I blame the government, particularly Liz Truss (who dismissed the Lead Ammunition Group‘s report), the Food Standards Agency (chaired by a grouse moor owner, for not publicising their advice) and, of course, the shooting industry (who have known of the health risks of game meat shot with lead ammunition for years and years and years and years) for the fact that this Yorkshire mum thinks she is doing something good when she isn’t.
Lead is a poison – see advice from NHS England, Food Standards Agency and European Food Safety Authority.
In future, maybe Mum should go to Waitrose…
But then again, this Yorkshire mum has a book on game meat coming out in October.
Quote from an American paediatrician during the lead contamination crisis in the city of Flint:-
“Lead is one of the most damaging things you can do to a child in their entire life-course trajectory”
I hope Rachel Carrie doesn’t use lead shot for the game she feeds her children. If she does, how can she live with herself?
Ooo – there seems to be quite a lot of info about this lady.
Apparently, she has been killing animals since she was just eight years old, starting with killing and skinning rabbits. “I used to skin, butcher them and prepare them for Mum’s rabbit stew,” she continued. “The interesting thing was, I was a vegetarian at this point but would happily eat Mum’s rabbit stew.”
That’s the strangest concept of a vegetarian I’ve ever heard of!
This lady claims she is a “massive animal lover” who went on her first hunt at the age of ten. She also supports Walter Palmer, the dentist who killed Cecil the lion.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/1735090/british-woman-defends-hunting-wild-animals-after-slaying-her-first-victim-aged-10/
“Slaying her first victim” – how utterly ridiculous is that headline, typical of the Sun. I really dont see how anyone who eats meat can pretend that every pork chop or chicken breast they buy doesn’t have a ‘victim’; something has to die, it has to be killed…whether that is by an individual with a gun in the field or by a person in an abattoir. Have humans completely lost their association within the natural world???
She’s just a lesser Larysa Switlyk, albeit quite good at self (and book) promotion. If she’s really good, we should await her announcement that she does not kill animals with lead amunition.
My meat intake is not large or even “normal” although I eat meat probably four times a week, sometimes more sometimes less. I live on a small holding so some of that meat, duck, chicken and lamb is home produced. Currently I am trying to find a local source of pasture fed beef ( If you don’t know about this you should probably find out). I also like game but apart from pheasants from the garden don’t eat it because of the lead content.
I don’t have a problem with sustainable wild meat ( game) but accept that some do.
The crux is to my mind is anything shot with lead should be treated as unfit for human or any other consumption. Lead should have been banned long ago as they did in Denmark and Holland. Of course under some convention the UK government agreed to ban it but then welched on the deal.
That some of us eat and feed our children lead shot meat is simply scandalous and should probably be treated as child abuse.
I find it strange that there are those who are still peddling the discredited scaremongering regarding lead shot in meat.
Perhaps ms Carrie prefers to feed her children game rather than the heavily processed meats found in supermarkets.
I also find it strange why there are those who are insistent on interfering in the lifestyle choices made by some. One could be forgiven for suspecting an agenda at play here.
Eddie – if you think that then you ought to rearrange your thoughts.
Ms Carrie and all other shooters have the choice of using non-toxic ammunition – it’s not a choice between nasty intensively farmed chicken and healthy game meat, it’s a choice between lead-loaded game meat and healthy game meat.
I see what you mean about the lady in question imposing her lifestyle choice of using toxic ammunition to provide food for her kids though – good point!
Non-toxic ammunition is used widely across the world (and it should be used excluisively in waterfowl hunting in the UK – but complaince is very poor) – this is all about food and envirnmental safety.
Yes, Mark, they have the choice to use either lead or steel, and she has chosen lead. It is her choice, and like the many generations of people reared on lead shot game, and who also were given no choice but that of their parents, it will do them no harm. Despite your emotive description of ‘lead loaded food’, you are intelligent enough to know that isn’t so, but choose to spin it that way.
I use both lead and steel when shooting. My choice. Let others make the choice.
The findings of the effects of lead shot in food was found to be negligible, despite the hysterics of Swift and Paine etc.
Like I said, there are further agendas at play here.
Eddie – you are not following the science – luckily Waitrose is.
But I have followed the science Mark, unless you want to specify the science you claim I’ve missed?
You’re welcome. Isn’t Ms Carrie just doing what every parent does for their children? Making lifestyle choices for them until they’re able to make their own, based on what she believes to be in their best interests? I know mine did; I was dragged down to church and indoctrinated into the dodgy world of religion on a regular basis. My dear old Mum bless her, was convinced it was in my best interests.
