Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
______
Silvercore Club - https://bit.ly/2RiREb4
Online Training - https://bit.ly/3nJKx7U
Other Training & Services - https://bit.ly/3vw6kSU
Merchandise - https://bit.ly/3ecyvk9
Blog Page - https://bit.ly/3nEHs8W
Host Instagram - @Bader.Trav https://www.instagram.com/bader.trav
Silvercore Instagram - @SilvercoreOutdoors https://www.instagram.com/silvercoreoutdoors
____
The Silvercore Podcast explores the mindset and skills that build capable people. Host Travis Bader speaks with hunters, adventurers, soldiers, athletes, craftsmen, and founders about competence, integrity, and the pursuit of mastery, in the wild and in daily life. Hit follow and step into conversations that sharpen your edge.
Kind: captions
Language: en-GB
Travis Bader: I'm Travis Bader,
and this is the Silvercore podcast.
Silvercore has been providing its
members with the skills and knowledge
necessary to be confident and proficient
in the outdoors for over 20 years.
And we make it easier for people to deepen
their connection to the natural world.
If you enjoy the positive
and educational content.
We provide, please let others
know by sharing, commenting, and
following so that you can join in on
everything that Silvercore stands for.
If you'd like to learn more
about becoming a member of the
Silvercore club and community,
visit our website at silvercore.
ca.
I am joined again by Ted
Talk alumni, owner of Sankudo
Custom Meats and ModestMeats.
ca in Edmonton.
The ever passionate, always
enthusiastic, Jeff Singer.
Jeff, welcome back to the Silvercore
Jeff Senger: podcast.
Thanks for having me Silvercore.
Thanks for having me, Travis.
It's great to be here.
What's going on?
Travis Bader: Well, you know, this
is going to be kind of fun, you know,
the joys of doing things remotely.
This is our second attempt at it, but
I think we're able to do it with the
internet speeds that we have, as long
as we can converse, the upload at the
end will be, uh, will be flawless.
Jeff Senger: Okay.
I look forward to seeing
the finished product.
Cause it looks a little grainy.
But I'm happy, I'm happy.
You can't see the imperfections,
my wrinkles and crow's feet are,
they're not, they're not apparent.
So that's good.
Travis Bader: So we were going to
be recording this morning, but you
know, it was a long weekend and all
the rest, and we had both had some
scheduling things that happened, but
you had a pretty interesting morning.
You had, uh, at work there.
What, what were you up to?
Jeff Senger: Well, Trav, you know, we've
been owner operators of Sanguru Casa
Meat Packers, a slaughterhouse in rural
Alberta for, we're in our 14th year.
And, uh, because of the Thanksgiving
holiday there on Monday, we
bumped our kill from our normal
kills are on Mondays and Fridays.
And we bumped Monday's kill
to to Tuesday this week.
So we're kind of short of staff.
It was myself and two
of our four daughters.
We call them the slaughter daughters.
And, uh, and so we're We're hopping
around to put up six big fat beef.
We started at nine and we
finished at about noon.
Uh, so it's like half an hour, half an
hour per beef from live in the barn to
hanging in the rail or hanging on the
rail in the cooler, which is good, but
it's not great because we like to get
our, our total time from on the hoof
to on the rail to down to 18 minutes.
A great day is 15 minutes per beef.
If we have a crew of taller people.
Yeah.
Yeah.
15 minutes.
It's not like skinning
a moose in the bush.
I had a friend who...
Kildamoose, uh, near Marathorpe.
And I, he's like, yeah,
we, we were really quick.
We got it all done in four hours.
And I was like, yeah,
I remember those days.
Yep.
Sounds about right.
It helps that we have a chain
hoist and all that stuff.
When you have the goodies and
you're indoors, it's quite
a bit easier to make it.
Make it go more quickly.
Um, and then we, we call it, there's
a choreography to the dance, the dance
of murder and, uh, my kids, uh, well,
two, two or three of them, they say that
we can, we communicate telepathically
and it's not that it's just that
we all know what the next step is.
So it's quite a, it's like a team, team
sport, or you're covering a whole area.
Uh, In the key and basketball and
you know, to stay out of the key and
where the, where the like post up and
then don't get kicked by a thrashing
carcass and don't get sprayed by blood.
And then also, uh, usually there's a
carcass cleaner with a high pressure hose
and they're spraying down the carcass
and you have to stand in the right
place to not get a shower showered on
all day, but we got through it, Travis.
And now here, here we are.
Now, here
Travis Bader: we are.
Well, you and I were talking about waste
meat, and I'm going to put my air quotes
here for those who are listening, waste
meat on whether in the slaughterhouse or
with wild game, what people might leave
behind, which maybe they shouldn't be.
Um, let's, let's hear your
Jeff Senger: thoughts on this.
Travis, I love this topic.
Um, So yeah, I mean, being in year
14 of killing animals twice a week,
uh, there's no shortage of time to
contemplate what's going into the garbage.
And then my, my job also is to
haul waste to the, we actually
have a compost facility at Westlock
that takes our organic waste
and turns it into black soil.
So there's, and that's been happening
for a couple of years now, uh,
previously had just been going to a
landfill, which hurt, hurt my heart.
Uh, but now anything that we
can't eat goes to the landfill.
But I, and that's being pulled
by my stupid one ton diesel
truck in a, in a hydraulic
dumping trailer, uh, to the dump.
But I'm always keen on thinking
about what, like, does it
need to go to the dump?
And, you know, what's actual garbage?
And what could we glean something out of?
Less from a financial, uh, urgency.
And more from being, carrying the weight
of all of the murdering that I've done
on my shoulders, I just think, if this
animal has to die, uh, how do we get
better at using more of the animal?
And so, um, when you, you approached
me and said, hey, do you want to do
a, do another chat, chit chat, um,
what's kind of new in your world?
We're getting better and better, or
I would say of evolving into being
able to figure out ways to harvest
more of the animal that wouldn't
traditionally be used as food.
So I would take you through something
like, you know, kindergarten or early
on, uh, whether you're a hunter or
a meat meat production worker or
whatever, like you're aware that there
are pieces that you could probably eat.
I remember when I was young
and hunting, you know.
I mean, for the first time a long time
ago, or watching, watching dad dress out
a moose when I was like six years old,
um, he would save the liver and the heart.
And that, and then whether or not that
was ever cooked or cooked up or if it
came home for the family dog or the pets
or something like that, maybe that's,
that was probably how, how it It got
started like, well, that heart is all
muscle and you can, you can eat it.
And we didn't really know how to prepare
it well, unless, you know, there's stuffed
heart, certain family members or ethnic
family members, uh, up, uh, grandparents
would say, Oh, save the heart.
And then Aboriginal, uh, first nations
people, uh, would say like they, they
would prefer and, and consider a delicacy.
The moose knows.
Which was crazy, like it
just seemed crazy to us.
Yes.
But I, I understand that a lot better
now, that anything cartilaginous
can be braised and turn into quite,
quite a nice, uh, product that's...
happily edible, um, that maybe like
mainstream people or listeners would get
in their, in their Vietnamese noodle soup.
So you have beef, beef tendon
braised in a, in a, in a Vietnamese.
So if you can kind of liken it to what
fast, what, what fast food is available,
I think that makes it seem like.
Yeah, I remember having beef tendon
in, in a noodle soup, uh, or there's
a Taiwanese restaurant, a Taiwanese
restaurant that we went to, or that we go
to in Edmonton near Modest Meats, uh, when
we're in a pinch for lunch or something.
And, uh, they prepare, uh, beef
tripe, uh, beef tendon and pork
intestine all in the Taiwanese style.
And, and so sort of being an explorer
in, in, in culinary ideas and eating, you
know, being excited to eat ethnic dishes.
It made me think, well,
what could we prepare?
What could we save?
Once upon a time, uh, Kevin
in, in our from the wild, uh,
adventures, uh, from the wild.
ca, a little video thing that we
did, we're exploring, exploring wild
foods kind of from a culinary aspect.
Uh, um, so he, he said, you should save
beef intestines because he had eaten,
he'd eaten or, or heard of a recipe.
I can't remember how it came about, but,
uh, beef, small intestine cleaned out.
But with a lot of fat on it
could be grilled and make it
into a nice munchy crunchy snack.
And I was like, you're disgusting,
but I'll save it for you.
Just so I can watch you eat that
and, uh, and tease you a bit.
But anyway, he did, he went
through his thing, he sauced it.
He, he, he put it up on a grill and,
uh, I was like, there's no reason
why this shouldn't be delicious.
And then we ate it to, ate
this beef intestine together.
I'm like, my God, that if that's food,
uh, then we'll never want for food again.
No kidding.
So this is the journey, man.
Um, So we went from kind of a, a moose
heart, moose tongue and, and liver to,
uh, the kilth, the slaughterhouse, um, I
say we've been running since 2010 and we
would, we learned about the, the butcher's
tenderloin or the hanging tenderloin.
A hanging tenderloin is like a
connective piece of wildly grained
muscle that hangs kind of behind.
It's up against the spine behind the lungs
or to the rear of the lungs and heart and
it, it connects to some white connective
tissue that would be your diaphragm, um,
your diaphragm sort of tendon or sheet
tendon that helps the animal breathe.
But anyway, that hanging tenderloin in
butcher shops that I follow online was
featured quite prominently because a
hanger, hanging tenderloin, um, is a
fantastic piece of meat cooked to be eaten
on its own, like sliced thin and grilled.
It's delicious.
Thanks for watching!
Um, in the, in the, in the world
of, of hunt, of, of hunting or, or
harvesting wild game are not that many.
You might just use that red
meat as part of your grind.
Like you might include it into the ground,
you know, your, your, your ground bin.
Um, but, but I think it's a real
treat to pull those out of the
beef and the diaphragms themselves.
There's a strip.
of muscle, like an inside
skirt or diaphragm from the
inside of the body cavity.
These sorts of red meat muscles that were,
that are, that are definitely usable.
Um, and then we go, we go further.
And so recently I'm excited about, uh,
saving the, the, the, the call fat,
which is the bag of fat surrounding the
intestines in the intestinal cavity.
Um, pure, clean white fat, as well as
the suet around the kidneys, that can
be rendered and used as cooking, like as
a cooking suet or cooking lard that we,
we've been using beef fat, uh, to cook
rather than seed oils for years now.
Yeah.
Um, so, so we get to fat and then
we get to tendons and we get to
things like pales of blood Trav.
I don't know if your listeners want
to hear about pails of blood, but.
I'm,
Travis Bader: I was introduced to pails of
blood when I, I think we, I told you about
that little story where I had to, um, or
I was asked to kill some cows for a farm.
Did I tell you that
Jeff Senger: one?
I think so.
Yeah.
But go ahead.
This is entertaining.
Travis Bader: Okay, fair enough.
They, um, I'll condense it cause
I'm pretty sure it's in our last
episode, but, uh, there I am,
I got talked into going out.
The only white guy on this farm,
Filipino farm, they're just starting out.
They're getting animals from the auction.
And, um, uh, previously they, we got
goats and they had, uh, smaller animals.
And this is the first time they had.
Cows and these cows still had their horns.
They didn't have them chopped and lied.
And I had visions of, uh, just
walking up and using a 22 close to
the head and putting the thing down.
But these were some, uh, already agitated
cows that, uh, I couldn't get close to.
And so, uh, took them from a
distance, learned exactly where
the shot placement is on a skull.
Cause it's very different from the, uh,
looking at a skull and looking at a live.
Uh, cow's head and trying to extrapolate.
So, uh, uh, second cow went
down on the first shot.
I can't say the first cow went
down on first shot, but there
was a learning experience there.
But as soon as it's down, they would
run over, they'd slit the throat
and they're collecting all the blood
into great big bowls and buckets.
And they said, they're
going to boil it up.
And they said, it's like chocolate.
It's so good.
Do I want some?
And I said, well, I really
appreciate the offer.
I think I might pass in hindsight
because I was in my early
twenties there in hindsight, I
think I should have tried some.
And at some point in my
life, I'm pretty sure I will.
But why don't you tell me about this?
Jeff Senger: Um, well, yeah, there's
multi use, uh, at the slaughterhouse.
So.
Uh, there's a, like an Eastern
European tradition and, and a British
tradition, French tradition for
making a blood sausage, I guess.
Like, so I think culinary tradition,
uh, not just European and Asian.
Yeah.
