ABSTRACT
Meat from wild animals has been presumably the first source of animal protein for human nutrition (Ahl et al. 2002). In poor economies, rural population still has to rely on this “cheap” source of protein in the form of bushmeat (Awaiwanont et al. 2014, Kamins et al. 2014), but meat from “exotic” or unusual species has a potential to contribute to the growing demand for sustainably produced food (Hoffman and Cawthorn 2013). It is conceivable that since ancient times attempts have been made to preserve the nutritional qualities of such meat for an extended period of time by drying, smoking and fermentation. Nowadays, consumers concerned about “healthy and natural” meat with low environmental footprint consider game meat as an alternative to meat from farmed animals (Hoffman and Wiklund 2006, Hoffman and Cawthorn 2012), and according to the “palaeo diet” concept (Cordain 2011, Cordain and Friel 2012), humans might be better adapted to the nutrient composition provided by meat from wild game than to that from domesticated animals. Fermented meat products fit well in this line of thinking, since
fermentation is one of the most natural food preserving processes. Meat producers can fulfil the demand for fermented meats from game either by adapting conventional meat product formulations, including nitrate/ nitrite as curing agents, the use of commercial starter cultures and of artificial casings for instance, or by adhering to minimizing additives, e.g. by relying on spontaneous fermentation or in-house flora, or by omission of curing agents.