She, undoubtedly like Ms Carrie will with her children, respected my choice not to pursue that choice as I grew older.
Yes, lead is toxic, but you and me both know, that despite the almost hysterically emotive claims of D. Paine and J. Swift, and by yourself with the comment ‘lead loaded’, the amounts consumed in a normal diet are trace elements and negligible. We all consume elements of lead in our daily diets, including potatoes and chocolate.
Eaten in the quantities it is, as part of a normal healthy diet, lead shot game meat is far more preferable than the processed meats and six week old chickens processed and consumed in their millions on a daily basis.
There is of course the fact that biting down on steel shot will do more harm to your teeth than a smidgeon of lead shot trace will do to the rest of your body. You could do with some smiley emoticons on this blog Mark.
So its OK to eat very tiny trace amounts of lead that our bodies probably need for something in potatoes or chocolate but the NHS and FSA advice about the amount available in shot game which can be several thousand times the maximum amount allowed in other meats knowing lead is essentially a brain and nerve toxin especially dangerous for pregnant women or the developing brains of children and very difficult to get rid of from the body just to satisfy the “traditional shooter” who hasn’t yet died or shown signs of harm from all the lead shot game he or she has eaten, who cannot be bothered to change to a non-toxic alternative for the good of us all and the environment.
Who cares about all the wildfowl that die every year from lead poisoning, you obviously don’t.
This aspect of we won’t be told what to do or none belief in the shooting cabal or objection to reasonable regulation or investigation covers so many different issues. Is it perchance a symptom of elevated blood lead levels one wonders?
Mark has long supported the campaign to stop the use of lead shot so it is hardly a hidden agenda.
You assert that the threat to health from lead in game meat has been ‘discredited’ but I don’t think this is at all the case. Lead is a well known toxin and it is also well known that young children are particularly susceptible to lead poisoning because they absorb 4 -5 times as much fro a given source compared to adults (according to the WHO). Dietary lead intake from game may not be sufficient to cause severe lead poisoning but lower levels of lead poisoning are considered to lead to reduction in IQ, behavioural issues such as reduced attention span and increased anti-social behaviour and reduced educational attainment. I agree that it is a matter of personal choice what we eat and as parents we have to make choices on behalf of our children but just as we may consider parents who smoke over their babies irresponsible we can consider it irresponsible to choose to feed one’s children food that we know to contain such a toxic material.
You present a false dichotomy when you suggest that the alternative to game is heavily processed supermarket meat. There are evidently lots of alternatives including,of course game shot with non-toxic ammunition.
Finally, your presentation of the use of lead shot as one of simple personal choice disregards the fact that the practice results in large amounts of lead being deposited across the countryside. There is evidence from across the world of poisoning of wild birds that have unwittingly ingested this lead. They of course have no personal choice in the matter.
Other countries have banned lead shot and their hunters manage perfectly happily with this. It is long past time that we do the same.
Mark – Do you have any evidence to show that compliance with the use of non-toxic shot for waterfowl in the UK is poor, and by poor I mean I would expect their to be evidence that a large majority of shooters didn’t comply with this law….if so could you provide it for us?? I’m always happy to be proven wrong by you!
On the lead shot point, I am a shooter/hunter and I have done some reading on the lead issue (prompted by this blog) and have admitted it is something I will take some additional care with going forward. I have fed my kids/family on lead shot game for years and continue to do so however this game season I will endeavour to predominantly use non-toxic shot to minimize the risk to my family to near zero. What I will say is that I think we need to be less extreme on both sides of the argument, on the pro-lead shot side we need to accept there is some risk (some just dont) and on the anti-lead shot argument I think it needs be accepted that the risk isn’t so high that eating a pheasant or two this season is going to kill you! Anyone who has shot and/or cooked game will know that the meat should be inspected for any shot remaining before cooking; this is very easy for small game such as Partridge, Pheasant and Rabbit, however I do admit this cannot remove the risk absolutely.
