Everyone should eat venison
Melanie McDonagh 27 January 2024
Well, lucky little tiny tots at Top Days nurseries in Hampshire and Dorset. It’s Bambi on the menu for them... They’re rolling out five dishes featuring venison, including deer mince in spaghetti bolognese and burgers...
It is the obvious and sane solution to the problem of an ever-increasing deer population... which nowadays have no natural predators. The children get to eat venison, which is low in fat and rich in nutrients like iron and zinc. The deer have a happy life until they’re shot – and if you had a choice between being a wild deer or a battery chicken, which would you prefer?
The meat comes from two estates in the South Downs which are overrun with deer, so the environmental benefits of culling them are huge, specifically for trees, and for biodiversity generally.
There are, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, two million deer in Britain, a million more than there should be if we’re to continue to plant trees with a chance of survival at the rate the government promised.
If venison is good enough for nurseries, what about prisons? I would argue that HM’s prisoners deserve some decent, nutritious food...
The great mystery is how we have somehow managed to persuade ourselves that healthy food is chicken, salmon and vegan products, when in fact game is better on every count.
Venison can be farmed, but why bother when wild deer are already overrunning whole areas? It’s local, sustainable and free from the dodgy elements of the vegan menu; avocados and soya, vegan faves, are water- and pesticide-intensive and produced on the other side of the world: edible ecocide.