So pork blood traditionally
for, for blood sausage.
Um, uh, uh, I had never thought about
the blood pudding, although there
was a culinary friend in a cooking
competition, uh, prepared exactly that.
I think it was like a blood, a blood
mousse, but flavored with cocoa.
So it was the richness.
of cooked blood, but blended with cocoa
and sugar to make a sweet blood custard,
which is pretty, like, that's pretty
challenging for the North American palate.
But man, if that animal has to die and
you're, and there, there are folks that
want to, or are at least curious about
exploring how you can use that for
food, I think, um, all power to them.
Um, being the owner of a slaughterhouse,
we have, uh, an immense amount
of, uh, available And we, it just
generally goes down the drain.
Um, and, and we haven't
thought about it for years.
Except for occasionally harvesting
blood to sell to some restaurants
for, for, for, for blood sausage.
But, um, one of my daughters was in, I
don't know, in, uh, early high school,
early biology 10 or something like that.
And they were, somehow the,
the, the topic came up.
They were talking about the
nutritional qualities of, of
blood for soil and soil building.
And 10.
Uh, Orange Home Depot five gallon pails
because we didn't have any good ones
kicking around and we, we saved, we ended
up with five five gallon pails of beef
blood that we saved and put in the back
of the truck to take home to add to our
compost pile to, uh, to, to see what would
happen because we noticed on the farm,
if we've done any on farm slaughters,
Uh, wherever blood is spilled, uh,
vegetation just jumps out of the ground.
It's just electric.
As soon as there's just so much nitrogen
and then the micronutrients in blood
also that are accumulated by, uh, by a
mammal is exactly kind of what the root
system needs in, in, in almost all plants.
Um, To really, to really grow, to really
grow, to put carbon dioxide and water to
work and, and build healthy root systems.
So, uh, on our compost pile, we took five,
uh, twenty five gallons of, of beef blood
and the pile heated up almost immediately.
There's like a whole
bunch of weird things.
The blood clotted in the pails.
It was like pouring out these,
this weird, um, red silk scarf
onto our lawn clipping pile.
Uh, five, five gallon red silk scarfs
in these kind of pieces of, of.
Big bright red Jell O was swirling,
like you kind of get lost in it
if you stare into a blood clot
from a freshly killed animal.
And then we turned it over in the
grass, and within a couple of hours,
we went back and checked after supper,
and the pile was just steaming.
So the microbiology in the pile
of compost was also electrified
to just sort of melt down.
It went into, you know, nuclear
meltdown mode with having all of that
nutrition and, and the water available.
It meant that, um, the microbiome
or whatever living in our
compost pile, I loved it.
And, uh, that compost was used
on a experimental food forest
garden and the plants exactly
what we expected would happen.
The plants are just
jumping out of the soil.
So, um, anyway, it's just
a huge contemplative thing.
We said.
We used to think that to have an
apple tree grow or to put in a
perennial raspberries or something
like that we would dig down into our
horrible, uh, boreal forest soil.
This used to be just a mixed wood
boreal, but most of the farmland
here is, uh, an eighth of an inch
of topsoil and then, and then clay.
There are spots, low spots where leaves
have blown off the, uh, the poplar
trees and accumulated over the years
where, where the, the topsoil is a few
centimeters, but not much more than that.
So instead of digging down, uh, to
plant plants, we, uh, Summerland,
BC and that, that place is a desert.
Uh, and their innovative ideas, the
approach to viticulture was built,
build upwards instead of digging down.
Let the plant dig down if it
wants, but build, build your
soils on top of the surface.
So lay down cardboard or mulch and
then mulch on top of it and put your
composts on, on top of that to, to
build, to build a new layer of soil.
And, um, and so the compost with
blood in it was absolutely mental.
And it's funny because it's
October, I don't know, 10th.
Yeah, October 10th today.
And, um, of the food forest experiment
that, that I did with my daughter,
Annika, um, we, we were just out
harvesting, uh, the last of the
strawberries from her food forest.
And that is absolutely not normal
for Alberta at this time of year.
But, uh, there's heat coming
out of the compost still.
So despite having, yeah, we've
had a couple of heavy frost, but
because of the, there's heat in the
soil and her nasturtiums, I think
kind of blanketed the strawberries.
Uh, with their foliage.
So there are ripe strawberries that
she's picking just today after kill.
We stopped at the strawberry
patch and pick some strawberries
out of, out of the blood compost.
So it's sort of like a weird full circle
story about getting strawberries out
of blood, uh, because it activated the
compost to get it to throw off heat.
You can stick your hands into
the dirt in her food forest.
This dirt on top of cardboard
that we started in, in May.
I think we, we heaped up
in May and it's still hot.
The soil is warm to the touch.
Right, so that's a miracle
of what's, what surrounds us.
And then the story of a restaurant,
a customer, a customer of ours
who we kill big fat beef for every
week, Brad Jesperson, North Country
Market, he said he's got a customer,
a restaurant in Spruce Grove called
Barbacoa and they want tendons.
And we've saved tendons from beef
before for dogs and dog food.
Um.
And that is the tendon in the back of the,
the, the back side of the lower, the lower
extremity of the limb above the hoof.
So if, if my hand is the hoof, we are
taking this heavy tendon out of, out
of this part of the animal's lower leg.
If you skin the hide off back here, you
can take a great big, and then cut with
your knife into the tendon and all the
way down to the, to the first elbow.
Um, you could take quite a heap.
Uh, one, one single white cable
and it's not meat and it's not fat,
it's tendon and barbacoa restaurant
wanted for human consumption.
Well, we're familiar with doing
this for dogs and they're always
really mucky and they go in a
pile on the floor in the gut room.
And then we take them home to the
farm smoker, which is a plywood
box with a smoke generator.
And I'd smoke them and we'd sell
them in the city for, for dog
treats, but that wasn't going
to cut it for, for human grade.
So, um, with the animal on its back in a
cradle and this, you could do this with
your wild game as well to take tendons
for either your pets or for deer tendon,
elk tendon, um, or, uh, Moose tendon
soup, and it's something worth exploring.
And, and, and like, I don't think, I
think tendon was a lot more approachable
than liver, kidney, or, or maybe even
heart, um, because when you braise a
tendon, you just sort of end up with
a chewy noodle and a, and a broth
that has a ton of collagen in it.
So even if you strain out the solids
after you boil tendon in, in, in a
water or a stock, so salted water.
Maybe flavored with, with, uh, OXO
cubes or your own stock, like a
veggie stock or a beef, beef stock.
If you boil the bejesus out of a tendon,
um, and then let that cool, strain out
the solids and then that, let that cool.
You'll have what we call it at our house,
brown jello, which is a real, like a
high collagen, high elastin, um, cooled.
Substrate that melts in a pan and can be
added to add like a velvety and, um, a
velvety mouthfeel to any, any dish at all.
Um, there would be some, have
somewhat of a liquid component.
So your chilies, your soups, uh, like,
like any, any soup or chili, any stew or
curry, all benefits from our brown jello.
And that really is just boiled down
or boiled down and broken down, uh,
uh, tendon, beef tendon in our house.
Yeah, it's pretty awesome.
To take it a step further on the
tendon chat, culinary masters, so
these chefs at this restaurant, they
would take the tendon dish a few steps
further, and that was, you braise the
tendon, you slice it really thin, and
you let it dry out on a wire rack.
And then once it's dry, you can deep
fry it and make, um, uh, chicharrones
or something that would, would resemble,
um, to like a person who just eats
fast food and, uh, at the, at the
gas station, uh, like pork rinds.
So the beef tendons
braised, braised or boiled.
Slice thin, dried, and then put into
deep, like, to hot, hot oil, and they
puff up into something crunchy like a
pork rind, which would be a chicharron
if it was pork, but sort of just a beef,
a beef crisp made out of those tendons.
And they really take on the flavor
of whatever you add to them.
So you throw some salt and pepper,
garlic salt on them, they're just
a nice crunchy, totally different
texture from anything else that you can
get from a beef, but quite pleasant,
and no strong flavor or anything.
And then as, as far as health goes,
um, Um, just loaded with elastin and
collagen, which features highly in a
lot of prominent beauty products for
and skin, skin regeneration stuff.
That's why I look so young.
, I'm a, I'm
Travis Bader: 110.
I, I would think that eating that would
probably be better than just rubbing it
on the face, like, than the products.
But hey, that's, you know, to
eats your own, when you work
Jeff Senger: on the kill floor, you get a
little bit of both, you know what I mean?
.
Travis Bader: Have you
ever had, um, moose Nose?
Because I, a friend of mine,
uh, just sent me up a picture.
It was a little pretty sad photo, but it
was, uh, uh, a cow moose that was killed.
Just for its nose and he's a
conservation officers, so they're
tracking down the people who did this.
Um, but he was talking about what
a delicacy it is in some cultures.
Um, I can't say I've ever had moose nose.
Have you tried that?
Jeff Senger: You know, surprisingly, no.
Uh, we've done a lot of
weird things, uh, but.
We haven't had a moose dead in a few
years, and I think that now I have the
culinary, like, I have the culinary
skills, like, and the confidence to
say that I think that I could, I could
approach a moose nose now, um, after
exploring, like, chicken feet and
oxtail and, and, and, and the tendons.
I, I think that you could get
something that, like, that would
be approachable for anybody.
So I think that you don't have
to be as brave as you think in
order to eat something like that.
Um, but no, I haven't had moose nose yet.
I think it's a tragedy, like, isn't
that an interesting topic, like, to
say that as Westerners we kill an
animal for its tenderloin, and then
secondarily rib steaks and strip loins.
But a lot of the animal is ground, made
into slim jims, or like, like pepperoni,
and then so much of it is thrown away,
like the heart, the nose, the tendons,
the tail, and the livers and kidneys
and like fat and all that stuff is just
thrown into the garbage, the hide also.
Um, and then you kind of flip it
upside down and you say, imagine
someone thinking it was a good idea to
harvest an animal just for its nose.
It's awful.
And it contravenes, of course,
that contravenes all, uh, you know,
fish and wildlife legislation and
protection of wildlife, all that stuff.
Um, so that makes me sad, but,
uh, it is just an interesting,
that's an interesting little, um,
Travis Bader: And that's why I brought
it up, not, not to be political.
Cause it's so easy to take that
into the political spectrum.
And it's a, it's an unfortunate event
that, uh, they're working hard at
putting an end to and through knowledge
and, you know, everybody out there
talking in eyes open and realizing that
there's a community to be accountable
to just talking about this sort of
thing can, can help with ensuring that
people are, are not, Wasting animals.
Well, now that would, in my opinion,
that's a massive waste right there.
I think everyone's opinion would
say the same thing, but you know,
there's things that people don't
consider wasting that may be with a
little bit more of education, like
what you're talking about here.
Uh, they will in the future.
And they'll find ways to be able to cook
up these odd bits and these airbracks,
again, waste parts in a way that just
really utilizes the whole animal tip to
Jeff Senger: tail.
I think that there are cultures that
aren't nearly as, uh, well off as,
as, uh, Western Canadian or Canadians
and the West, uh, that, such that.
Well, one, that they may have a deeper
connection with animals and, and or
wildlife to begin with, uh, with their
food sources, with their food traditions.
And, and so eliminating waste for both
financial reasons, uh, and also, um, like
traditional Asian medicine, traditional,
you know, like, uh, a medical.
Food through medicine, medicine through
food in a culture that's a lot older than
Western European culture, where they're
saying that there is value in eating.
Peculiar bits, you know, to you and I,
uh, maybe, uh, to sort of help settle
ailments in, in a time before, uh, centrum
multivitamin was, was available in a
time before you got tidy little caplets
of omega 3 and omega 6 to help your,
your thinning hair or your sore joints.
Um, so I think that there's, there's
thousand year, you know, uh, food is
medicine, thousands, multi thousands
of year, uh, cultural heritage.
In, in, in cultures older than Western
European, uh, where they had to figure
out or they got to figure out, uh, why,
that's an interesting idea too, like,
you know, which, which plants in the
forest are there for my bed to, to solve
which, you know, to help aid in what,
um, What ailments, and then which parts
of the animal can aid me similarly.
There's
Travis Bader: definitely a deeper
connection with your natural
environment and what you're eating.
If you're able to pick up on
these little bits and what
they're actually doing for you.
And I guess a good connection
with yourself, if you're in tune
enough to realize that when I
eat this, it makes this happen.