S – you do know how to use Google don’t you? https://britishbirds.co.uk/article/wildfowlers-flout-ban-on-lead-shot/ and https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmenvaud/writev/140/wild49.htm (2012 evidence) and also https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10344-012-0666-7 and http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Default.aspx?Menu=Menu&Module=More&Location=None&ProjectID=16075
Interesting you use the term ‘pro-lead side’ – hw can anyone be pro-lead when perfectly serviceable and cheap alternatives are available. For feeding your own family or self then it is, to some extent, a matter of choice but when businesses selling game meat igmore the science that has been around for agesthen that is another matter. The game industry behaves like the tobacco inustry, in my view. And the game-shooting press have failed to tell the truth to their readers.
If you have read the science then not only does removing visible shot from small game ‘not reduce the risk absolutely’ it doesn’t actually reduce the risk that much!
But it is good that you are talkng about risk – tell any mates you have who shoot about the subject. I bet they’ll argue with you!
Thanks Mark!
“If you have read the science then not only does removing visible shot from small game ‘not reduce the risk absolutely’ it doesn’t actually reduce the risk that much!” – what did I say wrong here? The risk is lower if you remove it yes? 🙂
S – it doesn’t reduce the risk very much, that’s all.
Try “Informal purchases of duck from game dealers suggest that up to 70% are still being shot ILLEGALLY with lead.” From the GWCT WEBSITE. https://www.gwctknowledge.com/lowland-knowledge/lead-ammunition/ Plenty on more on there about the hazards of lead ammunition. What I don’t get is why shooters choose to ignore one of the main organisations that support them, when it says lead is bad? Are you all sure that all that metal hasn’t affected you?
In the late ’70s you could breathe traffic fumes, chew plumbing, strip old wiring from your loft, lick paint, strip paint with a blowlamp, drink cheap wine, melt wine bottle seals to make leger weights for fishing all of which exposed you to deadly lead. Your children could alarm the public health peeps by having massively high blood lead from eating dirt from a garden exposed to decades of smuts from Chester Leadworks chimbley and you could have surreal conversations with the leadworks workers in the Spital Vaults. Your children could grow up to discover funny fags, funny mushrooms, less funny alphabetical Es and LSDs, vertical rockfaces, altitude sickness at the top of Aconcagua, downhill mountain-bike racing at night, titanium plates and screws in their arm (the consequence of using Chinese knock-off carbon fibre handlebars), and eating lead-shot rabbits. And saying “Fook off, Da” when the folly of the latter was explained.
Lead shot seasonal game is eaten in restaurants the world over, and in many local to me. Game is extremely popular, being one of the beat sources of low fat protein you can buy.
Would it really be so popular and in such high demand in season if the dangers were real?
Both my parents were brought up on seasonal lead shot game, there wasn’t a great deal else around in the rural ‘30’s . My Dad died of a heart attack at 74 after being inducted into the heavy smokers club ( his choice )during the war, and my Mam from lung cancer due to a lifelong tobacco habit ( her choice again, although perhaps a different science back then ) at the age of 86.
My daughter is a university graduate and son will soon be likewise, despite having been fed all manner of lead shot game throughout their formative years. They still eat it occasionally as it is their right to choose.
Why oh why are there those who seem so intent on interfering with the lifestyle choices of others simply because they don’t approve?
For reasons I won’t go into here, I don’t approve of the readily availability and promotion of alcohol, but I wouldn’t dream of trying to stop others from choosing to drink.
Why can’t people get on with their own lives and let others get in with theirs?
Eddie – informed choice is fine – if you want to do something stupid, knowing it is is stupid, then up to a point, if it doesn’t harm others, and that can include many indirect aspects of our behaviours, then it’s fine by me. But eating lead is not an informed decision. there is no labelling on food sold in supermarkets which says ‘Will contain lead. Lead is a poison. This meat is likely to contain lead levels 10 times, 100 times or maybe 1000 times those legal in other meat on sale on these shelves’. Read this https://markavery.info/2019/06/20/a-conversation-about-lead-levels/
But shooters do make an informed choice Mark. That is what life is all about, people in general and not just shooters, do it everyday of their lives….make informed choices.
You make it sound as if we shooters don’t know what we’re doing, but being a shooter doesn’t on its own make us stupid! We’ve been right through the lead shot debate over many years, from its inception to its parliamentary session. I’ve read the science, Mark, both neutral and biased, and made an informed choice. We do know what we’re doing. The risk is negligible; why are people so willing to just ignore the facts?
The kind of diners who choose game in restaurants invariably know game is shot with lead, because it has been for generations; they make an informed choice when selecting it off a menu. They also have the choice not to choose it.
