RMN'S Blog

Food Laws for Eating Roadkill

Date: January 03, 2016

Food scarcity is something people in America usually don’t have to think about. If anything, people would say that we have too much food in abundance. However, economists and environmentalist are saying that, in the future, feeding the number of people living on earth will be a challenge and food scarcity may become an issue. However, there is a chef in Vermont who found a way to not waste food. Doug Paine, a chef at Hotel Vermont in Burlington, VT, is going to use roadkill in his dishes for a one-night menu.

Roadkill Menu Concept

This menu concept came up as a way to demonstrate ways how to serve local food sources in a sustainable manner. His “Wild About Vermont” menu was be set for a November 7th release. The highlights of the menu include three different kinds of roadkill, along with other, nontraditional animal choices, like beaver and muskrat. Attendees paid $75 per person to have a once in a lifetime meal with interesting options.

Laws for Eating Roadkill

Are there laws against eating roadkill? In Vermont, there are no laws against this. In fact, there are a number of states that allow people to eat roadkill if they report the dead animal(s) to the state, or receive a permit to keep them. According to PETA, eating roadkill is a healthier option compared to store-bought meat, which is pumped with antibiotics and steroids. In addition, it is more ethical than eating meat from a slaughterhouse.

On the other hand, Deb Cherney of Cherney Microbiological Services says eating roadkill can pose a threat to your health. As a hunter, you control how the animal is killed. With a roadkill animal, you have no idea if it was healthy before dying, has an infection, open wounds, and harmful pathogens that can be transferred to humans.

Vermont residents were excited about the chef’s upcoming menu. The good thing about the event is that you don’t have to eat everything that is offered; they let the attendees choose what they wanted to eat so no one was uncomfortable. Vermont is a quaint little state, but it looks like it has big ideas when it comes to the future of food sustainability.