[haram_masala]

Most of those pigs are, by western standards, inedible. With the exception of the very young adults (and the piglets), their meat is tough and has a very objectionable gamer/musty/garbage-y flavor.

Texas is contending with a similar problem, and if Texans can’t find a way to eat them, you know that meat is worthless.

[Turing_Machine]

> very objectionable gamer/musty/garbage-y flavor

Uncastrated males do, certainly -- the same is true of domestic hogs. Females don't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boar_taint

[wolfram74]

Is this a problem that can be solved with enough chili powder? I'm not a terribly picky eater or familiar with wild game, just have a lot of confidence in gastro science.

[karaterobot]

Not safe, and not good meat.

Don't take my word for it, here is proof by inference: hunters in Texas aren't barbecueing it already, thus it's not edible, QED.

[ThrowawayTestr]

How much chilli powder does it take to kill parasites?

[tmoertel]

Does cooking not kill the parasites?

[hollerith]

There are also toxins to worry about. Many toxins bioaccumulate.

Wild animals spend most of their waking hours looking for and chewing food (and humans labored under the same constraint till they invented cooking); even when they can tell there is something wrong with some food, they usually cannot afford to reject it.

Toxins are present in a lot of farmed 100%-grass-fed meat, too. I stick mostly with 100%-grass-fed lamb raised in New Zealand or Australia and won't eat grass-fed buffalo anymore even if it were free.

[paulryanrogers]

Some prion diseases cannot be destroyed by cooking the meat.

[HarryHirsch]

Cooking does, but the best thing about the pig is that you can turn it into sausage, and improperly prepared sausage puts the consumer at risk for trichinosis.

[stametseater]

Gamma irradiation is very effective at killing trichinosis in swine flesh and is approved for this purpose in America.

[HarryHirsch]

A cobalt source for the home? That's plainly nuts.

In Europe they dealt very successfully with trichinosis by inspecting pig carcasses. But I have no idea if you can take a muscle sample from a porker you shot yourself to your local large-animal veterinarian to see if it's trichinotic. (In rural areas they just might that service - back then in my home village we had that pharmacist who was a devoted mushroom hunter, and people would run their mushrooms past him for identification if they weren't really sure.)

[wankle]

> very objectionable gamer/musty/garbage-y flavor

Speaking as a gamer, I can relate.

[starkd]

But isn't that true of most any game meat?

I've heard that bear meat can be tough and grisly, but I was told it depends on how you butcher it.

[mpsprd]

I've eaten deer, moose and even beaver from hunting and trapping. They will taste amazing if handled well and given early to a butcher.

Old bucks don't taste as good, but younger deer have amazingly tender meat.

[Turing_Machine]

> But isn't that true of most any game meat?

Most so-called "gamey" meat is down to poor handling of the meat. Hogs are an exception... uncastrated males do taste bad to many people.

[coffeebeqn]

I always thought gamey was from high activity of the muscles. Farmed animals certainly don’t run around forests fending for themselves

[b112]

I always thought gamey was from high activity of the muscles

An animal's diet affects its flavour. Eating all manner of random foods, makes partially the gamey flavour.

[mkoubaa]

Yes but we can process the shit out of the meat and add msg etc. It doesn't have to be bbq

[dgb23]

That's what I'm thinking too. There are a lot of products that are made from highly processed unidentifiable meat stuff.

My dogs certainly wouldn't object to feral gamey pig meat either. I sometimes think the more disgusting the food the more they like it...

[netr0ute]

What if you slathered the meat with barbecue sauce and chili peppers? Then there might actually be a chance.