So it's a pretty deep
Jeff Senger: magic
Travis Bader: trick.
Yeah.
Yeah, totally.
I agree.
It's, uh, when you're talking about
the, uh, uh, blood in the grass
and everything growing up, just
reminds me of full metal jacket.
What makes a grass grow?
Blood, blood, blood, right?
Uh, I always thought that was just
something that they chanted and it was
for shock effect, but turns out, yeah, it
Jeff Senger: does.
Uh, another experiment that we did
in the house was that, uh, if, you
know, the, the, the, the question I
had to ask is what if, what if beef
tripe, that is stomach, is food?
And if we could make beef tripe
or stomach food for people, that
is food for, food for people.
Um, then that blows the doors off all
kinds of weird ideas about scarcity.
And, uh, like I couldn't believe that
we could eat well as a family of six.
Really off, our joke is in the
early years we really were working
for the banks more than that.
Then, then working for a paycheck, we're
working just to pay all the people that
allowed us to have this slaughterhouse
business in the first place.
And, um, and with us having a bunch
of kids back to back to back, uh, We
called it bin food for dinner tonight
that what what we would got to eat
would be what was in the bit What
would have been thrown out on kill day?
Or what would have been trimmed to
throw out from the, from the cut floor.
So, uh, when a farmer brings in an
animal, we ask it for a cut instruction.
How do you want each muscle group cut?
Uh, what thickness for steaks?
What size of roasts?
And do you want your heart, tongue,
liver, kidney, suet, tail, cheeks?
Um, and they, and a lot of
those cut instructions, most
of them are no, no, no, no, no.
So those things would be saved on
the kill floor, but then they, they,
they would, they would go into the
cooler as like approved, uh, because
there's a meat inspector there.
So they're human approved organs and
OFL, but the generally, uh, most farmers
wouldn't take those unless they had a
dog, a farm dog or something like that.
They could, but a lot of them just, no.
So our family learned to eat offal out
of necessity and thriftiness, um, and
then we've, we've come a long way since
then to like, like actually preferring
certain cuts or certain offal like
hangers or diaphragm, skirt, um, and then
also kind of working into the explore,
exploring things like tendons and
what's the use of blood on the farm, but
there's just such a huge volume of it.
It's hard to just walk away from
a dumpster where, where you're
putting 50 to 80 pounds of beef fat.
per animal into the garbage and I went
on this kick where I couldn't sleep for
two days because I was thinking about
the caloric value of that fat and Google
told me or the internet told me it's very
close to that of diesel fuel so I thought
can we refine this animal fat through
not that complex chemical process with
a backyard biodiesel generation system.
Can we make biodiesel and mainly
it would just be funny and fun
to run my truck on animal fat.
Just like if, if I did it once,
I would have been pleased with
myself and I could die happy.
But, uh, we didn't get to that stage,
um, because the first step for, uh,
suet, or beef fat, is to, to render
it and render out the, the connective
tissue and the impurities, uh, bits.
Which, Uh, every farm family
kind of has experience with that
during, after a pig slaughter or,
or even an on farm beef slaughter.
Uh, the fat goes into the oven
in a gigantic pot or onto the
stove at low, low temperature.
And then overnight it'll melt down and
then we'll ladle off the, the clear,
the clarified fat into mason jars on
the counter and let them cool into hard
lard or hard suet to be used in cooking
or for pies later on in the year.
Um, and then the, the, the.
The nibbly bits, usually someone
who's disgusting will go and eat
those nibbly bits like schmaltz
or, uh, There's another word about
schmaltz, the bits that are left over.
That's the connective tissue that's
sort of been fried or confit ed in that.
In that fat, that animal fat
and it's quite crunchy and good.
So if you've just been out freezing
your nuts off in a, in a deer stand
and you come home and there's some
fat rendering in the oven or on the
stovetop there, you grab those little
fat connective tissue bits and eat those.
But, but the rendered lard, my
point is the rendered lard is
the first step to biodiesel.
Once you have this clarified, the
clarified lard or clarified suet in jars.
Or in a pail or in a 55 gallon
drum, uh, that's step one.
And, uh, what happened here, I think
two weeks ago, is, uh, a restaurant
customer said, I'd like to switch back
for, where once upon a time, french fries
and fish and chips were predominantly
fried in beef fat or beef tallow.
And McDonald's restaurants, uh, once
when they were founded, it was fairly
well known that they cooked all
their French fries in beef tallow.
And that was part of what made their
fries notoriously delicious is they were
fried in beef tallow instead of, uh, they
eventually switched for cost reasons.
I read the history of this, um, into seed
oils like canola oil is, but canola oil
with additives, um, that made the canola
oil taste or behave more like beef fat.
Not the same.
There's a brewing company in Edmonton
and, uh, they have a tasting room.
And they said, Hey, listen, can you
render me some fat for our deep fryers?
Because we like to provide chip, uh,
potato chips and also French fries to our
customers while they're tasting our beer.
And um.
So Brad with the fat cattle and
I kind of said, well sure, how
much, how much fat do you need?
Like we thought a few liters,
we need about 200 liters a week.
And we're like, yeah, that's,
that's a whole business unto itself.
And so this enters into, so Brad's got
the cattle, we're killing them for him
and he's like, can you save me this fat?
And I'm like, 200 liters is like, it's
four, it starts out as 400 pounds of fat
and we are throwing out 400 pounds of fat
a week and then some from his animals.
So like, this is all doable.
But we need a separate building
to do this, because we don't have
enough floor space and room to
save 400 pounds of animal fat.
We need a gigantic steam kettle
to melt this down to render it in,
in monstrous batches, like two,
three hundred litres at a time.
So I'm kind of doing research on
all this equipment, and I'm kind
of fooling around on Realtor.
ca.
Uh, to look at, like, land and
buildings or whatever available.
And, uh, this is where, this is fun, we
talked about this off air a little bit,
but, uh, Uh, the United Church in San
Guto is for sale for a low, low price.
And I'm like, that's weird.
And, uh, So I'm hanging out with one of
the slaughtered otters, we're driving
to Vancouver, it's a long story.
But, uh, we had 15 hours to kill.
Not to see you.
We were delivering some cats, if you can
believe, she's a real cat repreneur also.
So we were delivering some kittens
to eventually, it was all legal.
It was all legal.
It's how she's paying herself,
paying her way through university.
And I was like, yeah, we definitely will.
Actually.
Like I was like, who can we call?
We were there for, I was there for
one night and I had to fly back to,
she dropped me off at the airport.
I just wanted to be there through the
mountains, because I'm like, I could
never forgive myself if you had a wreck
or something, or, or just a breakdown
with your kittens in the back, so we, I
drove there and then flew home, and then
Heather, my wife, flew there and drove
home with, with Anna on the way back.
It was really funny.
But, um, Anyway, lost my cats, cat
repreneur, uh, oh, so, so, we had 15
hours to kill and we're talking about this
church for sale and I said it's 4, 000
square feet of space and it's, it's like
a block away from the meat packing plant
and so we started singing a jingle about
sauce church, we're gonna make a church
that makes sauces as well as rendered
fat, but rendered fat, we need a place
with a giant kettle Like a commercial
sized kettle, they build these all the
time on cruise ships and convention
centres where they would make two to
five hundred litres of a soup at a time.
Um, the aftermarket
world has them available.
They're not that valuable.
They're really expensive, I
think, to buy new, but nobody
makes two hundred litres of much.
Um, so, we approached our local investment
community and we're sort of tied in there.
A cooperative that we built, uh,
to finance the slaughterhouse.
14 years ago and the, the board
of directors of our investment
co op was like super keen.
They're like, yeah, we were worried
that if that church like was sold
as a residence, it would turn into a
weird, like it just wouldn't go to no
good, no good use in the community.
It wouldn't benefit.
Yeah.
I have some would move in.
Uh, you know, or it becomes
some kind of, uh, a drug house.
Like, cause it is, it's
an unusual building.
It'd be weird to live there.
I think, uh, the kids and I both
feel like there's probably some
weird vibes that you wouldn't want
to be there late at night, you know?
One of those places.
Yeah.
Well, it's, it's, I don't know,
we're, we're not a church going
family and it has a peculiar feeling.
I mean, like kind of quite
a nice feeling upstairs.
And then the basement is
like definitely haunted.
A little smudging and
Travis Bader: then it's
a house of the Lord.
House of the Lord.
I think so.
Jeff Senger: The United Church,
yeah, it's house of Lord.
Praise the Lord.
That's the, that's the joke without
offending the church people.
But the, the United Church had
a ceremony where they, they
like decommissioned the church.
And one of the members of the, of
the church said that they actually
make it, there's a special word, but
they, they desanctified the church.
So now it's just a
civilian building again.
And it was like, I appreciate that.
That's great.
Because less ghosts,
less ghosts the better.
Yes, I agree.
Especially in your LARD,
in your LARD production.
You don't want ghosts in your LARD.
So we believe, yeah, this
is the next project, Travis.
So you can get into the
ground floor opportunity.
Uh, these shares are going to go
wild in the San Guto stock exchange.
You know the IPO?
Yeah, you can, it's the, I call it
the ILO, the initial local offering.
We're reinventing finance and San Guto.
That's how desperate we are to
not cease to exist as a town.
Oh, I'm sold.
Travis Bader: I'm totally sold.
You just sold me right there.
Jeff Senger: Church basement.
Lard.
Praise the lard.
Uh, sauce church.
So, so this is it.
So this is, I think, possibly
the best business decision ever.
Not the slaughterhouse.
No, not the retail meat shop in Edmonton.
Also, no.
Low margin.
Uh, high, uh, Spoilage, or not
spoilage, but uh, like short shelf life.
But I think my entire life, the last 14
years, has been devoted to the meats.
And I was like, kept looking in
my, my waste trailer, the garbage,
the dumping trailer at the dump,
just thinking we could do better.
We could do so much better.
When we connected with a compost
guy, I'm like, now we're making dirt.
And then when we threw blood
on the compost, I'm like,
now we're making compost.
And these plants are loving
animal juices on their roots.
And like, so that's really smart.
But still the fat could, you know, so,
so we just, we, we, we didn't have to
continue to process this stuff into
biodiesel if we can sell it for the
world, the world of French fries.
And if it's true, the case that one
French, one brewery that wants to sell
French fries needs something like.
200 liters a week.
And even if they're off by a factor of
10, or if I'm telling this story like
a moron and it was 20 liters, well then
to get to 200 is only 10 restaurants.
So our puny little slaughterhouse
that kills 20 beef a week.
Could take the fat from the animals and,
uh, and, and, and extra, extra bones.
That was, Sauce Church will manufacture
rendered lard for, for deep fryers in
Edmonton, as many as we can, uh, fill.
And, and then also the steam kettle
can be used to do bone broth,
which is a restorative, nutritious.
Uh, Superfood, uh, friends of ours,
super sad story, um, recently had a
baby and the mother was diagnosed with
a, a tumor that was cancerous in her
brain and they removed it and she's
undergoing chemo, but, um, they've,
she's been devoutly, uh, making bone
broth for herself as just a superfood.
to, to just to get through the chemo,
uh, to give her food or give her body
all of the micronutrients that it needs.
She's been really keen on, on, on bone
broth and have, has developed some
recipes that really work for them.
Um, we have our house recipes at our house
for bone broth, uh, building beef stock,
where you, where you start with bones
and four days later you end up with, uh,
again, kind of a brown jello or with a lot
of super nutrients, nutrient dense stuff.
And I thought, man, if, if
we have the floor space.
Uh, via this decommissioned church
building, um, we get, so, so if things
work out, financing comes off on the
15th in five days, and then possession
is November 1st, um, it's got a small
kitchen in the basement and we can get
it AHS approved, I don't think, with too
many modifications to be able to turn
this into a whole, so my, the latest
business venture is, uh, making use of
waste, exclusively making use of waste.
Travis Bader: I think that's brilliant.
Like that's absolutely brilliant.
I think you've got a very large market,
the shelf life of this stuff when
frozen is going to be pretty good
and you've got a sweet backstory as
well of where it's coming from and
everything that went into it that I
think people would want to get behind.
I think it's a really smart
business venture, honestly.
Jeff Senger: I appreciate it.
It comes from a desire to, to really
honor, to not throw the animal away or
to, like we, by weight, if an animal comes
in an 1800 pounds, it hangs 850 pounds.
