Adrenaline and Meat Quality

Adrenaline Affects the Meat

  • Yes, it definitely does

    Votes: 12 30.0%
  • I think it probably does

    Votes: 9 22.5%
  • I think it’s unlikely to affect it much

    Votes: 19 47.5%

  • Total voters
    40
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Hey, you and me both. No argument about that on my end.

Just don't think quality of meat suffers when that's not the case.
 
Take out the pump and its not an issue. It can lay there and twitch for a week, if the pump ain't pump'n, adrenaline is not going any where.

Cortisol also plays a role in meat quality, as well as lactic acid. The most controllable factor in wild game taste is how the meat is treated afterward.
alsaqr, thank you for that link.
 
Lots of things can and DO affect the taste and quality of meat. Just about every choice you make will have some affect on the final taste, some more than others including pulling the trigger.

If your meat taste fine to you and you like it, then keep doing what you are doing. My self, I don't start threads looking for advice and options about all the stuff I am perfectly satisfied with.
 
How much does what a deer or elk eats affect the taste. I have been told that antelope that eat sage taste like sage.
 
Lots of things can and DO affect the taste and quality of meat. Just about every choice you make will have some affect on the final taste, some more than others including pulling the trigger.

If your meat taste fine to you and you like it, then keep doing what you are doing. My self, I don't start threads looking for advice and options about all the stuff I am perfectly satisfied with.

Yeah 10-4, I will keep doing what I’m doing. This isn’t really a thread that challenges practices, but rather ideas and myths.

I’m not looking for ‘advice or options,’ just looking for discussion. Internet forum about hunting and all. You don’t seem too shy about sharing your opinions either;)

Which is good. It’s ok to talk about things and disagree about them and still be friends. Sometimes we learn things by challenging our own ideas and experiences against those of others.
 
People who believe adrenaline affects the meat have never hunted with dogs.

I promise those deer die VERY worked up and they all taste fine.

I have hunted with dogs and do believe they are very affected by Lactic Acid Build up from a lot of running combined with adrenaline Changes the flavors of the venison. I know meat processors believe the animal should not be stressed before taken down.A lof of things IMO affect the taste of deer. Diets of Corn, acorns, grass and on and on.
 
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Several times while hunting Antelope we found the ones that ran hard would give the meat a heavy sagebrush flavor. Couple were so bad that while cooking Antelope roasts in a crockpot, it stunk up the house so bad the wife thew it out....even the dog wouldn't eat it. We process our own game and know it was handled properly. Always speculated it was blood being pumped thru muscle tissue from over exertion when running.

Whether it was stress or adrenaline I couldn't say, but we have noticed a difference between stressed and relaxed game. If there's another explanation, I'm open to consider it.
 
Several times while hunting Antelope we found the ones that ran hard would give the meat a heavy sagebrush flavor. Couple were so bad that while cooking Antelope roasts in a crockpot, it stunk up the house so bad the wife thew it out....even the dog wouldn't eat it. We process our own game and know it was handled properly. Always speculated it was blood being pumped thru muscle tissue from over exertion when running.

Whether it was stress or adrenaline I couldn't say, but we have noticed a difference between stressed and relaxed game. If there's another explanation, I'm open to consider it.

Would you say, in your experience, have you generally just noticed this with antelope? Another variation of this phenomenon I've heard is: this is really only a deal with antelope. Which is an interesting take.

I haven't ever killed a goat. Eaten a few, all good, but don't know the circumstances of the kills or have forgotten them.
 
Adrenaline nah...hang the deer for a week as long as temperature is right....good to go!!!
Mine get a cooler of ice water and a pint of vinegar for about 3 days. Some take more, some take less.

On the OP. I don't know if it makes a difference, but I know that processing technique does.
 
Well, my wife shot her first deer. And it was not a good shot and it was suffering for a few mins (spine shot) I will post reports of how it tasted.

I still stick with my comment that the age of the deer has alot to do with it. And processing.
 
Every year I see and hear about deer shot multiple times (at least once through the guts) then chased for a couple hours before being paraded around in the back of a pickup for a few days. Many get hauled to the locker without being field dressed. During the gun season, one nearby locker will have two or three reefer trailers stacked full of deer to be skinned and processed.
I don't know how these deer taste and do not care to find out.
 
I will admit I know little about game animals but thanks to training from my Dad and Grandfather quite a bit about beef and pork.

Meat quality is first and foremost dependent on diet. Cattle raised in clean grass pastures or finished on grain tend to be high quality meat-stock. Those that have been feed certain weeds will have a less satisfying flavor.

