Add Louisiana to the list of state and local governments around the United States that are forcing homeless people who look to shelters and soup kitchens for meals toward an all processed food, junk diet.
The former Mayor of New York City, otherwise known as Nanny Bloomberg, famously banned food donations to homeless shelters, even from charities donating freshly cooked traditional foods that had long-standing and excellent track records.
Now, the Department of Health and Hospitals in Louisiana has ordered the privately funded Shreveport-Bossier Rescue Mission to dump 1,600 pounds of venison donated by Hunters for the Hungry into garbage bins. It seems the state would have be more comfortable if the hunters had donated this form of venison instead!
Yes, just as ridiculous!
Here’s the kicker. The staff was also instructed to split open the packages of meat and pour Clorox on them as an “extra precaution so that animals would not eat it from the dumpster and become sick or die.”
Wild animals getting sick from eating what they’ve always been eating … wild game? What planet are these bureaucrats living on?
While there would have been good reason for this order had deer in the area been found to have some sort of infectious illness or the meat itself was tested and found to be tainted, the fact is that there was no good reason for this order.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with this meat.
It is simply another case of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats running amok and crazed with their own power, barking out orders to privately run organizations and law abiding citizens.
It seems that health authorities would rather homeless people be eating drug residue laced meat from sick animals confined on filthy, disease ridden feedlots than from healthy wild game freely roaming and eating natural forage.
Henry Martin, executive director of the mission, said that the staff has been serving deer meat for years in dishes such as deer chili and deer spaghetti.
“This was really good meat. It’s high in protein and low in cholesterol. It’s very healthy.”
Martin continued by saying that he was extremely concerned about the way state health inspectors handled the situation. No due process was followed. They just ordered the meat to be destroyed and that was that.
Martin said that the rescue mission serves 200,000 meals a year and not one cent comes from the state or federal government. He estimated that the senseless confiscation resulted in as many as 3,200 healthy meals being lost.
“It seems like this was a senseless act, 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.”
Louisiana State Rep. Jeff Thompson, a hunter himself who has personally donated deer to this mission before, was outraged.
“You hear about these stories anywhere and it’s a concern — but when it happens in your own backyard it’s insulting.”
Thompson said that he intends to meet with the heads of the state agencies along with state lawmakers over the incident. He said that the meat should, at the very least, have been returned to the hunters who donated it.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Sources: Health Dept: Homeless Can’t Eat Deer Meat
I know this is beside the point, but pour bleach over it so the wild animals won’t eat it?? Yeah cause you know in the wild if a wild animal came across a dead deer and they ate it they would get sick…so lets protect those animals who are carnivores and pour bleach all over it. I’m thinking the bleach is a little more harmful than helpful. Idiocracy at its finest. Sheesh.
This is bizarre and ridiculous.
We eat venison, actually 95% of our red meat consumption is venison from deer we harvest and we’ve never gotten sick from it.
Diseased deer can easily be identified and if one has CWD it’s my understanding humans cannot get CWD so what is their reasoning?
Craziness!
This just happened to a homeless shelter in Albuquerque,NM, too. Only they were allowed to give the meat to their volunteer employees or return it to the hunters or ranchers who had donated grass-fed beef that had been independently butchered and packaged. Nothing was wrong with the meat; they had been eating it for years.
But same results: homeless shelter who operates without any gov’t assistance or funds was forced by local gov’t officials to rid themselves of perfectly good meat. Perhaps some sort of national directive by the USDA going on here??
Yes, this is happening all over the United States it seems. Why the problem with wild game all of a sudden … it is so much healthier than the horrible CAFO meat these homeless people are getting served in the processed foods at these shelters. You have to wonder if this is somehow part of the gun control agenda that is being pushed at the national level.
I wondered if it had something to do with the gun control initiative to, but regardless they are taking food out of people’s mouths and should be ashamed of themselves. I hope I never see this in my backyard. Officials in my area are extremely pro game and fish and I can only hope this would never pass. Individuals plant several extra acres to donate to any organization that can get it to those low income or homeless that need the produce/food in my town and my Grandfather has been feeding those less fortunate in his town for decades with his 10 acre garden he plants every year. Will these be targeted next? I plan on keeping an eye out of this for sure! No one deserves to go hungry when there is food available.
Rebecca, you had beeter be careful about boasting (proudly as you should be) about your G’father. And I was glad you didn’t give your state name.. the government would be on your doorstep tomorrow!
How rediculous this is!!
Absolutely ridiculous!!! Why?? How can the same people that say there’s enough food to feed everyone in the world do something so foolish?!
Not compatible with the GMO’s they have forced to eat!
So sickening!!
The other thing I found offensive is that the Health Department’s involvement was the result of one of the homeless people complaining about eating venison. Uh, hello, you’re homeless – someone is feeding you from the kindness of their heart…!!
I used to volunteer at a food bank. The shoppers were very, very picky about what they would take. If there were no Froot Loops, they wouldn’t take corn flakes instead. If there were no corn dogs, they wouldn’t take canned chicken instead. After a while, the food bank even stopped taking donations of things besides what they could get rid of (Jello, Kool-Aid, Twinkies, Capn Crunch, etc) because they had too much other food sitting around. I’m not saying canned chicken is health food, but I thought it was sad that the food bank didn’t want it, but they put out flyers begging for donations of Twinkies.
I feel bad for people in need when they are really in need. These so called poor people are parasites. I hear so many stories about how peaky they are and they would not eat this and that, and how they get food and throw it out or feed to birds. It makes me sick. I know what it means to be hungry and, believe me, I ate what I got and I was happy beyond anything. Most of them are lazy and want someone to do everything for them. Let them go and figure out how to take care of themselves for a change. Hunters should eat good food themselves or find a family in need directly and not to waist food on lazy bunch. Government will always help to waist more of healthy food.
I helped run a food bank for years and we found it was a lack of knowledge on how to prepare healthy foods that kept people from taking them. We began printing out recipes and such and taping it to the fresh produce, healthy meats, whole grain freshly ground flours, canned fish and such and grouping items that would make a healthy soup or casserole together and saw the selection of such foods increase dramatically. When I had time sometimes I would even prepare some of the recipes and have samples and when their children enthusiastically ate them they would happily select those items over others. Not universally of course, but enough so that it was worth the effort. Of course people in the dire situation that would bring them to a food bank often want food that is familiar and comfortable, but I still give the healthy food over the crap when I donate. The fact that people make a wide range of good and bad lifestyle choices is true across all economic lines.
Venison is one of the meats I prefer!
Maybe they’re worried they’ll start to get healthier and stronger???
Lynn, I have wondered about that myself. There are so many jobs, both government and private, which are dependent on having a large population of people who are sick, or poor, or unable to care for themselves, or all three.
Insane actions like this make me wonder about the issue.
This is insane. Wild deer meat from animals eating their natural diet is probably the most nutrient dense food those poor people ever got, and to destroy it is disgusting. This good meat is so much better than the soycrap usually given out by the government.
This act is without good reason, but there is always a reason. It cannot be health, since no one ever had a health problem with the meat. I wonder what the real reason is.