So the hide head blood and
guts are half the weight.
And then when it, when it shows up on the,
it hangs in the aging coolers for a couple
of weeks and it's down another six or 8%.
Um, and then it goes
through the cut room and.
Uh, uh, trim steaks and trim roasts.
Probably, we're probably looking
at a 65 percent yield on 50
percent of the live weight.
So the animal, most of the
animal that we eat is discarded.
So when my kids, when we put a steak
on one of the, we're having family
dinner and we have T bones or something
really gratuitous, everyone gets
a two pound T bone on their plate.
And the kids like cut away the fat.
I say, give me that and I eat it.
Oh, I love it.
I love that.
That's what the flavor is.
Yeah, but, but also like, I just can't,
and that's, I have a body, uh, fit, you
know, that matches, but, uh, I can't
stand that there would be waste at sort
of the restaurant level or at the kitchen.
So there's also waste
at the kitchen table.
So half the animals throw it
out when you kill it, kill it.
And then half again, when you cut
it and pack it and wrap it, and
then you throw it, then someone like
doesn't feel like finishing their
steak and it goes in the garbage.
It goes to the dog after that.
And that's frustrating because
that animal likes, like it was.
Yeah, someone, someone fought for
that animal, if it's in the case of a
domestic animal, someone fought to keep
that thing alive, uh, for two years
before it went to slaughter, or in the
wild, like, you know, the, the animals
born and survived, like kind of some
insurmountable odds, uh, for a young, uh,
newborn animal to make it to adulthood,
to then be harvested, it's tough to then
have it thrown out many times in a row.
Travis Bader: You know, teaching people
that, and I think the easiest way to
do that is to start with those, you
know, that are friends and family.
Uh, we worked hard with our kids
from a very young age to eat.
Every part of the animal, as
much as we were comfortable
and knowledgeable to cook up.
Luckily, like I love eating,
so that's not a problem.
And my wife's a red seal chef by trade.
So she loves cooking.
So that's a good, good fix there.
Good mix.
And, uh, But you know, our, like
our Christmas traditions, we'll
have blood puddings, blood sausages.
Uh, that's something
everyone looks forward to.
And we'll have it a few
times throughout the year.
Not all the time.
Haggis, of course, Robbie Burns Day.
Everyone loves haggis.
No, not if it's too
livery, uh, oxtail, I mean.
Put that in the, um,
in the pressure cooker.
And that's the best way that I
found that I really enjoy it.
You know, we brought our kids to a
friend's place at a very young age
and they got to meet the, uh, the
Berkshire pig that we were going
to be taken home all wrapped up.
So they, I.
Brought them around the
corner for when it was shot.
Cause I didn't, you know, they're
pretty young and probably don't, doesn't
always go as anticipated when it's shot.
You don't know if it's going to be a quick
and or not, hopefully the person knows
what they're doing and they do it right.
And then it does go as anticipated.
This one did.
But, uh, aside from the shot, they
were there prior to the shot, um,
around the corner was shot and then
drag it out and butchering it up and
letting it hang and then working on it.
They're all a part of the process there.
And they.
Think that really helps them and just have
that appreciation for what the food was.
It doesn't just come wrapped up in
cellophane at the grocery store.
What it was before, where it is now.
And we've never had that issue with
them being picky eaters, thankfully.
Jeff Senger: Yeah.
I, you know, as a, as a lifetime hunter
and then, and then as a professional,
you know, meat harvester, I, I agree, or
couldn't agree more with you about how
important it is for, to get youngsters
out and people of all, of all walks
of life, uh, to be involved with
the harvesting of food and knowing.
Uh, knowing intimately where food comes
from, I think that our culture is like,
it's okay with having a TV shows, um,
that, uh, that broach, you know, like
savage, savage level, horrible content
and like that's, it's, it's, I don't,
I don't know, it's, it's allowed CSI
Miami anytime, seven o'clock at night.
And they're exploring
subjects fictitiously.
That's true.
There's actors and the kids understand
that, but, uh, really mature subject
matter about what humans do to humans.
And, in a fictitious way, and
I find it quite appalling.
Like, they're approaching
matters that are challenging
from myself, and I'm a murderer.
The things that humans do to humans.
And then in real life, if you
actually turn on the news, probably
more appalling than a lot of the
fictional documentaries and things.
Uh, the news is pretty shocking
too, about what humans do to humans.
I think that takes maybe a bigger leap.
Uh, even for kids or for people
from, uh, main, more, more
mainstream walks of life then.
Then digest, digesting the concept of
harvesting an animal to eat, even people
that say, came to Kevin Cost once from
the wild on trips where they'd worked in
food that served food, they'd prepared
food, but they'd never harvested an animal
before, uh, while it was emotional and
spiritual and a journey for each, each
person that we introduced to catching a
fish, killing a fish, bleeding a fish,
uh, uh, shooting a grouse, uh, harvesting
a grouse, processing a grouse, and
then all the way up to deer and bear.
black bears.
Uh, I think that it was an easier
transition than you than you'd think.
Um, for people to not, I mean, to
just appreciate where food comes from.
And I think that a lot of people that have
that experience, they kind of, they maybe
might choose to not go back to eating
food that's just on a styrofoam tray.
Or never buy food or meat on a styrofoam
tray without, without having some deeper
thoughts about how many hands touched that
before it got here and why is it on sale?
Yeah.
And those are good questions to ask.
Those are good
Travis Bader: questions to ask.
You know, the, the other thing I, uh,
really wanted to impress upon my kids at
an early age was just that whole concept
of life and death, because it brings a
greater appreciation for life in general.
And I think that.
Death is such a closed door activity.
Nowadays, you don't see open
caskets that much anymore.
Uh, it's a very sanitary
process in behind closed doors.
When you find your food coming
out to you that there's, I
think there's a disconnect.
In general society of, of life and death.
And then you couple that with, you
know, media, like you're talking about
watching your CSI or playing the video
games and life is just given such a
very low value that I think it, um, it
gives the wrong impression to people
that, uh, go back a hundred years.
There is a very different relationship
between the living and the dead,
whether that's animals and people
and having that connection, I
think makes you a better person.
Yeah, I
Jeff Senger: think I'm more contemplative
and probably, uh, a person who would be
more, uh, living in the moment and, and,
and, and more grateful and humble, uh,
being the, the trigger puller on this,
at the slaughterhouse has made me realize
just how, how a quarter of an inch of
skull is between me and instant death,
uh, we, in, uh, 13 and a half years,
I've had two, uh, firearms, mishaps.
Uh, one where a gun went off and I
caught some ricochet in my forearm
off of, off a 22 long rifle.
And that didn't feel great.
And a tiny piece of it hit me in
this, in my, in my nostril and
blood was coming out of my nose.
So it was shocking.
Uh, it was a bit of a wake up call.
And then a couple of weeks ago.
Um, I made bad choices and I used
a 22 Magnum to shoot a lamb and the
bullet went through the ram's head.
Hmm.
The inspector was kind of in a hurry.
We're all in.
I was in a hurry and trying to, uh,
satisfy the inspector's need to get
to a hockey practice or something.
So I was like, while.
Team A was working, the slaughter
daughters were working on a
beef that I, that would knock
down, and we put in the cradle.
They were skinning it.
I said, because we want to, we want to
kind of get done quickly, I'll go and
shoot the lamb out in the pens, on a
concrete floor, and then drag it in.
I'll work on the lamb while the
kids are working on this beef.
So anyway, and I didn't
switch to 22 shorts.
I just used the 22 magnum.
I'm like, it'll be extra dead.
What could go wrong?
Like, I hadn't had a miss happen a while.
This is like workplace safety.
All these no nos, all these contributing
factors, but, uh, anyway, so I
shot through the, the bullet went
through the lamb's head, bounced off
the concrete, bounced off a pipe.
And this, this little piece of
22 magnum hit me like just on
the right side of my temple.
At the speed of like, someone
just threw a pebble at you.
Like, so I just felt this little
doink off my, my forehead.
And then I kind of looked, I was
looking at the floor and I saw the
sparkle of copper and lead and it
landed and it made a tink when it landed
on the cement next to the dead lamb.
And I was like, Oh, like there
was no one there to even see it.
Like the kids were busy.
The inspector was busy.
And I was like, Oh man, that
was like death himself just
came and gave me a little, Oh,
where's the, where's the camera?
A little doink.
And, uh, I was like, Jesus,
like that's how close.
You are to shooting yourself like,
so firearm safety was like, like,
like brought back to the forefront
and also that that lamb is dead
and it could have been, it could
have been just as easily myself.
So anyway, farm life, we found this
other ideas that my wife and I, uh,
moved out of the city, uh, didn't grow
up on a farm, had no idea how farms work.
And then 20 years ago, we had
our first daughter and we're
in Calgary working downtown.
And I'm like, this is stupid.
This is what, this is what you would do.
Well, if you weren't me, I just couldn't
believe that we could live like that.
Um, the commute, like gridlock, uh,
the C train, there were like all
these instances of things where I
thought that we'd lost our humanity.
And I thought, I just
don't want to raise care.
We, we thought we don't
want to raise kids this way.
Let's move to a farm.
So we, we moved to the farm
and, uh, like you said.
It was kind of like
traveling back in time.
So it's like, welcome to 1910.
Don't dive scurvy, don't get dysentery,
but we're way more clear and present
in our daily lives of how fragile
human life is, how fragile we are
dependent on systems like water.
Not freezing, uh, electricity, when,
when the grid goes down out here, there's
not a huge rush for people to fix it.
Snow shoveling, ice storms, heavy
rain, flooding, all that stuff.
So you kind of have to learn to
battle those things, uh, on your own.
And then this year, Uh, near to us, uh,
there were wildfires that were crazy.
So as a hunter, you can recognize
why, why, while a bad, uh, an
unusually hot, dry summer or hot,
dry spring might result in wildfires.
You know it because of the
crunch under your boots.
If you put a lot, if you spend a lot
of time in nature, you can recognize
things that lead up to, uh, Like
a weird summer, a weird summer of
wildfires or weird, weird summer where
the roads that you used to walk in on
or drive in on are now muskeg bogs.
So people that recreate outdoors can
kind of have a better appreciation of
nature and natural things, and also
animals and food and where they come from.
Um, so we've had 20 years living as these
Druids out on our land, watching some
summers, the, the, the farmland would
get so dry that it would crack, the clay
would crack and then open up and there'd
be these two inch cracks like running.
We'd follow them like with the, our
little, the slaughter daughters,
when they were under 10, there's
like, where does this crack go?
Maybe to Narnia or the underworld, I
would tell them, you know, but the, the
myths and our, and the relationship with
nature, I'm reading a book right now.
That's really got me bothered.
Um, It's called The Age of Insecurity and
it's kind of, the author starts with a
discussion about the, uh, the Enclosures
Act that kind of led, led to, um, this
is, I don't know, I'm not trying to
get political, but it's a western, uh,
corporatism, western, uh, Capitalism.
So once upon a time, humans lived on land
without the concept of ownership of land.
And people just took what they
needed and they lived off the land.
And then these smart guys were like,
Hey, if we put a fence around that
and said that one of us owns it, and
then we throw off the people, then we
can charge them to get what they need.
Like, they need that land for life,
uh, to satisfy food, shelter, clothing.
But if we take it away from them, put a
fence around it and then sell, we can sell
the requirements of life back to them.
And it'll be hilarious.
And it was probably a joke, or like,
there's no way anyone's gonna respect
a fence or believe that because I
have a piece of paper that says that
I own that land and you can't go in
there anymore, that, that I'll, I'll
grow the crop and sell it to you,
or I'll, now you can work for me.
Anyway, really interesting, the
Enclosures Act, and how it all started.
By making people insecure.
Your food insecure.
Well, I think that, like...
If you participate in, uh, corporate
capitalism to the extent that Heather and
I did, that you have enough money to buy
a bit of land, I would say that, how do
you invent a movement called the non or
the Unenclosures Act, where individuals
leave their corporate jobs and buy an
inexpensive bit of land, and then they're
reconnected with the ability to provide
for their basic needs, directly where
the magic of the sun meets the soil?
Where food leaps out of the ground and,
and where the animals then eat those
plants and create a fungus in their poops.
And now you're eating mushrooms and eating
plants and you're eating the animals.
Like, how do you get back to where?
Um, I think that our environmental woes
and challenges would probably be a lot
smaller if there was a person on every
quarter section and a pig in every yard.