As for stress... the average steer is traipsing around the feedlot one day then shoved into a truck and hauled and average of 35 miles where it's unloaded into a catchpen with strangers in the next pen or in cases of really bad management in the same pen. So, they are not only subjected to the stress of shipping but of disruption of the herd. The next day, strange men with different handling techniques herd it into a chute where it's crowded into it's fellow animal, head to tail, and after as much as an hour later finds itsself in a room that reeks of fresh blood and often with carcasses (carci?) hanging around being processed. The noise level is far greater than it is used to as it is pushed into the kill box and steel bars moved against it's neck trapping it while a nice young man in a bloody white coat puts a device that smells of blood, brains and gunpowder against it's forehead and drives a steel bolt through it's skull. Now, if you honestly believe this does not kick in any animal's fight or flight instinct I have some nice bottom land along the Monon River I'd like to sell you. And just for you I'll even throw in the water rights at no extra charge.
 
Lactic Acid isn’t the same thing as adrenaline.


Maybe not, but according to this from one of the posted links, they are directly related when it comes to meat and taste.

The key ingredient here is lactic acid: in an unstressed animal, after death, muscle glycogen is converted into lactic acid, which helps keep meat tender, pink, and flavorful. Adrenaline released by stress before slaughter uses up glycogen, which means there’s not enough lactic acid produced postmortem. This affects different kind of meat in different ways, but in general it’ll be tough, tasteless, and high in pH, and will go bad quicker than unstressed meat. (Lactic acid helps slow the growth of spoilage bacteria.)
 
Every year I see and hear about deer shot multiple times (at least once through the guts) then chased for a couple hours before being paraded around in the back of a pickup for a few days. Many get hauled to the locker without being field dressed. During the gun season, one nearby locker will have two or three reefer trailers stacked full of deer to be skinned and processed.
I don't know how these deer taste and do not care to find out.
I found out, and that's when I decided to learn how to do it on my own.

We brought my first deer, a forkhorn, in to a place famous for processing deer. I dropped it in it's tracks, gutted it immediately, cooled the carcass in a clear stream, it only hung overnight, and it came back from there tasting like the worst gut-shot swamp buck. (which I got to taste the next year, courtesy of a friend who gut shot a buck right at dusk and couldn't find it) My Dad and I researched how to butcher our own deer and since then the only one I ever brought in was my son's 8 point buck. He now butchers cattle for a living, so I know his are done right.
 
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Maybe not, but according to this from one of the posted links, they are directly related when it comes to meat and taste.

I try not to share too much of what’s typically only protected as trade secrets, but I work for one of the largest beef processors in the world - primary plants are designed to reduce animal stress, meat quality being only one reason of many. Public appearance, ease of animal flow (aka production rate and efficiency), personnel safety drove these system redesigns far more than meat quality. The chemical conversions described in that copied link is not congruent with actual data on meat quality and aging, in which I have participated directly.

The influence of a singular event of animal stress during the harvest on meat quality is very, very overstated by hunters.
 
Lactic Acid isn’t the same thing as adrenaline.

I know very well what Lactic acid and never said it was the same thing as Adrenalin.As a serious Competitive runner and Coach since High School, I would say we could write pages on this alone. And anyone that is competitive runner understands the curse from it as well.Basically burning the the Glycogen (sugar) in the muscle and the after effects to include sever tie up of the muscles from lack the glycogen and oxygen and the rate at which the muscle and tissue just tie up not to mention dehydration.
Yes, the OP asked about Adrenalin alone and I should not have mentioned Lactic Acid. However when dogs are chasing a deer, I have to imagine his Adrenaline is up as well.

And the best venison I have ever eaten. Over in Europe in Resturants that served that farm raised deer.
 
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@Jeb Stuart - you may have self-assigned my comments, but they were not meant for you, and did not quote or reference you or your statements.

My statement, brief as it was, is meant to describe the difference in a relatively instantaneous adrenal release and the long cycle metabolic pathway in which lactic acid is produced.

Several times in this thread, references and comparisons are drawn between wild game and domestic livestock, with a terribly blurred line between sustained animal stress in an abattoir and instantaneous alert of a game animal, or a short duration “death sprint”. It’s silly to pretend these are the same, and also silly to pretend there is no adrenal response in an animal which is injured to be killed. Even in domestic livestock, a pneumatic bolt gun to the forehead might cease conscious motor control near-instantly, but it’s a far cry from instantly ceasing adrenal response.

What an animal ate during life, it’s general health condition at death, and how the meat is treated following death have infinitely greater influence on meat quality and flavor than how far a dead-on-its-feet deer could run before succumbing.
 
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