Health Dept to Homeless: You Can’t Eat Deer Meat

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

Bloomberg Bans Food Donations for the Homeless

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