 Why do I eat roadkill deer? Now, that's a question that a lot of people have for me. First, I want to say that I don't call them roadkill deer. I call them deer that were hit by cars. Now, why? First, it's sustainable, it's abundant, it is free, and it's a resource that would otherwise go to waste. There are a lot of reasons why it makes sense and in this video, I'm gonna share why I choose to do it. Before I explain why, I want to make a few things clear. First off, why I don't call it roadkill deer and instead call them deer that were hit by cars? Well, the reason why is that the moment before that deer was hit, it was a deer walking through the woods. If I was hit by a car, I wouldn't be a roadkill human, I would still be a human when I was on the side of the road. And first and foremost, that deer is still a deer. Now, people's imagination runs wild when they think of roadkill deer. They see the transformation as something completely other, but the point is, is it still first and foremost a deer? Now, when media has reported on the fact that I've eaten deer that I've collected from the side of the road, they like to say things like, he scraped it up from the side of the road. And that's where the imagination has run totally wrong because of media, because of maybe seeing things in TV, or because of seeing really messy ones on the side of the road. But the messy ones, the ones that have been splattered, of course, you just simply don't mess with that. Often, deer that are hit are very minimally damaged and they're laying on the side of the road as you would see a body. When people do talk about eating animals that hit by cars, they're not talking about scraping things up. They're talking about perfectly good animals that were recently, very recently alive, and are still in really excellent condition to be able to harvest. To make sure we're really on the same page, I want to show you a couple of pictures. First, this is a picture of a doe that I harvested, and you can see the condition that it's in. No scraping, no splatting. It looks like it is in very good shape, and indeed it was. Now, here's a picture of the first deer that I ever harvested, and it was a fawn. You can see that it has ruptured in the intestines a little bit, but the rest of the body is still very intact and in very good shape. So now that you've seen a couple of those pictures, we can really be on the same page in understanding this and moving forward into why I actually do it, the benefits of doing it, and why I think it makes a lot of sense. First of all, the biggest reason for me is that it's a truly sustainable source of meat. In Wisconsin, where I am from, I was born there, raised there, and lived there until I was about 23 years old, close to 20,000 deer are killed by cars per year. It is an incredible amount. That's not even including all that are hit. That's just the ones that are killed. So there is a very, very large number of deer that are killed by cars. There's no shipping. There's no packaging. There's no farms with pesticides and herbicides and all of that. It is a resource that is sustainable to harvest, and for me, by harvesting a deer that's hit by a car, I don't have to go hunting for one myself. People who know me know that I am very much an advocate of not wasting things and of utilizing wasted resources. So a deer that's hit by a car is a perfect example of making good use of a resource that would otherwise waste. So it makes perfect sense to harvest these rather than them going to waste. In some municipalities, they're actually picked up and taken to the landfill. In some, they are dragged into the woods. And actually, in some, they're taken to, in Minnesota, there's a wolf research center where they're taken to. But a lot of the times, they are just completely wasted. So it's a way to utilize a wasted resource, and this to me is basic common sense. All right, the next reason why I harvest these deer is because it's free. This is non-monetized, no money needed, and I don't need to go to the grocery store and buy the food, buy the meat because it's right there and it's completely free. A lot of the times people do this when they're just driving down the road, already going somewhere, and they see it and they can pick it up. So it costs no money whatsoever. So that to me makes a lot of sense. You can save hundreds or thousands of dollars per year by harvesting these animals. One deer alone could be worth hundreds of dollars with the meat. So financially, it makes a lot of sense for myself and for a lot of people as well. Now, the next reason is because it's really easy. A lot of people think it's this really complicated thing, and before I ever did it, I was pretty clueless. I was trying to watch YouTube videos, I was trying to figure out how this works, but I realized it's actually really simple and really easy. I was amazed at really how easy the process is. The next reason is because it's not as uncommon as a lot of people would think. I would venture to say that millions of Americans eat animals that were hit by cars. I would actually go as far as to say it's a very American thing to do. It's a part of a lot of cities and counties systems. In some places, what happens is if a deer is hit, they call the local police or Department of Natural Resources and there's actually a waiting list where they then call people to come and pick them up. So it's actually quite common. It's not something necessarily that a lot of people talk about because there is a social stigma. The reason you're watching this video right now might be because of the social stigma in the first place. So a lot less people talk about it than actually do it, but it's very common to eat animals that were hit by cars. And the reason that it's actually so common is because it's not dangerous. Like I said, it's not scraping up animals from the side of the road and it's not deer that are covered in maggots. Deer don't go from living beings to being hit to the next moment being covered in maggots. There is a time in between, a safe time to harvest, which is actually a pretty decent window of time depending on the weather, depending on the environment. The thing is it really comes down to one, using common sense. Unfortunately, we've lost our common sense when it comes to food. Our suggested sell-by dates and our expiration dates and our best before dates are a perfect example of that. Most people just look at those dates and they think the food is bad afterwards. They don't use their common sense or their senses, they just look at numbers on a package. Now, when I am harvesting a deer that's hit by a car, I'm using, first of all, common sense, which common sense isn't so common when it comes to these things anymore. But next, I'm using my basic senses. So I'm using my smell, I'm using my sight, I'm using my touch, and at the very end, I would use my taste as another sense. So these basic senses allow this to be done completely safely and it's not dangerous at all. That's one of the reasons that I do it. If it was dangerous, it would be a different story. And the very last reason that I'm gonna share today is simply that it's not gross. I've mentioned that multiple times already, but to prove that point and make you think about it a bit more, I would say that any of the deer that I've harvested, I could cook it up at your home for you. And if you eat meat, you would never know, you would never question it. It would just be like any other meat that you're eating, although way better than any of that factory farmed, pig, cow, chicken, fish that most people are eating. So that's another thing that I didn't mention is that this is really good quality meat. Deer, to me, are one of the best quality meat that are out there. They are raised on the land. They are eating good quality food, living a good life up until that moment. And that's one of the biggest things that I didn't even mention. It's really extremely good quality food to eat. Those are the reasons that I choose to eat deer that were hit by cars. Now, I'm not gonna go through how to do it or how to harvest it, how to tell if it's good or not. Those are all details that are kind of a next level. That's for people who are really wanting to possibly do this, not just learn about why I do and understand that perspective. So if that's the case and you want to learn more, let me know in the comments and I will make a video that actually teaches how to tell if it's still good and then I can do another video that actually teaches how to do it. If there's a lot of interest, that is something that I will definitely do. I know that this conversation for many people is just completely out of this world. And still, even after everything that I've described, it would be considered gross or socially taboo for them or a hit to the ego to do something like this. And I just wanna say that that doesn't matter to me. I don't live a life based on labels. I think labels create a false sense of security and an ability to really detach from reality. I aim to live a very real life. And to me, this is real. This is my real life. And this is the real life of millions of people, whether they actually talk about it or not. So this is something you can expect from me, to go to the gray areas, to not be black and white because the world is not a black and white place. So I hope that this video has shined a light on why I would do this, on why other people would do it. And really has gotten you thinking about your food, about your relationship to your food and where it comes from. And just a little bit more about another perspective in life. If you got a lot out of this video, make sure to subscribe. There are a lot more to come. And if this is something you want other people to see, make sure to share it, comment, and like it. On that note, I love you all very much. It's been wonderful sharing this perspective with you. And I'll see you again real soon.