Thread: Lead contaminated meat

Reviving this thread since I was reading anyways.
Can't find the study I was looking for, but found a few others. Have copied the interesting bits here. Click the links for xrays showing lead in carcasses/processed meat.

Acids make it easier for the human body to absorb lead. Avoid using
acidic substances (like vinegar or wine) when cooking venison.

Fragments are often found farther from the wound channel than
expected. This makes it impossible to recommend a safe distance
for trimming. However, liberally trimming around the wound channel
should remove some fragments.

https://www.michigan.gov/documents/m...s_310195_7.pdf

Lead fragments can travel a considerable distance from the wound channel. Although on the average, bullet fragments were found 5 inches from the bullet channel, some were up to 18 inches away.

Most of the lead fragments in meat are too small to see, feel, or sense when chewing.

https://portal.ct.gov/DEEP/Hunting/L...s-in-Wild-Game

-Compared to lead-free ammunition, both the number of bullet fragments and the maximal distance between fragments and the wound channel increased when bullets were lead-based.

- studied 297 shot wild ungulates

- 263/297 shots were within 100m (and high energy or low retention bullets)

-Small fragments clustering together to clouds of radiodense particles were predominating (in lead bullets). Bone hits were not required for the production of a large number of fragments. This fragmentation pattern was similar for all three types of lead-based bullets, including bonded bullets (Figs. 2, ​,3).3). Average fragment numbers were highest for bullets with two lead cores

- The bodies of animals shot with lead-free projectiles did not always contain fragments (Table 1). When hunters used lead-free deforming bullets (type 1) no fragments were detectable on the radiographs in most 106 out of 126 cases (Fig. 1a). In 18 out of the 20 remaining cases, the number of bullet fragments on the radiographs did not exceed 10. The two remaining cases of fragmentation corresponded to a large number of fragments (100 and 150 particles) and concerned two different brands of bullets.

-Average maximal distances of fragments in relation to the wound channel were highest for lead-based bullets with two lead cores (type 4) and smallest for the two types of lead-free bullets (type 1 and type 2) (Table 2, Fig. 1b). For all three types of lead-based bullets (types 3, 4 and 5) the mean maximal distance of fragments to the wound channel exceeded 10 cm (11.7 cm for type 3, 15.6 cm for type 4, and 11.3 cm for type 5).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6675795/



A different study looking at deer. Basically they found lead in deer meat, and when they fed pigs deer meat, the pigs showed elevated lead levels above normal.
https://www.nps.gov/pinn/learn/natur...Exposure-3.pdf


By far the least scientific, but easiest to watch/read (based on research by Peregrin Fund, a raptor protection society and video made by someone who muddles his info a bit). Follow the link for parts 2 and 3.




At the end of the day, I guess it comes down to picking your poison. We breathe air polluted with exhaust fumes, waste burners are allowed in and around cities etc etc, there are acceptable levels of contamination in our water. Our food is of mixed quality etc. It would be interesting to see where game meat stood in relation to other foods in terms of contamination, and where hunters who ate lead contaminated meat stood in relation to other people in terms of lead levels, or other health metrics. It's certainly not good for you. I would like to see more context on how bad it is for you. It might be that while there is contamination, the effects are negligible, I don't know.

I'm still using lead, however leaning towards experimenting with alternative projectiles. Since I like to shoot for fun, that will get expensive if I want to shoot with the same loads I hunt with, which has kept me from switching so far.