Butcher Better

Butcher Better

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Ever wonder what happens to your game after you drop it off at the processor? An Outdoor Life editor worked the floor of a family butcher shop during the busiest weekend of hunting season. Called Andrew McKean who's the Chief Editor of Outdoor Life and asked why they chose to run that story: "We embedded a reporter in the biggest wild game processor in Montana on the opening day of elk season last year. One of the charming parts about it was that the author who lives in Missoula worked at this meat processing facility when he was in college. In fact, it kind of put him through college. We sent him back to his roots in some ways. We asked him to be a fly on the wall ( probably poor choice of words) but we asked him to keep his eyes open for the essential pieces and parts that hunters need to know about when they are starting the process of contributing to the meat pipeline. There is some reader service in there in the sense that could meet starts with a good shot and not running the animal until it has adrenaline shot through its system. So it is about taking care of the meat while it is still alive, putting it down humanely and cleanly and then all of the processes that go into getting it to that butcher. What I liked about the story as he followed it all the way through the process from the butcher skinning it to how he cuts it up and packages it so that high quality organic meat is ready for the table.

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