Success StoryCook Wild Kentucky



Cook Wild Kentucky

Author: Jann Knappage

Planning Unit: Family and Consumer Sciences

Major Program: Local Food Systems

Outcome: Long-Term Outcome

17% or approximately 743,310 of Kentuckians are food insecure. This means, approximately 1 in 6 Kentuckians are food insecure. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, food insecurity is a state in which “consistent access to adequate food is limited by a lack of money and other resources at times during the year.” A nonprofit organization, Hunters for the Hungry, addresses this by donating venison to Kentucky food banks. Feeding Kentucky, formerly Kentucky Association of Food Banks, identified that food pantry participants were intimidated when they received venison, because they did not know how to properly prepare the meat. The University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service’s Nutrition Education Program was able to meet this need. In order to address this, the Nutrition Education Program spearheaded the creation of a program called Cook Wild Kentucky. 16 recipe cards, which included 6 different types of wild game: 6 venison, 3 rabbit, 3 fish, 2 frog leg, 1 duck and 1 dove, were created. These recipes were taste tested and analyzed for nutritional content. Ease of preparation was also emphasized when creating these recipes. The Nutrition Education Program has partnered with Kentucky Fish and Wildlife for this program. Through this partnership, what started out as wild game recipe cards, has turned into statewide trainings and talk of future wild game food safety publications. Cooperative Extension Service Agents from all program areas, throughout the state, have shown excitement to receive the recipe cards and plan to utilize them for programming during the 2019 hunting season. Recipe cards are currently undergoing layout and design and will be printed and shipped to counties in the coming weeks. Two statewide agent trainings are scheduled for January and February of 2020. The Nutrition Education program will hold a second round of recipe taste tests July 2019 in order to expand the recipes from 16 to 26 and included an additional 4 wild game animals: turkey, turtle, elk and squirrel.






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