Outrageous!! 1600lbs of venison wasted.

[redaddiction]

I saw this posted on a friends facebook.


Department of Health Does What??
LOUISIANA -- A charity group called "Hunters for the Hungry" donated 1,600 pounds of freshly processed deer meat, called venison, to local homeless shelters across the state.
Hunters across Louisiana are outraged after state health officials ordered a rescue mission to destroy $8,000 worth of deer meat because venison is not allowed to be served in homeless shelters.
But no good deed goes unpunished.

The state of Louisiana refuses to allow homeless people to eat venison under any circumstances. Not only that, but the Health Department officials would not even allow the hunters to take their meat back and gladly use it for something else.

Instead, government workers ripped open every package of meat, put them into dumpsters, and poured bleach on all the meat. They claimed that the bleach bath would prevent animals from getting sick from eating the meat.


The Dept. of Health and Hospitals ordered the staff at the Shreveport-Bossier Rescue Mission to throw 1,600 pounds of donated venison in garbage bins – and then ordered then to douse the meat with Clorox – so other animals would not eat the meat.

“Deer meat is not permitted to be served in a shelter, restaurant or any other public eating establishment in Louisiana,” said a Health Dept. official in an email to Fox News. “While we applaud the good intentions of the hunters who donated this meat, we must protect the people who eat at the Rescue Mission, and we cannot allow a potentially serious health threat to endanger the public.”

That statement set off a firestorm among hunters and lawmakers who called it outrageous and insulting.

“That’s a mild understatement,” said Richard Campbell, one of the founders of Hunters for the Hungry, a group that has been donating wild game to shelters since 1993. “Hunters are going nuts over it. It’s created an outrage across our state and even over into Mississippi.”

The controversy started when someone being fed at the rescue mission complained about being fed deer meat.

Henry Martin, executive director of the mission, told Fox News they’ve been serving deer meat for years – from deer chili to deer spaghetti.

“This was really good meat,” he said. “It’s high in protein and low in cholesterol. It’s very healthy.”

Martin said he was extremely bothered by the way state health inspectors handled the situation.

“You would think we would have due process,” he said. “But they meant to destroy the meat – that’s for sure.”

The mission’s chef asked if they could at least return the meat to the processing plant – but the state officials said no.

“They actually took it out to the dumpsters, split the packages open and poured Clorox on it,” Martin told Fox News.

He said the rescue mission serves 200,000 meals a year – without a single dime of assistance from the state or federal governments. As a result of the confiscation, he said as many as 3,200 meals were lost.

“It seems like this was a senseless act,” he said. “I don’t think hungry people who come to our mission appreciate the fact they could have been eating some really good venison and as it is now – no one can eat it.”

The Health Dept. defended their actions and said they had to pour Clorox on the meat as an “extra precaution so that animals would not eat it from the dumpster and become sick or die.”

“This is a process called ‘denaturing,’” they stated.

Campbell said the venison comes from deer management programs – where hunters have to kill a lot of deer.

“We ask our hunters once they fill up their own freezers to give the extra to the needy,” he said.

Once the deer is donated, a local processing plant prepares the meat for the shelters.

And hunters in the Sportsman’s Paradise have always responded to the call – including State Rep. Jeff Thompson.

“As a hunter and somebody who has personally donated deer to this program, I’m outraged and very concerned,” he told Fox News. “You hear about these stories anywhere and it’s a concern – but when it happens in your own backyard it’s insulting.”

Thompson said he is meeting with the heads of state agencies as well as state lawmakers to make sure the rules are changed.

“We take pride in helping our neighbors and to see thousands of dollars worth of meat that would help the hungry go to waste is absolutely disturbing to me,” he said.

Thompson said at the very least the meat should have been returned to those who donated it.

“We want to make sure the generosity of hunters and processors are honored and the hungry are provided with the food they are very much in need of,” the lawmaker added
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Information cited:
http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes...deer-meat.html

[Red Devil]

That is what is wrong with this country. Nonsense none the less.

[FF_T_Warren]

Ridiculous!!!! I guess beggers can't be choosers doesn't apply anymore.

[redaddiction]

Originally Posted by FF_T_Warren

Ridiculous!!!! I guess beggers can't be choosers doesn't apply anymore.

