on May 28, 2013


You may be interested in Jackson Landers’ Eating Aliens.
posted by zamboni at 4:42 AM on May 28, 2013 [2 favorites]


You can definitely eat white tailed deer with no I'll effects to health that i know of (spent my childhood doing this). If you were already part if a community where hunting and eating deer was common, you could probably get a deer from someone who hunted for sport and then take it to a butchering operation, but i have no idea how you could arrange that from afar.
posted by geegollygosh at 5:24 AM on May 28, 2013


Best answer: Searching for information on eating invasive species brings up a lot of information relevant to your interests. For example, http://eattheinvaders.org/ lists information on invasive species endemic to North America. Here in New Haven there is a restaurant called Miya's with a menu of invasive fish sushi. The idea is to eat species that are disruptive to the ecosystem.
posted by reren at 5:37 AM on May 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


garden snails
posted by momus_window at 6:48 AM on May 28, 2013 [2 favorites]


DEER DEER DEER PLEASE EAT ALL THE DEER

Not only do they destroy crops and gardens, but they also kill 100+ people and maim thousands more every year by running out in front of cars.

Venison stew is quite tasty.
posted by Jacqueline at 7:51 AM on May 28, 2013 [2 favorites]


I ate a nuisance bear once (not single-handedly). That was a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Do you know any hunters?
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:02 AM on May 28, 2013 [3 favorites]


Where do you live? You could post to Craigslist looking for locally hunted meat. In Maine, local hunters do hunt for food, but there are likely tourists who hunt for sport and don't take the meat home. Most of it will go to a game warden who will know people who'd be happy to have it. A killed deer must be tagged, so it doesn't just get left in the woods. Also, many hunters like introducing people to the taste of game, or may have family who don't love it, and have extra to share.

Also in Maine, you can often harvest periwinkles, crabs or mussels at the shore; just make sure the water's clean. You might need a permit for mussels. Crabs are often harvested along with lobster, not really a nuisance, just not the intended harvest.

Squirrels and pigeons(squab) are often considered tasty. I had pigeon once, I think it was mild. I'd be happy to have fewer squirrels chewing in my shed, and pigeons are a big nuisance in cities and towns.
posted by theora55 at 10:18 AM on May 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


What are some sources of meat/poultry/seafood that are suitable for a environmentally conscious diet?
I would venture that the sort of environmentally conscious diet you seek specifically excludes any/all meat, poultry, or seafood that you have not, er, 'harvested' yourself.
Also, not to be a huge bummer, but dairy production has a HUGE impact on the environment (cites: environmental impact of dairy production impact in the US, in the EU [PDF], in NZ [PDF]), so you may be unnecessarily putting yourself through the wringer here because the damage done by industrial dairy farming likely outweighs any good you're attempting to do by trying to limit your meat consumption to other countries'/continents' invasive species.

In any case, since you want to eat more meat, the logical choice is to start hunting -- the majority of wild pest animals are not farmed/culled en masse to be butchered and sold in stores, but are instead picked off individually by folks searching woods, paddocks, rivers, or seas with weaponry in hand. Bear in mind that there will always be a danger that what you harvest will be diseased or otherwise inedible -- for example, white-tailed deer that are hunted/killed in Wisconsin should be tested for chronic wasting disease (CWD) and other disorders; you may have local regulations that can guide you in this arena.
If you're averse to stalking and killing sentient beings so you can enjoy the taste of meat without feeling guilty about industrial livestock processing, crunch into entomophagy -- high protein, low resource consumption, super-minimal environmental impact. Here are some recipes.

Aside: If you are already willingly consuming animal flesh while looking for a way to consume more meat with less guilt, there's no need to mince around the truth by adding "nominally" -- you just aren't a vegetarian. So go forth and eat as much meat as you want, because you're an omnivore!
posted by divined by radio at 10:22 AM on May 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Definitely deer.

Also, if you're ok with dairy, you could look for a small (i.e. non-industrial) local dairy farm which sells the young males for meat. This may or may not count as "culling" for your purposes, since they are more of a byproduct of the dairy industry than specifically raised for meat.

Similarly, you might be able to buy local meat from dairy cows/goats/chickens that have stopped producing well, although I'd imagine the meat from old animals would be less appealing. If there aren't any nearby, you might be able to find one that will ship meat, although probably not internationally. Again this is dependent on you being ok with eggs/dairy production.
posted by randomnity at 10:46 AM on May 28, 2013


Just a legal precaution: there is a very complicated tangle of regulations governing the taking, sale and transport of wild species. For your sake and the sake of anyone you're doing business with, you should check with any applicable jurisdictions to be sure that you won't inadvertently be doing something illegal. The regulations can be very persnickety (and not always rational), and there are people whose job it is to take them seriously.
posted by Corvid at 11:11 AM on May 28, 2013


If you're still in St. Louis? Asian carp.
posted by goodbyewaffles at 11:43 AM on May 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Snake head is considered a delicacy in Asia, that's why it's likely some well intentioned Asian immigrant released them into some body of water on the Eastern Seaboard of the US.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 12:20 PM on May 28, 2013


Don't forget there are plenty of invasive plants that are good eating too. It's entirely going to depend on where you are as to what's available to eat, and what seasons. Check out your local forager's guides to find out what's good where you live.
posted by Jilder at 12:38 PM on May 28, 2013 [1 favorite]


Other than turkeys, are there any farm animals raised on a large scale in North America that aren't introduced old world species? Just because there's a large network of people out there propagating them doesn't mean they aren't invasive pests!

Of course by that standard, perhaps I should modestly propose you consider eating the most pestulant of the world's pest species!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 1:05 PM on May 28, 2013


In my state there is a program through which hunters can donate venison to be distributed via foodshelves; or there was, at least. Concern arose over the possible health hazards of eating meat of animals killed with lead shot. I don't recall whether this ended up being a real problem, but if you end up making sport-hunted meat a big part of your diet (or especially a child's diet), you might want to look into it.
posted by lakeroon at 2:16 PM on May 28, 2013


Concern arose over the possible health hazards of eating meat of animals killed with lead shot. I don't recall whether this ended up being a real problem, but if you end up making sport-hunted meat a big part of your diet (or especially a child's diet), you might want to look into it.

You can use non-lead ammo.
posted by zamboni at 8:53 PM on May 28, 2013


If you're in Australia, rabbits, camels, cats, cane toads, pigs, goats, dogs, horses, deer, water buffalo, carp, bees, ants, rats and foxes are all non-native, invasive species. You obviously you want the feral ones rather than culling from people's farms and/or randomly selecting native species which shouldn't be eaten (though that's honestly only likely with bees and ants, which I doubt would be top on your list).

Oddly enough, the Department of Sustainability and Environment [etc] doesn't recommend eating as a solution to these problems, though I confess I haven't read all of the threat abatement plans. Not everyone is so wary, though. There have been calls for more to eat cane toads and camels and some exotic meat sellers offer camel, wild boar, wild goat and wild buffalo as well as more conventional game meats like rabbit and venison and specifically Australian ones like emu, kangaroo and crocodile.
posted by Athanassiel at 10:30 PM on May 28, 2013


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