They discuss eating bear, just a reminder for everyone that bear meat is a prime harbor for worms and parasites. On top of the fact that, like expressed in the article, it's frankly not good.
Your last sentence is subjective. I grew up eating bear sausage and it was delicious. Perhaps owing to differences in black bear diet/meat vs Alaskan bear. This article seems to corroborate my suspicions: https://www.outdoorlife.com/hunting/bear-meat/
Trichinosis is incredibly common in Alaska's bear population. As with any kind of game meat, thoroughly cooking to recommended temps is highly encouraged. Plenty of people get away with eating undercooked meat for years, but you don't have control over the randomness of what an animal you hunt was exposed to. Trich is no joke and can seriously injure you.
Trichinosis can kill you too. I can't find the story link but I read years ago that one of the few German POWs to die in captivity in the US during WWII at Camp Hearne in Texas died from eating undercooked pork which also sickened a couple of other POWs and maybe one of more of the guards.
With that said, pioneers and mountain men ate bear meat. They preferred bear paws due to the high fat content I think.
Correct. That and chili. I grew up without a lot of money and have eaten every game animal in North America and I can tell you that there isn’t any wild game that can beat the cheapest of ground beef for flavor or usefulness.
I disagree, but your odds of having a bad time with game meat are much higher. I liken it to the early days of craft beer. If you wanted an acceptable beer that wouldn't wow you, but never surprise you, you could always drink budweiser. But if you felt like playing six-pack roulette, pick up your local microbrew. Could be awesome, could be terrible, you won't know until you've taken a drink.
Domestic goose is better than wild goose, but grass-fed elk (that is, ranched elk) just tastes like beef. Likewise with grass-fed bison. Truly wild elk has that gaminess to it that I really appreciate. I've a recipe for venison burger casserole that is utterly flavorless when made with ground beef. Bear sausage is only good when its heavily mixed with actual pork, and spiced to hell and back.
Deer and pronghorn that graze on sagebrush actually taste sagey. If that's your jam, its fantastic.
As a hunter, I have to disagree. Properly harvested deer, elk, and bear are all amazing, and I'd take any of the three over the lowest common denominator ground beef. Actual cheap ground beef is garbage.
I buy half a cow every year from local farmers, and I'd put my ground elk up against that ground beef any day (though I do have to add suet because elk is so lean). In fact, nobody that I serve elk to knows that it's elk until/unless I tell them.
If your wild game tastes bad, you messed up somewhere along the line. Get it cold as soon as possible, keep it clean, and the meat will be great.
Each level up increases the concentration of toxin because the n-th level is eating the (n-1) level which has a higher concentration than the (n-2) level that the (n-1) ate.
Similarly, if we posit that all else being equal [1] a sociopath is more likely to go up a hierarchical level, then the nth level is promoted from the n-1 level that is more sociopathic than the n-2.
I also believe that presidential democracies are more prone to this concentration of sociopaths because voting the higher offices is more divorced from the voter (ie you dont know who you are voting for personally and are more easily mislead). Parliamentary (or congressional seats) democracy is more resistant to psychos. Monarchies are immune (except for genetic inheritance), but of course come with their own set of problems.
Your first point is much less of a big deal than you think. Cook it thoroughly (easiest way is to simply grind up the meat first) and you’re fine.
I don’t agree with your second point. It’s pretty good, especially spring bear. That said, I avoid bears that eat a lot of spawning salmon in the fall.
People have eaten bears for literally millennia, especially indigenous North Americans. It’s not some recent thing that we are wrong to do. They are a natural prey animal in eg BC, where they live in high densities.
that smell, when your yard dog, is soaked from the rain, after rolling in fishwaste. thats sorta the smell of cooking bear meat, theres a lot of grease, and fat.