Nope, beggars are definitely choosers also in this society.

[Clafleur]

This is quite frankly .......... Ok, the state is some dumb@££'£. What a waste and I'm proud of the guys that decided to donate their meat for this purpose.

[AceArcher]

Well the good news is that this has caused such a level of outrage from hunters and hunters for the hungry folks that there has already been a meeting between health dept, ag folks, hunters for the hungry and various other govn agencys. All have evidently agreed to enact legislation to ensure that such wanton waste NEVER happens again, and all are in agreement that the program is a great one which should continue.

[AceArcher]

with that said, it's still a pretty sad state of affairs that some doogoodnic was given the authority to wantonly destroy so much food without any oversight.

[MathGeek]

When we lived in Ohio, we routinely gave 10-15 deer per year to needy families. Usually the donations were direct, but in times of high supply, we would pay to have the meat processed and deliver to a food pantry operation for distribution.

More recently, we are more flush with fish than with venison, and there is a local soup kitchen type of operation that is always happy to have all we give them. The homeless and other clients are always glad for the fish. And before y'all tease me about black drum and gafftops, my family keeps all of those because my children prefer it, and we give surplus trout to the soup kitchen.

[Top Dawg]

I woulda snatched that deer meat right off that *****es plate and told that bum to go back to diggin in trash cans! Why y'all gotta post this shiz. Just pisses me off.

[Feesherman]

Originally Posted by Top Dawg

I woulda snatched that deer meat right off that *****es plate and told that bum to go back to diggin in trash cans! Why y'all gotta post this shiz. Just pisses me off.

It should piss u off. Dats da pernt

[Spunt Drag]

Reminds me of people who say, my dog won't eat dry dog food, he has to have table scraps. I'd do that POS bum just like I do a dog. Put that plate down for 10 minutes. If its still there in 10 minutes, pick it up. After 2 or 3 days of that, the next time I put that plate down he'll know what time it is. I bet it don't sit there for another 10 minutes.

[simplepeddler]

Seems like we could just but warning signs up like they do for oysters.
simple effective and cheap.

I mean if that is all we need for PAYING patrons, then non-paying should have no issue........

but there I go again making sense

[hewes]

Wlf in lake Charles send illegal taken deer meat and donated it to boys shelter. Maybe they should be held liable. Nn

[simplepeddler]

people are homeless in large part because they make stupid decisions, and then stand firm on thier stupid decisions.

Take a night and volunteer and hear the stories. Yes they are sad stories, but the general theme is stupidity is why they are there..............like *****ing about eating FREE deer meat

[Feesherman]

Originally Posted by Spunt Drag

Reminds me of people who say, my dog won't eat dry dog food, he has to have table scraps. I'd do that POS bum just like I do a dog. Put that plate down for 10 minutes. If its still there in 10 minutes, pick it up. After 2 or 3 days of that, the next time I put that plate down he'll know what time it is. I bet it don't sit there for another 10 minutes.

Now that pisses me off. Like a dog won't eat once it gets hungry enough. People r so stupid.

[Creole Fisherman]

Bring me up to speed on this topic. It is not the homeless refusing to eat deer meat, it's Wlf and health officials who are saying the meat can't be used.

[simplepeddler]

it was blown up when a homeless person complained of being served venison

[AceArcher]

it was blown up when a person complained that they had to eat venison, but we should be able to trust in local health dept officials to have enough common sense to know that you dont trash and then destroy 1600 lbs of donated meat without at least checking if this is the right thing to do.

[Pat Babaz]

Wildlife and fisheries should have wrote health dept. people a ticket for wanton waste!! Are you sure this happened in Louisiana and not some weirdo yankee state?

[LPfishnTIM]

venison is safer to eat then beef, cows have growth hormones and other chemicals to increase there growth when farmed, chicken has hormones in it to increase the breast size, turkey has chemicals in it that cause the feathers to be easily plucked, which causes your hair to fall out, all these things are what make us fatter and unhealthy, yet venison is all natural, leaner, and most deer taken at leases and camps eat a healthy variety of food plot vegetables and different grasses and leaves from trees. I guess instead of giving your venison to charities its better to give some non perishables.