And that's like my, that's my political
campaign when I'm running for mayor
of South San Guto, the town of 300.
Yep.
Is just, I think that probably...
I can get behind that.
The only way...
Yeah, the only way we're gonna have
sort of, um, habitable future is
if fewer people are worried about
what sneakers they're wearing and
what chains they got on and what
symbols on the front of their car.
And more people are just walking in
boots or bare feet in the mud and
appreciating like, hey, wait a minute,
this is a bad grasshopper here.
You know, beef prices are going to go up.
I should probably grow my own beef.
I think with, and then with Wi Fi and
things, like with technology, like what
we're doing right here, um, and then
COVID was another kind of, uh, score for
remote work, uh, that you can, you can be
an intellectual person doing intellectual
work remotely from home, but why oughtn't
you live on land where you can provide
for a lot of the things, and in a shorter,
uh, Distribution chain, you can provide
for a lot of things that you need and
a local, in the local small community.
But, but I think that it comes from
like what, and this is just to, I'm
just rambling on your point in that,
uh, can you make a more decent kid
or a decent citizen if they've been
around, not like traditional farm life.
I don't want to go back to
where, how we, how it was.
Um, there are a lot of improvements
that have made since then.
But I think taking a modern, uh,
contemporary society and then.
Asking that they become more involved
in the wild places and in, in, with a
direct connection to land itself, um,
such that the land is managed better.
And, and I think that probably like the,
the tip of the spear might be exactly
your people and that, that is the
hunters and wildlife conservation folks.
Um, those are the people that are,
maybe they live, they live in,
uh, uh, in, in urban settings.
But I think the people that really...
Consistently spend money to conserve
wildlife and think about, think
big thoughts about nature are,
are probably the people that use
Travis Bader: nature.
I had a few other things I wanted
to touch on, but I also have some
questions here from the Silvercore
club, people through social media.
And they got some good ones in here.
They got some really silly ones, which
I'm not even going to bother getting into
because I just don't even understand it.
But, um, uh, some of the good
questions we had, let's say field
dressing in your opinion, what's
the best field dressing utensil?
Jeff Senger: Oh man, I love it.
This is really intimate
and interactive, Travis.
I really feel great about these
sorts of questions, and I could,
like, as you know, I can go on any
topic for hours with enough coffee.
Uh, the best field dressing utensil
is probably, uh, a round honing steel.
That is inexpensive and bought from a
butcher supply company, 12 inch, uh,
Victorinox, black handled honing steel.
And knowing how to use it for an
inexpensive, uh, butcher knife,
like a, a boning knife, 6 inch.
Stiff six inch boning knife, stiff
straight back and a honing steel are so
key that if you have a razor sharp knife
that is at least six inches long, you can
core the butthole on your animal up to
and including a moose or elk or large,
like the largest of the large game.
Um, if it's razor sharp, you're not
pulling or pushing that on the knife
in a way that would create a dangerous
situation for you, stabbing yourself and
bleeding out because you're field dressing
in a So, that's it, just, if you have a...
People...
There's all this stupid, um, expensive
kit that is sold with various
camouflage patterns and sold under
various stupid brand names that
make it sound super extreme, mega...
And they're all unnecessary.
A boning knife for twenty...
I think retail you can buy a six inch
boning knife with a big plastic handle
that is ergonomically useful for about
thirty bucks and then a honing steel
is, uh, uh, honing steel or honing rod.
is about a hundred.
But those two pieces of kit are
unbelievably useful, uh, in the field.
I find I don't carry a
saw to cut the brisket.
It's just unnecessary.
Uh, as you get advanced, you can actually
split the brisket on any animal, including
a moose, um, through the cartilage
beside the center sternum bone, if you
want to get fancy, or just reach up
up to your, just roll your sleeves up.
And you don't have to split the
sternum and create a sharp edge.
And then this, like, so just a
sharp knife is very, very important.
And then the second, the really
cool piece of kit that is like,
would be a sleeper for most people.
And you probably, you wouldn't
even see them at a hunting store.
It would be a ratchet strap.
The, the value of a ratchet strap in your
kit for field dressing is next level.
And I'll fight anyone who wants to say
that there's a better piece of kit.
So you can learn how to tie a knot and
actually your rat replaced your ratchet
strap with a lighter piece of gear, which
would be like a quarter inch piece, a
quarter inch nylon rope and like 10 feet
of it, but a 10 foot ratchet strap for
those of us who give zero shits about
learning how to tie knots means that
you can go around the back leg of the
animal and you can go over to a tree.
Or, or to your buddy, but to a tree
when you don't have friends or you're
hunting solo or the animal's down and
you're, your hunting partners are far
away, um, you can ratchet strap to
a tree and so you can crank, uh, in
a way that's stronger than just you,
you kind of can, can get a competitive
advantage through ratchet strap that
nylon webbing slides really nice.
So you can go to the animal, like
through it's, uh, the tendon and the
back leg around a tree, back through
the leg, back to the tree, back
through the leg, like on a moose.
And now you have like four times
mechanical advantage because of the
pulleys and that stuff slides better than
rope around a tree, that nylon stuff.
So then you can, you can pull the
animal over with a ratchet strap.
So one guy, a ratchet strap and a sharp
knife is a great way to manage even
the biggest of, of downed wild game.
That's my, that's my answer.
Love
Travis Bader: it.
What's the best way to
avoid getting hairy meat?
Jeff Senger: Oh man,
that's a great question.
Uh, The best way to avoid getting hair
on your wild game meat is to minimize
the number of times that you penetrate
the hide with the knife during gutting
and then subsequent processing.
So, minimize the number of holes in the
hide and I did a course once, or workshop,
once upon a time, um, where you would
dress the animal differently depending
on which equipment that you had with you.
So if you're road hunting and the animal
is dead near your truck, um, you could
be more aggressive in how much processing
you do compared with if you're backpacking
in and you have an animal down 16
miles from the nearest road or vehicle.
But, one of the methods I speak about
in my workshop that is, I wish it was
available online, maybe we'll, we'll,
we'll video on one day, uh, you and
Tiffany and, and I, Travis, but, uh,
a minimal intrusion gutting method is
the best way to minimize the number
of punctures and the length of those
punctures through the hide, uh, and it
would be the method that I would choose
to gut an animal if I had to haul it a
long ways, uh, to get back to a vehicle.
And then once, so minimum intrusion
is, uh, core of the butthole.
Thank you.
And around the genitals, so cut the,
the tailpipe in a circle, giant doughnut
around the ass, and if it's a female,
uh, the vulva area, and then a small
slash, uh, in the abdomen, like six
inches or less, in the belly, right
beside the penis, or where the teats are
on a female, like on a doe, like between
the nip, like, Uh, longitudinally, but
a six inch gash between the nipples
on a doe or cow, cow elk or cow moose.
And then the third slash
is just at the throat.
So through those very small intrusions,
you can loosen the throat and the
esophagus by punching your arm down around
the collarbones and loosening it all just
through that little hole in the neck.
And then you can...
You can core out the butthole and
then reach in through the, the, the
slash in the, in the guts area and
grab the tailpipe and pull it out
that, that small cut and then reach
your arms up through the small cut in
the belly and open the diaphragm to
pull the heart and lungs out that way.
And so the, the, you're
making the least amount.
of, like, inches of cutting through
hide and hair as possible with just
a butthole core, a throat slash, and
then a small incision in the belly.
You're gonna wanna roll up, like, take
off your long sleeve shirt and roll
up your sleeves in a larger animal
to get up and reach up through the
diaphragm, cut the diaphragm, and pull
the throat and trachea out through
that same Incision in the belly.
Um, it's all doable, but the
goal is there's no perfection.
Like, oh, Jeff said, you can only
do six inches cut in the belly.
If you have to make it
longer, then make it longer.
But, uh, especially for a
bigger animal like a moose.
Um, but the, the minimal number of cuts
and then don't skin it in the bush.
Uh, I would drag it out unless you're
really concerned about temperature.
I would leave the hide on as long as
possible till you're back to some sort
of civilization and that keeps mud and
grime and dirt and leaves and hair.
Off the meat.
So if you can get it back to camp and lift
it in any way, uh, that's the best way to
skin is where the hide is falling off the
carcass as you're lifting the carcass up.
And f funny also, a ratchet strap.
A ratchet strap.
And a stout, a stout stick that
isn't gonna snap on you between the,
the heels or the, the two tendons
as a ga or if you have a, if you're
fancy and you have a metal ga, um,
a spreader bar between the knees.
Um, you can kind of ratchet
strap it up into a tree and
lift it as you're skinning it.
So that the hair and gravity is
all pulling the, the hair, the
loosened hairs as you're, as
you're cutting through the hide.
It's pulling it down.
Usually when the animal, where the
animal falls is a bad place to skin it
because the ground is uneven, inevitably,
and you're not using gravity to your
advantage to pull that hair and hide away.
So I would just gut it and then load it
and get it back to a vehicle to load, to
get it to camp somehow with the hide on.
And then if you want to go even
further, if the temperatures are
ideal, like it's really cold.
Um, you can gut it and get air
into the cavity and it cools from
the inside of the animal, not
from the outside of the animal.
And Kevin, uh, Kossawan, great friend
from the wild, uh, filmographer, he
actually aged, uh, several deer one
season in his cold room with the hide on.
So he read this, it was European
technique, and it worked magnificently.
And it kind of goes against
everything that a person would...
I don't know.
You're like, how quick
can I get my meat naked?
And, uh, that, I don't
know where that comes from.
But, uh, uh, he's like, I, I think
that kind of like hanging a duck,
hanging a duck and aging it till
its head falls off or whatever.
Like, I don't know.
He's kind of on this kick.
And we did, we were experimenting
with, uh, extreme dry aging beef.
And he's like, well, if I leave the, if
I leave the hide on, then what happens?
So it, it just aged
with the fur on in his.
In his cold storage basement room,
and then before he wanted a heart,
it's so it hung out there two, three
weeks, and then he skinned it at home
with really sharp knives and lots
of time, and he said it was perfect.
It was like virgin meat, no hair,
no gravel, no dust, no spores.
Because the hide stayed on right until he
was ready to actually butcher the animal.
Travis Bader: Got a question here.
This guy knows how to ask lots
of questions in one sentence.
It says, hang versus ice bath
versus butcher straight away.
I've have a big 105 litre
Coleman cooler, but no walk in.
Our second fridge is used for the
house, but it isn't overly full.
I've been doing an ice bath
for seven to 10 days as per Von
Benedict's podcast, drain the
water every day, add ice as needed.
Seems to work.
Okay.
This person says water at
the end is much less bloody.
I live in the lower mainland.
So weather doesn't seem good to hang.
A friend does, but uses
commercial fans in his garage.
What does hard meat
layer do to the quality?
So that's a whole bunch of stuff
in one, in one question there.
But what would you have to say to that?
Jeff Senger: Yeah, with regards to how
do you get your meat cool safely and
quickly, uh, and as simply as possible.
And this is a question from the lower
mainland where temperatures aren't
like they are in north central Alberta.
So, um, I have to expand
my mind a little bit.
I've heard of the cold water bath method
and, Uh, harvesting moose as a kid with
the old men, uh, when I was growing
up, uh, we use river water to cool
the moose down when the temperatures
were no good and the flies were bad.
So an early season harvest, um, cold
water was kind of the only option
because we were, we're remote.
And, uh, we had several days where,
where the game wasn't going to be.
Out at commercial refrigeration.
Um, very interesting.
Um, so there are some options and
that is like, I, like a cold water
bath or, uh, dry or aging in air,
in, in cool air, ideally, um, you
know, um, or butchering right away.
And I would say the whole idea of
aging is to make the animal, uh,
increase in tenderness and, um, uh,
decrease in its total water load.
So it, it, it would concentrate flavor
and increase tenderness by aging in air.
Um, in an ice bath for multiple days,
um, I would say that you're cooling it
through, but you're probably not getting
like water loss to concentrate flavor.
there probably still would be
enzymatic activity inside the
meat, making it more tender.
Um, so that would be applicable
when you're dealing with like
a bull, a bull animal or a
male animal or an older animal.
Um, you might want to do that for
more tenderness, but your end use of
the animal is probably something that
would guide you, uh, the most here.
Uh, because I think that a good option
would be to butcher immediately.
