Smoked Black Bear Ham - is it safe?

H4831 said:
I sure get tired of you guys that quote a bunch of crap and say I said it.
I said I didn't eat bear meat and that is all I said.
You guys made up the stuff about having to cook bacon to a certain temperature. and ground beef, or ground chicken. None of these things will hurt you if eaten raw, but there is extreme danger in eating bear meat that hasn't been heated enough to kill the deadly parasite in a great amount of raw bear.
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No, you said you don't eat meat that requires being brought up to a certain temp to be safe. You can salmonella from undercooked chicken. Therefore, you won't eat chicken by your own reasoning.
 
When H4831 stated that the Aboriginal people of this continent didn't eat bear, he may be right as far as Indians are concerned. Eskimos however, hunted Polar Bear for eating, while they used Musk Ox for dog-food for their sled dogs.
 
From what I understand polar bear liver is not eaten as it will kill the dogs........very toxic.Harold
 
H4831 said:
I have no interest in any meat that has to be brought up to a certain temperature, to be safe to eat.
In the boon docks of northerly Canada during the great depression, where most people lived on wild meat, they didn't eat bears.
Neither do north American native Indians.
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H4831 said:
I sure get tired of you guys that quote a bunch of crap and say I said it.
I said I didn't eat bear meat and that is all I said.
You guys made up the stuff about having to cook bacon to a certain temperature. and ground beef, or ground chicken. None of these things will hurt you if eaten raw, but there is extreme danger in eating bear meat that hasn't been heated enough to kill the deadly parasite in a great amount of raw bear.
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It's pretty clear what you said.
 
H4831 said:
I sure get tired of you guys that quote a bunch of crap and say I said it.
I said I didn't eat bear meat and that is all I said.
You guys made up the stuff about having to cook bacon to a certain temperature. and ground beef, or ground chicken. None of these things will hurt you if eaten raw, but there is extreme danger in eating bear meat that hasn't been heated enough to kill the deadly parasite in a great amount of raw bear.
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Salmonella in under cooked chicken.

Trichinosis in under cooked pork.

E.coli in under cooked ground beef

Botulism in improperly smoked sausage.
 
I shot an elk and another hunter in our group shot a 2 yr old bk bear on the same day, early fall bear that wasn't within 75 mile of the nearest garbage dump. One of the hunters in our group of eight was a trained chef and he prepared & open pit BBQ'd the elk tenderloin and a hind haunch from the bear...there was a lot of elk left on the grill when everyone was done but not one scrap of the bear meat remained, one of the most memorable meals of my lifetime.
 
H4831 said:
I sure get tired of you guys that quote a bunch of crap and say I said it.
I said I didn't eat bear meat and that is all I said.
You guys made up the stuff about having to cook bacon to a certain temperature. and ground beef, or ground chicken. None of these things will hurt you if eaten raw, but there is extreme danger in eating bear meat that hasn't been heated enough to kill the deadly parasite in a great amount of raw bear.
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H, no disrespect intended. I wasn't quoting you, rather asking a serious question based on what you said. Store bought ground beef and all chicken definitely has to be brought up to temp to be safe to eat.

The distinction maybe is modern store bought meat. Ground beef only gets contaminated with e coil during the grinding when parts of many cows that may or may not have come into contact with gut material are blended together, and e coil on the surface is spread through the meat. That wouldn't really apply to a home slaughtered cow that you processed yourself and knew for sure no gut material had contacted. THAT ground beef would be fine to eat raw. Chicken, I'm not sure if it's just factory farmed birds that carry it or if they all do. Unwashed, unrefridgerated eggs like on a farm are safer than store bought washed eggs that have their protective covering removed and allow the passage of bacteria into the shell. But the modern store bought stuff definitely needs to be cooked to temp. People have died from it otherwise. I'd be way more worries about e coil in undercooked store bought meat than trichinosis from a wild bear. Trichinosis in factory farmed pork is basically unheard of now, but used to be much more common. The guideline about cooking pork to well done is basically a holdover and an extreme precaution. I guess also, who likes rare pork?
 
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Reading these posts you'd think bear was the wild meat of choice in North America. Funny that pretty much everyone I've talked to Canada-wide say they can't even give it away.

