Pregnancy craving: roadkill

When Dani was pregnant she didn’t share any odd food cravings with me. She may have had them, but the only thing she sent me out for was Kraft cheese slices.  I brought home a 36 pack and she went through them in a few hours. Pretty mundane when compared to Alison Brierley of Harrogate, North Yorkshire (that’s in the UK). According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Brierley, an artist and mom-to-be, has been craving roadkill during her pregnancy. A sometimes roadkill-meat eater prior to being pregnant, her taste for carrion has intensified.

She started regularly cooking with run-over hare, deer, squirrels, pigeon, rabbit, owls and partridges. She fried a roadkill pheasant like chicken, and stuffed Japanese Gyoza dumplings with squirrel meat.

“I’m craving junk food which is really unlike me and I am eating a lot more roadkill and red meat in general,” Brierley told the British Daily Mail.

“It’s probably because I need all the natural iron I can get at the moment, what with all these extra red blood cells I am making,” she added. “[Roadkill meat] is more gamey than other meat and I love the taste. I also don’t have to feel guilty about eating it because I know it’s had a completely free range and natural life.”

Brierley wears rubber gloves when she’s handling the bloody carcasses. “I don’t want to risk any infections that could hurt the baby,” she told the Mail.

One of the risks with roadkill, is that it’s tough to tell whether the animal being eaten was diseased prior to being hit by a car, or how long it has been there. Glad she’s wearing gloves though.
 

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About Ben Chapman

Dr. Ben Chapman is a professor and food safety extension specialist at North Carolina State University. As a teenager, a Saturday afternoon viewing of the classic cable movie, Outbreak, sparked his interest in pathogens and public health. With the goal of less foodborne illness, his group designs, implements, and evaluates food safety strategies, messages, and media from farm-to-fork. Through reality-based research, Chapman investigates behaviors and creates interventions aimed at amateur and professional food handlers, managers, and organizational decision-makers; the gate keepers of safe food. Ben co-hosts a biweekly podcast called Food Safety Talk and tries to further engage folks online through Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and, maybe not surprisingly, Pinterest. Follow on Twitter @benjaminchapman.