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Today we discuss 18 animals that “everyone knows are terrible to eat” but everyone is also wrong about.  I hear it all the time, salt water catfish are disgusting, bullheads eat mud, feral hogs are inedible and pigeons are just rats with wings.  None of this is based on anything approaching reality.  What it actually amounts to is a combination of factors.

The first factor is that people in the US and the western world in general are spoiled.  I could have made this list a lot longer to be honest.  We live in a world where 95% of people have never produced an ounce of their own food.  Most have never eaten a protein that didn’t come from a store and that means 3-4 meats.  Those are beef, pork, chicken and for the super exotic may be lamb.  Then add in about 6 common fish and a handful of shellfish options.  This combined with marketing of said food sources has tuned the average person out from reality.

The second factor is the “everyone knows” effect.  It works like this.  Young Bill goes hunting for doves with his Uncle Tim.  Pigeons fly over and Bill says, “can we shoot those”?  But Uncle Tim says, “they are just rats with wings no one east them”, while squab (young pigeon) is served in 3 Michelin Star Restaurants.  18 years later Bill tells his son the same thing and so on.  Over and over it goes until “everyone knows” a thing that isn’t true.

The last is that some of these sources of fish or meat require a bit of knowledge to process or prepare.  None require anything extravagant, like no you don’t have to soak shark in milk but it does need to be instantly iced or bled out or processed.  Nothing about that is hard or complicated but it is necessary for best results.   Raccoons have a gland you need to remove or they taste like crap.  Skinning mature hogs requires knife discipline to not push the excretions on their skin into the meat, just as you need to remove hawk glands from a rutting buck.  All of this though is simple.

Lastly some of these items are a bit less fun to process.  Catfish for example especially salt water catfish are very slimy so they are a bit messy to process.  Doing it though just requires a rag and the exact same technique as any fish.  Bullheads are often relatively small and half head so filleting them does not seem worth it, but by shucking them they can be processed in 30-45 seconds a fish.  Gar are delicious but require tough tools to cut through their armor like skin and scales.

Today we will discuss all of this and more.  Including how to process all of these critters and some advice on cooking them as well.  We should not waste valuable food resources and many of these animals have no or very high harvest limits and eating will take pressure off other species.  Sometimes the solution is simply not over cooking or in one case not cooking them at all that solves the problem.

Join Me Today to Discuss How to Make All of these Delicious…

• Announcements first
  • Issues with Laws of Life – Book One Second Edition on Amazon – Get It Here
  • BattlBox Added to the MSB – link
  • AI Course On Sale – link
• Why people think you can’t eat these things or that they “taste terrible”
  • We are a spoiled society that eats better than kings of the past
  • Everyone knows is a version of the childhood game “Telephone”
    • The origin is often dad just didn’t want to mess with it
  • Some do require a bit of extra care, special processing or thoughtful cooking
• Why I think this topic is important
  • If you can eat even 10% of your meals for free your economics improve
  • If we ever have to live off the land we can learn from my granddad’s “squirrel traps”
  • Many times these animals are killed and left to rot in ignorance, all life should be respected
  • Some of these do need protection in the long run, we protect what we value
    1. Bullhead Catfish
    2. Salt Water Catfish
    3. Fresh Water Drum
    4. Feral Hogs – Including Most Boars
    5. Sharks – No they don’t need soaking in milk, Italian dressing or anything similar
    6. Ground Hog
    7. Beaver
    8. Gar
    9. Jack Crevalle
    10. Pigeons
    11. Bowfin
    12. Raccoon
    13. Bluefish
    14. Muskrat
    15. Nutria
    16. Muscovy Duck
    17. Whiting (many do know this one is good to eat, but many do not)
    18. Barracuda – (risk is low with following a few rules)
        • Other fish with ciguatera risk include big snapper, grouper, king fish and many other predators
• Some of these do require a bit of extra prep or care, but not are difficult or complicated

Resources for today’s show…

• Find Me on Nostr
• Article Explaining the GrowNostr Initiative
• Join the Members Brigade
• TspAz.com
• TSPC on Discord
• TSPC Group on Telegram (group chat)
• TSPC Telegram Channel (just messages from me)
• Jack on MeWe
• Join Me on Odysee
• All My Recommend Bitcoin Tools and Resources
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• Items of the Day for this Week
  • Laws of Life – Book Two – Now Build the System for Your Life
  • The AI-Driven Leader by Geoff Woods
• Suggested Bitcoin Stacking Resources
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• Join the MSB Here
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