I guess it's maybe the same as sandhill crane getting the internet name "ribeye of the sky". Laugh2
 
Sweet Pickle brine recipe.
3 L water
3 Heaping tbsp pickle spice (take out some of the cloves if you want like)
1 tbsp pepper corns or ground pepper if you want a darker color.
5 whole red chillies
1/2 cup of good salt,(not table salt)1/3 of which is Morton tender quick
2/3 cup of sugar. (usually white but Demerara adds great flavor).
Gentle boil for 5 minutes, cool thoroughly. Inject large pieces of meat or soak jerky. Amazing quick marinate for chicken thighs. 2 hrs to overnight.
Bear, Venison & pork chops, I soak for 3 days, Pork loins , up to 10 days. Add the spices out of the brine to the fat cap and smoke. Makes amazing back bacon.

Enjoy
 
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bearkilr said:
Reading these posts you'd think bear was the wild meat of choice in North America. Funny that pretty much everyone I've talked to Canada-wide say they can't even give it away.

I guess it's maybe the same as sandhill crane getting the internet name "ribeye of the sky". Laugh2
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Which is a pretty modern idea... bear was historically a very popular food source. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2010/11/bear-a-meat-worth-trying/67024/

And yes, the natives did hunt it, regularly.

http://traditionalanimalfoods.org/mammals/bears/
 
mbogo3 said:
From what I understand polar bear liver is not eaten as it will kill the dogs........very toxic. Harold
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The toxic part is just that it is far, far too rich in vitamin A, from all the seals they eat. It is said that a tea spoon full of polar bear liver can kill a human.
 
skhunter said:
Salmonella in under cooked chicken.--------- Could be, but the Salmonella found some way to get into the chicken.


Trichinosis in under cooked pork.------There has been no Trichinosis in store bought pork in a great many years.

E.coli in under cooked ground beef------If it is, the E.colli got in through the grinding.

Botulism in improperly smoked sausage.
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-----Again, the under cooking didn't cause it.
 
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Mount Sweetness said:
Bear is the best game meat that I have eaten, it is much better than venison in my opinion, it's not even close!
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That's a strange comparison for taste!
An older mule deer buck shot in the peak of the rut is not fit for human consumption.
Frying it on the stove will chase you of the kitchen. I have had two dogs that would not eat the mule deer buck, shot in the heat of the rut, that was fried on the kitchen stove.
 
H4831 said:
-----Again, the under cooking didn't cause it.
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Its not the undercooking that causes bear meat to be dangerous either. Raw bear meat is equally sketchy, it is the cooking it that kills that thing that'll give you trichinosis... Just like cooking chicken will kill the thing that gives you salmonella poisoning.
 
Suther said:
Its not the undercooking that causes bear meat to be dangerous either. Raw bear meat is equally sketchy, it is the cooking it that kills that thing that'll give you trichinosis... Just like cooking chicken will kill the thing that gives you salmonella poisoning.
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I'm not quite sure what you're saying. Yes, it's the undercooking that makes it dangerous. Let's assume every bear carries trichina worms. Cooking it to 71C will kill the parasite and any chance of you getting infected. Chances are younger bears may not carry it, but unless you want to have the diaphragm examined under a microscope, the safe bet is to cook it well.
Also, the reason trichinosis and a host of other diseases haven't been discovered in pork in Canada in many years is because there's no regular screening for it. In Europe where cold smoking of pork is still very popular, there are mandatory requirements for testing. And 71C isn't a very high temp, so it shouldn't be an issue with most meat preparations. It's a simple precaution.
 
bearkilr said:
I'm not quite sure what you're saying. Yes, it's the undercooking that makes it dangerous. Let's assume every bear carries trichina worms. Cooking it to 71C will kill the parasite and any chance of you getting infected. Chances are younger bears may not carry it, but unless you want to have the diaphragm examined under a microscope, the safe bet is to cook it well.
Also, the reason trichinosis and a host of other diseases haven't been discovered in pork in Canada in many years is because there's no regular screening for it. In Europe where cold smoking of pork is still very popular, there are mandatory requirements for testing. And 71C isn't a very high temp, so it shouldn't be an issue with most meat preparations. It's a simple precaution.
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You got that right!!
 
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