I’ll admit those who do choose it are of a certain age, but I’m willing to bet that has more to do with the younger generations upbringing and a frightening disassociation of where their meat actually comes from and what it once was prior to process.
Thankfully my children have no illusions as to what that lump of meat on their plate once was.
If you want labelling on lead shot game meat such as ‘may contain lead trace elements ‘ then I can’t see why anyone would object to that, akin to the health warnings in cigarette packets, and then allow people the freedom to choose, but freedom of choice isn’t what this blog is about is it?
Eddie – the shooting industry, such as this Yorkshire mum, are pushing gme meat hard to the population (she’s got a book coming out) and rarely if ever mention the health warnings about lead. The general public are not warned about the lead content of much game meat and would have to use large amounts of effort to get informed. Labelling is the least that should happen @Lead is a apoison. This meat contains lead at concentrations likely to be 10, 100 or 1000 times those that would be legal for other meats on these shelves.’ would be a good one. But any pastime or indsutry represented by views like your own is destined for regulation as it doesn’t seem to care about the public at large and hasn’t self-regulated.
She has taken a leaf out of the Avery book of self promotion…
Justin SO – thanks for your first comment here. you haven’t got off to a very good start in my opinion.
As you say Mark, the science is out there if people are prepared to look.
Three or four years ago the impact of lead shot on both the environment and our wildlife went through a thorough investigation, where there were those such as J.Swift and D. Paine, amongst others, campaigning for the ban of lead shot. Fair enough.
There were many claims and counter claims and in depth scientific research, all compiled and filed. As far as I’m aware, it’s all still there in the public domain if one cares to look for it. The research ended up being debated in parliament and it was deemed, rightly or wrongly there was no case for a complete ban on lead shot.
Regarding non-compliance, it can’t be denied it goes on, but much research was muddied when it couldn’t be proved from which side of the border ducks found to contain lead shot, came from, as it is still legal to shoot ducks with lead shot in Scotland, or at least it still was at the time of the research.
I seem to recall some research was inadmissible following the discovery that some sample live test ducks had been force fed lead shot directly into the gizzard via tubes, in an attempt to see what effect it had. I doubt any living thing force fed lead directly into its stomach wouldn’t come out of it too well.
I don’t mind people campaigning for the ban of lead shot, it certainly wont stop people shooting, but let’s do it without the hysterics and emotive misinformation that formed much of the campaign during the LAG research.
We are frequently informed via nationwide news that scientists warn of the health problems associated with high quantities of processed foods, and particularly processed meats, yet no mention ever of the dangers of lead shot game meat. One can only wonder why it isn’t singled out, given the claims made by some as to the high risks involved in its consumption. Eaten in the quantities it is, in season, lead shot game meat is as harmless ( and undeniably better in some respects ) as any other meat.
Unless I’m mistaken, hasn’t Norway repealed it’s lead shot based ammunition ban?
Eddie – this lot is hardly emotive research and you clearly haven’t assimilated it http://www.leadammunitiongroup.org.uk/reports/
Come back in a couple of months when you have.
You seem adamant that I’m not familiar with the science Mark, but I am equally adamant that I am fully assimilated. Believe me, I have a great propensity for absorbing knowledge, particularly that surrounding shooting.
Am I to assume that given your rather arrogant dismissal of my last post, any of my future posts will not be aired? Not to worry, print it or not, I wont be reading it anyway; this is taking up far too much of my time which is better spent elsewhere.
I was told that your tolerance for opposing views was limited, similar to your tolerance of freedom of choice it would seem. Perhaps I’ll see you on twitter!
Big sly winky emoticon!
Meanwhile, not only do I absorb shooting related information, I also have a good deal of common sense, possibly enhanced by a great sense of logic.
Like I’ve said, and which you will no doubt deny, I am very familiar with the science ( it is my interest to be so ) and well aware of the toxicity of lead, and no doubt it will one day be banned. However, logic tells me that if there were a real and immediate threat from the eating of lead shot game meat, it wouldn’t be served to who knows how many people the world over, in who knows how many restaurants the world over, nor would those people survive the ordeal.
Meanwhile, I’ll keep eating it, and giving it away to as many people who want it ( and there are many, young and old ) throughout the shooting season.
Informed decisions and freedom of choice you see. Big thumbs up emoticon.
Well said Eddie, I hope you are here to stay!! 🙂
Thinkpol have noted your Wrongthink, Eddie, and will soon be knocking to and arrest and transport you for interrogation at the Miniluv