So, um, if you have one cool night or,
or, or 12 hours in a cold water ice
bath, 12 hours it's chilled through,
um, then it's time to butcher, uh,
again, depending on what you're
planning to use the animal for.
If a lot of it's gonna, if it's an older
animal, like a, uh, a trophy animal.
is an old buck or old bull.
Um, a lot of it's going to, like, if
we're being honest with ourselves, a
lot of it's going to go into grind.
So I would say you're not getting
any meat benefits by aging that, um,
you're going to grind most of it.
And the tender parts are already tender.
So on an older animal, like a trophy buck,
I'd save the tenderloin, the strip and
the ribeye, the strip loin and ribeye,
and then probably grind or cube for stew
or slow cooking most of the rest of it.
So I think that what you're trying
to get out of, like, Aging in a
traditional European slaughterhouse
kind of idea, um, it doesn't
apply to wild game the same way.
The reason that we do it with big
fat beef and even big fat pigs,
uh, aging works really well because
they're just carpeted in lard, in fat.
So they have a, a wetsuit, a fat
layer that can be trimmed off later.
And so that means that they're
just really great candidates.
A big fat beef or a big fat pig, uh, hog.
Uh, are terrific candidates to age
indefinitely because they're so loaded
with that, that sealing in the moisture
and allowing enzymatic enzymatic activity
to break down, uh, the connective
tissue in the meat, a lean wild
animal, particularly a breeding bull
or breeding buck has little to no fat.
And so in air it dries out, and in
water, this, I want to get to this,
the, in a cold water bath, you're
risking spreading contamination.
So if there's a bit of fecal matter,
or a bit of spores, or contamination,
like in the bath, then it gets, it's
watered down, and so it's diluted, but
it could get all over the meat if you
have some, something nasty in there.
So I'd probably just go ahead and...
If I didn't have refrigeration, uh,
right away, I I'd have the animal cool
down and sort of like rig a mortise
up and then butcher it right away.
Get it into a cooler on ice in at
least primals, like boneless primals.
That's a great way to go.
Cause you're not going to improve,
uh, meat quality that much.
If you're hunting just for meat,
and you're taking a fawn or a cow or
something that's been fat, shooting
off here would be like shooting
a cow moose off an alfalfa field.
Or sorry, an alfalfa or canola field.
That's a big, lardy, fat ass animal.
So you can skin it, uh, and, and chill it,
and you're going to get some benefits by
letting that thing age, the tenderness,
because it's got a big fat, uh, jacket on.
So it's retaining its moisture,
retaining that juiciness,
and then getting more tender.
But usually a bull or a buck,
um, is going to lose juiciness
in exchange for tenderness.
And then you're adding that whole
meat contamination risk, uh, from E.
coli spreading.
So I would just butcher right away.
Travis Bader: Butcher right away.
Yeah.
I like, you know, I had Axis deer for the
first time, uh, did a hunt in Molokai and
very hot, very hot weather over there.
And, uh, it, the meat immediately went
into an ice bath, which was, you know,
something I've never done before.
And I've always kind of frowned upon.
Um, and people talk about how Axis deer
is like one of the best meats out there.
That wasn't my assessment.
I found it to be a very mild meat.
And I was wondering if that ice
bath really kind of made it more
mild and affected the texture as
Jeff Senger: well.
Yeah, I think it definitely would.
Uh, we've had poultry, uh, yeah,
definitely, uh, meat picks up water when
it's in, so hot, hot meat going into cold
bath picks up water in the fibers of the
meat, so it affects your texture as well.
Um, So that's something like, if you
prefer it, if you prefer that texture, the
texture and the extra weight, that's good.
But, but I think that the risks of
contamination is always a concern.
Um, as if I put on my, my retail meat
vendor hat, I would sell, uh, Uh,
a cold air chilled chicken, uh, for
more than an ice water bath chicken.
So an ice water bath chicken
goes into these cold water baths.
Uh, that's how the mega processors
do it to get those chickens cooled
down more quickly with less real,
less real estate, less room.
Um, but if there's some chicken
shit in the water, that chicken
shit is now on all the chickens.
So the solution to that is usually to
add, to add a chemical, an antibacterial
chemical to the chicken bath.
And then that's all being
slurped up by the meat.
So the meat itself, the muscles and the
skin and all that is soaking in a shit
chemical bath and it also gives you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like the chlorine in a swimming pool.
Like someone just took a dump
in your pool, but don't worry.
It's it's uh, don't worry.
It's fine.
And I'm like, I don't want to eat.
I don't want shit in my mouth.
That's sterile or active.
I don't, I just assume to have neither.
So, so when Paul, sorry, but
in poultry, then air chilled
is like this premium product.
If the poultry is killed and then
air killed, washed off and then air
chilled, um, that's more desirable.
Travis Bader: Um, and you know,
people talking about, uh, different
ways of cooling off their, uh, their
game, I always, like, I look at
people, they buy meat grinders and
they'll buy slices and they'll buy
all these different contraptions.
And why not just go on Craigslist and
buy a used freezer and get a little
temperature control for the thing.
Um, uh, other than storage space, you
can get, uh, or a used fridge, just
something to hang your meat or hold your
meat for a while in, in a cool area.
It seems like that would be a pretty
good investment if somebody plans to go
out and getting more than one animal.
Jeff Senger: Absolutely.
I think planning your trip, um, I mean,
this is an answer to a, not exact,
not a question, but an extension of
the previous one, and that's that, um,
there's so much money spent on camouflage.
And, and knickknacks that are brick
and brack, that's all unnecessary.
Um, if you are serious about what
you want to do with your meat, then
yeah, ice or, uh, uh, a generator.
A lot of guys are traveling with
generators, generators anyway.
So, a window rattling air conditioner
in like a semi insulated plywood
box would be, would be more
useful than, uh, I don't know.
What can I think of that I saw, uh,
recent, like then a ghillie suit.
I think that's some, invest
money in an air conditioner,
a generator and a plywood box.
And the ghillie suit probably
is a bit of an overkill.
Travis Bader: Uh, I'd say so.
Yeah.
Maybe just be still, you'll
probably, uh, find more.
Jeff Senger: But yeah,
it's really interesting.
I don't know.
I have a strong, strong feelings about
the commercialization of hunting and
that they'll like that if it can be
manufactured in China, uh, for 3 cents
and sold to North Americans for 300,
uh, that works and that gets promoted
and pushed, but what doesn't get pushed
is exactly what you said is Craigslist
or Kijiji or, or Facebook marketplace.
And looking for that used fridge or the
even used walk ins are not expensive.
If a couple of hunters working
together, we're going to go.
plan a trip where they go into
camp and they're going to set up
and be like, be in theater for 10
days, no matter what's harvested.
No one's driving out that then, yeah,
like a five by eight trailer with, with
spray foam insulation or some dowel foam
and a, and an air conditioner running
during the day would be, would be really
a lot smarter than, uh, the lift kit and
the, um, the ground effects, lighting
and, and the, you know, whatever,
whatever people are spending money on.
You don't need a whiz bang rifle
if all your meat just rots.
Travis Bader: That's a
really, really good point.
Jeff Senger: Yeah.
Get a 303 at a, at a gun show and,
and wear like sneakers because
they're all like sneakers are awesome.
Disposable set of, uh, inexpensive
sneakers and just throw them out
every year and then go hunting and,
and maybe think about meat prep,
meat, meat storage and preservation.
Travis Bader: I like that.
Here's one.
Uh, what do you think of Rene
Redzepi's dry aging beef and beeswax?
I think he had some like super
old, uh, uh, cow that he ended
up, um, dry aging and beeswax.
Did you follow that?
Jeff Senger: Yeah, no, for sure.
I saw that and I thought, super cool.
We have, uh, on the farm, we have bees.
We have wax and we've done it once.
Uh, we did a strip loin in, in lard,
uh, in beef tallow, sorry, beef tallow.
So dip, uh, ice bath, like
dipping in hot tallow and then
ice bath and dipping hot tallow.
So the, the goal here from the
meat weirdo perspective is that
you're trying to minimize, uh, the
amount of trim loss that is called
pellicle or, uh, more commonly scab.
So the dried out husk of say a desirable
cut of meat like strip loin or ribeye
that is a cut that you'd want to
super age If you just like cool or
you just let it age in air you get
a gross bark or scab on the outside
of the meat and then you're trimming
that down to just cut out the bright
red jewel in the center because most
people are really put off by that just
that ugly looking bark on the outside.
So Rene Rezepi and others, uh, dipping
in fat means that you're not losing
all, you're not losing, uh, moisture
as quickly in the outer layer.
So you have a higher yield.
on the cut because you're keeping the
moisture in by dipping it in beeswax
or lard and beeswax and lard or tallow
are semi permeable to moisture and and
in air so there is some exchange It's
a little bit better than a plastic
bag, but not a whole lot better than a
plastic bag So that would be something
more akin to wet aging or bag aging.
So you have to ask yourself.
What's more permeable
just a Vaxeal bag Or wax.
And both of them, they're pretty close.
Wax has a little more breathability
than, or, or, or lard tallow.
Um, but it's kind of like
a wet aging technique.
Something that we've seen in, in the
world of, uh, fermented dry cured sausage
is using a bladder, or the beef bung.
So a scraped out, like a very large,
like the intestine or a bladder, a pork
bladder or a humongous pork bladder.
And now you can stuff sausage
in that to make traditional,
all kinds of traditional, uh,
dry cured fermented stuff.
Um, and that is a permeable membrane.
And there's a place, um, I can't, I can't
remember the name of the manufactured
product, but they're dry aging bags.
That are sort of these semi
permeable bags made out of, uh,
collagen or something like that.
So they breathe.
That's a step closer, like
a step away from plastic and
closer to just dry aging in air.
But it's worth exploring and like a mad,
I mean, uh, I wouldn't go through an
inordinate amount of expense to experiment
in this way, but if you liked the effects
yourself of aging in beeswax, Rene can do
all kinds of crazy things because he's...
He's done really well for
himself in restauranting.
So I think in some ways, uh, it
may be a bit for show, like what
can we dip this in with that?
Like how, like it's a little bit
excessive, but, uh, it's cool.
It looked cool.
And, uh, if you're playful with your
food, which you should be, and you
want to experiment there, I think
that there might be some flavor notes
and wax that affects the meat in a
different way than plastic or, or lard.
So I, beeswax has a really.
Uh, pleasing smell and feel
to it in, in my palate.
Um, so I think that would be
imparted to the meat somewhat.
Travis Bader: Here's another one, um,
you may or may not know this one, but
it says, uh, considerations with deer
and CWD, chronic wasting disease.
Would you avoid cutting through bones
and butchering to be extra safe?
Jeff Senger: Yes.
Um, that's an easy answer.
And, uh, Yes.
Um, so man, strong feelings on
chronic wasting and strong feelings
about, uh, uh, mad cow, uh,
bovine spongioform encephalopathy.
So we're always not monitoring, but
we're always mitigating the risk on
the kill floor with beef for BSE,
which is the bovine version of CWD.
Um, and so.
We've read a lot and written
a lot of procedures that you
use a spinal severing knife.
That's a special knife
to decapitate the animal.
Whenever you're cutting through
the spinal cord, the spinal cord
is deemed specified risk material.
And so you don't want that knife
touching the rest of the, uh,
the edible part of the animal.
So we have a special knife
to sever the spinal cord.
And particularly careful around
animals over 30 months of age because
there's a higher, statistically
higher probability of animals over
30 months of age having, um, prions
than animals under 30 months of age.
So, Canada Food Inspection Agency kind
of built all of these sort of, they had
to just draw a line in the sand where
statistical probabilities are used.
It was a little bit like any
public health emergency where.
It's not perfect, but they
did the best they could to try
and minimize the spread of.
Um, so, so for BSE, we're not recommended,
but it's required that you not eat,
uh, meat within one inch of the spinal
cord, uh, where we remove and treat as
specified risk material the first one
and a half meters of small intestine.
And spine are not used for food.
So if you're, other bones are
just, other bones and cutting
other bones are, are just fine.
So I think that sort of the, the proxy
for wild game and CWD would be to
avoid spine, avoid severing the spine.
And that's, it's not that hard to do.
So debone an older animal, uh,
debone it without cutting, uh, down
the spine with your reciprocating
saw or, or your handsaw.
What do you have in camp?
Just avoid the spine, head,
brain, eyes, tonsils, and, uh, the
first, and the small intestine.
Get that away from the meat.
And then kind of avoid, avoid eating
meat within one inch of the spinal cord.
And then you're doing the same thing that
we're doing in the food industry for beef.
Travis Bader: What
about, what about marrow?
Would that be a
Jeff Senger: consideration?
No, that's not a specified,
like in the BSE world, that's
not a specified risk material.
So marrow bones is still allowed.
That's, that's not statistically
a significant probability of prion
source for, uh, for a potentially
infected animal in the world of beef.
What I think is brilliant
though, is that unlike beef.
In the, in the, in the, in the deer world,
you can submit deer heads for testing no
matter where it's harvested in Alberta.
And I think that BC has something similar.
So, so you can get like, it's kind of
funny that my family can get a steak at,
at, uh, at, at Walmart and eat that steak.
And we don't know the animals
never tested for BSE or not.
We're just hoping that.
The, the federal processors kind
of did things that were, that
the provincial process also do to
mitigate risk and sort of to, to
avoid the statistical probability
in older animals, dah, dah, dah.
So they did something, but they
certainly didn't test it for BSE.
There is a test for BSE that's
just like the test they run on the
heads of deer for chronic wasting,
except that hunters get to have.
Uh, a negative test result, whereas
people shopping at Walmart or
shopping anywhere, we don't get a
negative test result on, on beef.
Interesting.
Other countries and jurisdictions do test,
they test for BSC on 100 percent of all
beef slaughtered, like the United Kingdom.
But we don't do that here.
However, hunters can submit
that head to test for CWD to
know that you get the all clear.
And chronic wasting is, I don't think
there's any proven cases of chronic
wasting jumping to humans like yet.
Um, so Kevin and I were hunting in
Southern Alberta and like 25 percent of
deer, or I think the stat is even higher,
um, are test positive for chronic wasting.
Uh, and the, the official stance of the
Alberta government says we don't recommend
you eating animals that test positive.
Uh, and the results are usually a
month or two from when you, from
when you submit the, the test.
So, so we were kind of, Kevin was in
a shit position cause he had one that
tested hot and he had already gone through
the expense and time of, of buying the
tags, harvesting the animal, killing
and gutting and skinning, and then
butchering and putting it in his freezer.
But he didn't eat a speck of it
until he got the test results and
the test results were positive.
So he threw it all out at a landfill.
They don't recommend you
feed CWD hot animals to pets.
Man, I would choose maybe not to hunt in
areas where the prevalence is as high as
20 or 30 percent Because I don't want to
go because I don't have enough money to
go through all of that and then just throw
out the animal I'm I'm still poor member
of the working poor enough that if I kill
an animal I want like we're in like a
95 percent CWD free zone And I'm really
glad that the government provides those
statistics, so that I can be reasonably
assured that the animal doesn't have CWD.
Again, noting to listeners that CWD
isn't proven to do anything to humans.
It's just advised that possibly because
BSE did jump or has been known to
be able to jump and cause Kurtzfeld
Jakob disease in humans, that probably
you want, you want to simmer down on
eating animals from wild animals that,
that suffer from chronic wasting.
So it's, it's, it's a whole topic and
for, for a podcast, uh, all on its own
to bring specialists in and talk about
where are we at with, yeah, CWD in Canada
and, and in jurisdictions like in the
States where it's much more prevalent.
What are they doing?
Travis Bader: So here's another one.
Person says, I run, I
render bear and deer tallow.
What do you suggest is the
shelf life in a fridge?
He says, smells all
right after a few years.
So I guess if it passes a smell test,
Jeff Senger: we're good.
Yeah, that's funny.
There's just like this freaky book that
have, that my wife bought when we were new
to farming called nourishing traditions.
And, uh, it was about fermented and
fermenting foods and, uh, eating
raw dairy and stuff like that.
Uh, and it really did say
that, that human beings.
I need to be able to trust
their senses of taste and smell.
And if it's off to
smell, then don't use it.
Yeah.
It was as simple as that.
And, uh, I think that we, we really
underplay our senses and that
you could probably, if it doesn't
smell good, then don't use it.
We've noticed that rendered lard in
the freezer probably has, depending
on what else is in your freezer,
probably has a six month shelf
life before the fat tastes rancid.
Because of the zero water content
that fat and rendered fat doesn't
permanently, it doesn't freeze.
It just hardens or like stiffens.
But so there's always activity going
on in fat and it can go rancid.
And if you use even a little bit of rancid
pork lard in a dish, the dish is ruined.
So I wouldn't be afraid to
smell it and or taste it.
Uh, to, to see now that being said,
uh, there's always a use for lard
and particularly bear fat or deer
fat to waterproof your boots, uh,
to waterproof and treat leathers.
Um, so even if it's no longer culinarily
useful, uh, it can be used to, to
treat leather, to treat fabrics,
to be water resistant, waterproof.
Travis Bader: I like that.
Here's, here's a neat one.
So when people look at the liver on
an animal to see if it's healthy, what
are they looking for and are there
any other ways to check the health
of an animal through its organs?
Jeff Senger: That's a terrific one.
And we've seen in in in the because
it's the case that we've been running
the slaughterhouse for 13 years We've
seen a lot of organs and because
there's inspector They're checking doing
postmortems on the organs to see if
the animals fit for human consumption
They almost always are because even
afflictions of the organs, uh, don't
require that we toss away the carcass,
uh, but it does require that we don't
consume or the, the, the organs themselves
are not fit for human consumption.
And I think like a great rule of
thumb, kind of the follow up to the,
the kind of the nourishing traditions,
like trust your senses of smell.
Uh, when a liver is...
That liver is a great one because it's
like a huge canvas of the animal's life.
Like it's a canvas and an atlas, a map
of what, what the animal's done, what
it's been up to the last few years.
Uh, has it had a healthy lifestyle or
has it been, uh, getting blackout drunk
on weekends or more likely, uh, dining,
dining on things that aren't good for
it or dining in slews where there are
parasites and so, so anyway, Long answer,
but if it looks disgusting, throw it away.
You will know a bad liver when you see it.
Um, man, there are liver flukes that
are kind of like leeches, small leeches
that live in livers, uh, that usually
hang out in sloughs and wetlands.
And they occur in all ungulates or
multi chamber stomach, stomach animals.
Uh, and when the liver has flukes
and you see things moving in the
liver, it's bad news about the liver.
Also, those flukes or milder infections
of parasites can leave scarring on
the liver, so if it's not a nice,
smooth, beautiful, mahogany colored
liver, with no white bumps or white
spots, then it's a healthy liver.
If it has white spots, white bumps,
uh, pustules, uh, sacs filled with
pus or gross little squirmy animals,
then that, like, that's a condemnation
of the liver and the organs.
And I kind of be careful
about the rest of the animal.
However, Um, in, in bovines, uh,
those parasite, the parasites
that love eating, uh, organs don't
love, uh, infesting the meat.
So the meat is usually still just fine if
the livers are condemned and thrown into
the garbage, not fit even for dog food.
So keep an eye on the liver.
Um, you would look for swelling in
glands like the tonsils, uh, up, up in
the throat at the base of the tongue.
If there's anything swollen or any, uh,
infections, uh, you might want to talk
to a veterinarian in your area to just
make sure that the meat would be healthy.
Taking biopsies and little weird
little, uh, Ziploc bags is not the
worst idea if you're, if you're
unsure, it's better safe than sorry.
And, uh, I'm not, I wish I was
more familiar in British Columbia,
but there is a lab in Edmonton
that would take weird biopsies.
Uh, it's, it's an extension of, uh,
like fish and what, what used to
be called fish and wildlife anyway.
But, uh, the fish and wildlife
department would take, it's
where you submit your heads.
Right.
Uh, for chronic wasting testing.
If you, if you drive right to
a center, but you could, you
could, you could bring biopsies.
And I think a lot of the people that
work in that field are quite interested
to find rare and unusual conditions.
So if you're unsure, uh, put it, yeah,
freeze the meat, like, like harvest
the meat, save it, maybe save, save a
liver that looks disgusting, but if it
looks disgusting, it's cause it's bad.
Hmm.
Travis Bader: Yeah, it makes sense.
Um, better to age meat on or off the bone?
Jeff Senger: Um, great question.
If the animal, so if the animal is
chilled right through and you're
managing temperature properly by
getting it gutted and skinned quickly
after the harvest, then leaving it on
the bone is better because you have
less overall surface area to lose.
Yield due to scab or helicose or bark.
So I'm thinking of a big, the hip, the,
the, the, the, the ass end of a deer,
the rear quarter, the rear hip of it.
Um, the more, the more big pieces you
can keep it in, the bigger the piece,
you can keep it in the less surface
area it is for water to evaporate.
Um, and leaving, leaving the bone in.
And, and if you were.
if you did have a saw and you split the
animal straight down, uh, the center
into sides, um, those feather bones of
the spine, keep your rib eye and your
strip loin protected because they're
a bit of armor that protects water
from evaporating from the bone side.
So keeping the bone, keeping
it on the bone is the best way
in the biggest piece possible.
That's the best way to dry age.
Okay.
Again, um, Less surface area means
less water loss, and the whole point
of dry aging is keeping water in the
muscle while enzymatic activity breaks
down the muscle in the connective
tissue to make it more tender.
So the more water you lose,
the more redundant aging is.
If you're losing a lot of water,
if the animal's not coated in fat,
or if it's a bunch of small pieces,
you're just gonna, you're gonna lose
water, so it's gonna make it dry, but
the enzymatic activity will make it
tender, but it'll be dry and tender.
And so you're undoing the
tenderness is being undone
cause you're losing juiciness.
So just butcher it as
soon as it's cold through.
Right.
Okay.
Travis Bader: So here's what about
meat curing, sodium nitrate versus
sodium nitrite brands advertise nitrate
or nitrate nitrate or nitrite free
products, but use celery extract.
And what's the difference?
Jeff Senger: Funny.
Uh, we went on a wild goose chase
to try and get celery extract,
which, which turned out to be
another name for sodium nitrite.
Sodium nitrite, uh, is the curing
ingredient in pink salt or like
there's, it goes by a lot of
different, they're cure salt, pink
salt, number two, Prague powder.
Uh, they all contain a
percentage of sodium nitrite.
And then as it oxidizes,
it becomes sodium nitrate.
And that, that sodium nitrate is sort
of the, uh, the reduced version of
sodium, sodium nitrite after it's done
its work, glomming onto oxygen to,
to do its preservative work in meat.
Uh, so it's all the same that, that,
that as a cure, you're not really saving
yourself if you invest in celery extract.
It's, it's the, it's
chemically the same thing.
Interesting.
Um, unless you were making your own.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was really disappointing.
Like.
We're going to buy a bag of this stuff,
the celery extract from Norway for 800.
And, um, the, it was chemically
no different from chemically
produced or like a artificially
produced sodium nitrite that's then
watered down and bonded with salt.
So it's a low, it's not a hundred percent
sodium nitrite that would kill everybody.
It's 2 percent or 5 percent and then
you have to adjust your recipes.
Um, uh, it.
In small quantities, if you're
not eating a thousand or dozens
of pounds of cured meats, I don't
think that the health consequences
outweigh the novelty of having food
preservation, and it has great color.
It changes the flavor in your bacons and
hams, and it changes the color, changes
the flavor, and it extends the the shelf
stability of that, of those products.
So I'm an advocate of of cure
salt to make cured meat products.
Um, that being said, I wouldn't eat
a hundred pounds of them a month
because you just don't need that
much sodium nitrate in your diet.
And the oxidized version,
sodium nitrate in your diet.
Um, so, so just be reason, be reasonable.
It's been something that's been around
for curing for hundreds of years.
And, uh, Uh, but, but eat responsibly.
Uh, there are, are alternatives
and thinking that you need, uh,
cure salt in order to produce a
delicious salted meat is not true.
It makes a very specific type of product,
but if you're averse, or allergic,
or other health reasons that makes
you want to avoid cure salt, um, then
just explore using salt and smoke.
That's an even more...
ancient traditional method, but
just salt, uh, iodine, iodine free.
So sea, sea salt and thyme in the
Italian tradition of whole muscle
curing, uh, works quite lovely.
Um, you don't get sort of the same
color and the same, uh, tinny flavor
as in like an American cure salt,
cured ham or bacon, but we've done.
And we don't get the same color, but
we've done a sodium nitrate free bacon.
Um, and it's just salt and sugar
on side pork and then sliced.
It's kind of, it doesn't have
the nice color, but it's, it's
also very, very close to bacon.
Travis Bader: That sounds delicious.
Um, this person, Hunter says, I've got a
good grinder and I wrap my meat in paper.
What are some next investment ideas?
So smoker, vacuum packer, meat band saw.
And then if vacuum packer, he
hears that they tend to break
every few seasons and maybe there's
some good suggestions out there.
Jeff Senger: That's a
really good question.
He's right about vacuum packers
being disproportionately expensive.
And that they don't, they don't last.
There's a lot of things that can go wrong.
So they can lose seals and the heating
elements can make crappy seals.
So if you're not harvesting a huge number
of animals per year, um, and you're
intermittent, you know, it's like, say
you're an intermittent harvester or you're
harvesting a couple of deer per year.
I think that you're on the right track
with paper wrapping, um, using the
animal up in a reasonable amount of time.
Like.
If, if you have six years or
six year old game meat in your
freezer, you're doing it wrong.
You're probably hunting too much or you're
not giving it away to family enough.
So the kind of mummifying and like
meats that's harvested for, for men,
for more than one season or maybe two,
you're either harvesting too much,
you're not giving away enough or you're
just not cooking with it often enough.
Uh, so I, I think that for this, like a
non commercial, uh, like kind of hobby
hunter, probably you'd have a lot more fun
with a smoke, like with a smoker because
you, it gives you access to a whole, uh,
breadth of products that you can, you
can at home manufacture to have, to have
things that the family likes eating more.
So then, like, so that you're solving the
problem by making more delicious things in
a wider scope of flavors than just storing
meat that nobody likes eating longer.
Yeah.
So the pepperoni at my house, when
I was a kid, like, we'd eat a whole
moose worth of pepperoni every year.
Like playing video games,
eating pepperoni or jerky.
So I think that probably going down
that path isn't a bad idea because smoke
and salt and sugar make meat delicious.
You can make an alley cat into some
delicious jerky, I think with, with a
pre packaged jerky mix and a smoker.
Yeah.
I would eat alley cats.
I'm going to quote you on that one.
I think.
Okay.
Travis Bader: Last, last one
I got here is Moose Knows.
Is it kind of like the
ultimate foundation for head
Jeff Senger: cheese?
Yeah.
Uh, yeah, I think easily the proxy and
probably like the culinary French, uh,
Western European world would be, uh,
head cheese is a proxy to moose nose.
It's, it's cartilaginous and, uh, man,
we did some gross things with pig faces,
uh, where they're scalded and scraped,
of course, during the processing.
And then we debone the entire
pig face and then we rolled it
up ears, ears, cartilage and all.
And then tied them in a tight little
bundle, uh, wrapped around bay leaf and
various herbs, and then essentially,
uh, uh, braised that, that rolled
up and tightly tied face in a roll
for hours and hours and hours.
And then, I don't know
what, what the process is.
I think it went into, um, The, it was just
poured into, into pans to cool, like into
a bread loaf pan to make just the world's,
the world's like least fancy head cheese.
And then we sliced it.
And when you're eating this, so it was
like brown Jell O like really, really
dense brown Jell O with this curl of pig
skin, snout, ears, and all kinds of, and
the little bits of meat and fat in it.
It was absolutely delicious,
which is gross, but the texture
was a bit getting around because.
Yeah, yeah, you could slice it and put
it on, on, uh, in a sandwich and you
almost wouldn't know that it wasn't just
a luncheon meat, it just tasted like a
delicious pork luncheon meat, except for
when you got a piece of the cartilage,
the cartilage in the ear, again, edible
and chewable and was fine, like it wasn't
bony or gristly because it had been
braised for so long, the cartilage just
turned into something, a little firmer
bit of, of, of, of gristle in there.
So.
I, I would highly anticipate that
the moose cartilage would eventually,
with enough braising, it would sort of
melt down into a sticky, tacky, quite
enjoyable bit, kind of like a tendon in
your Vietnamese soup at your Vietnamese
takeout place, uh, or a little bit like
a chewy noodle, like, uh, uh, uh, tripe,
like beef tripe in either an Italian
cultural tradition, a French cultural
tradition, or, uh, an Asian cultural
tradition, kind of like chewy noodle.
And once you get used to it, you
kind of like, I quite like this.
It's super rich.
Like all of those foods, the
collagenous foods are quite rich.
Head, cheese, and nose.
You probably wouldn't sit down
and eat like a pound of it.
But, um, I'm pretty keen on trying moose
nose the next time I harvest a moose.
To see where, where it goes and
if we can kind of amp it up, like
they're, they're probably the
traditional preparation methods.
Um, but I wonder if you could kind of
build a hybrid of, of scorching it and,
and cooking it in a campfire, like wrapped
in the stomach of the, of the moose.
That's one way to do it.
And then that hyper
traditional, hyper stone age.
Um, but if you brought in some culinary
techniques from Western Europe or even
from Asia, you might be able to like
approach it as if it were a pig's face.
Or pig ears and make it into a
collage, like a collagen delicacy
or, or kind of a moose head cheese.
Yeah.
Travis Bader: So for the listeners, next
time you're out there and you got your
moose nose, just wrap it in a pig's face
or a treat, treat it like a pig's face.
There you go.
Jeff Senger: Yeah, I would say, Google,
uh, head cheese recipes and then
apply them to your moose nose recipe.
And I think you're going to be okay.
Like you're going to be close.
You're going to get there close,
but practice makes perfect.
Travis Bader: I can only imagine what
the, uh, non hunter, non meat eater tuning
into this podcast would have to think.
Is there anything we should
chat about before we wrap
Jeff Senger: things up?
I was pretty keen on, on promoting
the lifestyle of living on land,
living on like, uh, in rural areas.
I think that reasonable people would,
would at least consider and like poke
it a little bit because of the costs.
There's sort of a metaphor in the cost
of meat when the grocers are gouging
has made the artisanal butcher modest
meats, not the highest price to buy
your meat at us, which is weird.
We're cheaper than Costco and I'm
getting all the margin I want,
like a reasonable amount of margin.
On my Wagyu, 60 day dry aged Wagyu, we're
selling at 77 a kg for a bone in rib.
And Costco is selling a factory
bone and rib for 99 a kg.
And I'm like, what the f how
is that fucking possible?
And it's because the grocers got a taste
of fucking people so hard during COVID
that they're like, there's no reason.
What can they do?
What can shoppers do?
What are they all going
to buy a fucking farm?
Are they all going to go hunting?
Of course they're not right.
It's too hard.
And like, they've been programmed,
they've been too dumbed down and
they've been made too sedentary and too
filled with depression and anxiety to
actually become hunters and farmers.
They're not going to do that.
They're just going to pay
99 for a mislabeled for it.
Convenience.
Is the addiction, right?
So, and that had sort of, uh, consumers
in between a rock and a hard place.
And, and then COVID sort of just prove
that to the mega corporations, the two
or five like food retailers in Canada
that can just charge whatever they want.
So it made artisanal meat
seem not that expensive.
Cause it's not that expensive when
you have a short supply chain.
That's crazy.
So that was good, but, but I liken
that to sort of like the land idea.
Oh, was that then in
the real estate field?
So this is a metaphor that the grocery
fuckers are sort of a metaphor for
the real estate people that are
fucking you also as a, as a member
of the working class, real estate
developers are like, we can just
charge whatever we want for houses.
Mm-hmm.
as evidenced by house prices in, in, in
cities that are getting less and less
desirable if we just do a reality check
and say that, is this how I wanna live?
Mm-hmm.
, like with, with break-ins daily and,
and just people on top of each other
and, and concrete and noise and
pollution and like, all that stuff.
If you really just ask yourself, is
this what I, how I wanna spend the rest
of my, I'm on, like, there's the, the
statistical likelihood of me even existing
is one in a gajillion and then, I'm
going to like, I'm going to take a train
to work and be packed in like a sardine
and on the train for an hour and a half.
And then some dude farts and I
just have to smell it because
I can't get out of the way.
Cause I'm just packed in like, this is one
of the things that made me leave Calgary.
But so, so you're like, this is
the best, this is the highest.
Someone would fart and you just
have to smell it because And
then you're like, oh, that's it.
I'm out of Calgary.
Yeah.
I was like, this is the end.
Civilization is over.
What the city has on offer, the
pros don't outweigh the cons.
And that was when a fucking
house in Calgary is 400, 000.
The same house is 1.
6 million today.
So then we're, we're in Vancouver.
We're dropping off these kittens and
we go downtown to West Vancouver.
And I drive past the do like a
multiplex where they're building houses
and selling them to people that are
literally 10 feet wide in the country.
We call those Atco trailers stacked.
They just took out like Heather.
You're never gonna believe this.
They have Atco.
They have a 10 foot wide con or like,
condo, in like a 3 or 4 story walk
up, but there's like, 70 units just
all stacked together, but they're
actually, like, 10 foot wide houses.
And then I asked Annika, Google these,
like, uh, ones for sale, Google it.
995, 000.
Man.
And I'm like, these people, so,
so the real estate guys are, are
fucking people really, really hard.
They're like, Oh, but how could
you not want to live in the city?
And then when you have, uh, you have
oligarchs that are burying money and
buying Condos downtown to jack the prices
at gentrifying our like neighborhoods
in Toronto and Vancouver as good and
stable investments I can't really blame
them That's where I parked my money
to if I had tons and tons of it But
it means that it drives up prices for
people living there so you can buy a
shoebox atco trailer for 995, 000 in
Vancouver and live in Vancouver and
your dog doesn't have a place to take
a shit that isn't concrete Because
there is no places that aren't concrete
within a walkable distance of this area.
So I was like, Oh my God, it's so weird.
So, so the way, so now all
of a sudden rural air, rural
living doesn't look as horrible.
You're like, wait a second, honey.
So I could tell it, I could probably
telecommute thanks to technology and
I could buy 160 acres for 300 grand.
Or 160 acres with, with a house
on it for five or 600 grand.
And the answer is true,
my son, that's true.
And then, so, so it's possible that
we're entering into a period of time
where just people problem solving to
have the least shitty life that they
can might choose a house on every
quarter section, a pig in every yard.
Travis Bader: I like that.
Yeah.
I think there's a lot to be said for
Jeff Senger: that.
It's, it's possible that you
don't pick up warm dog poop.
With your hand through a thin plastic
bag, because that's where it's at in the
city, of course, pick up your dog poop.
If anyone with a dog in Vancouver let
their dog shit all over the place,
they, you'd have to have swimming
goggles to get down the streets.
Of course.
I don't
Travis Bader: know how much about downtown
Vancouver you've been through, but I think
there's more human feces on the streets.
There's still a lot
Jeff Senger: of shit.
That's human shit.
That's human shit.
That's human shit.
Um, but our dog has never
seen pavement, right?
Um, and what would you,
what is that worth?
What is that worth to you?
If, if your dog has never
experienced pavement or concrete?
I don't know.
And like, it's weird anyway,
so yeah, you're on your.
Yeah, you're on the phone with someone
from 1930, and he's telling you,
like, how do you live like that?
I don't mean you specifically, but I just
mean, like, they've bamboozled, they've
bamboozled to the point and sort of taken,
like the, the realtors in this case, have
taken away from a working family so much.
That even the horribleness of living on
a farm because of weather and freezing
water and managing all your own systems
is still better than the, than the
option of leaving a 900, 000 mortgage
to your children instead of a paid
off quarter section to your children.
In my lifetime, I'll be able to
pay off 160 acres and give 40 acres
each to each of my four daughters.
But if I had a million dollar
mortgage, which would be a normal
starter house in Vancouver.
I, even on a 30 year term, I wouldn't
even put a dent in it if my payments were
anywhere near reasonable on my income,
even as an accountant with two degrees
from university, I would have a hard
time accumulating any equity except for
the equity of increasing property value.
That's only good if you leave that market.
It's only good when you leave the market.
You having a bunch of equity in
your house in Vancouver doesn't
do you any good unless you leave.
Because you can just buy the same house
as what you're living in with your equity.
It's hard to, it's hard to climb
the ladder if you're just a working
person and you didn't inherit wealth.
Travis Bader: You know, thank you
so much for being on the podcast.
I always enjoy chatting with
you and man, did I learn a lot.
Jeff Senger: Well, thank you
very much for having me, Travis.
Anytime,
man.