You Can't Eat The Horns

Or can you?

Every okayest hunter knows one thing: never pass. When you’ve been out of luck for 8 seasons, and your spouse thinks you’re cheating when you go hunting because you eat tag soup every year, you can’t afford to pass. Everyone likes to rip on the hunter who brings home a one and a half-year-old button buck, but for years, we’ve had one defense.

You can’t eat the horns.

Every okayest hunter knows this phrase. It’s validation when your buddy tells you you should’ve passed. However, as it turns out… you can eat the horns.

Before we go any further we want to make it clear, we know they’re called antlers; we did a poll and the hunters have spoken! We just like to poke the bear for everyone that takes hunting and the lifestyle too seriously.

As we mentioned before, you actually can harvest the antlers of a deer, and use them in a multitude of ways. Deer antlers have been used in medicine and provisions in China for centuries, where they call the ingredient “鹿角” (lù jiǎo). In traditional Chinese medicine, antlers are known as a sort of miracle herb. Apparently they’re thought to improve energy, protect your immune system, and potentially prolong your life.

Antlers can be ground up, put into capsules, and used as a supplement as one would expect, but there are actually even more ways to use them. 

Have a dog? Antlers make a great bone/chew toy for them, and since you already harvested the deer, no need to run to PetSmart and make awkward small talk with the even more awkward 16-year-old cashier. That’s a win in our book.

This one’s a bit more of an acquired taste, but you can eat the bone marrow out of the antlers. If you’re out in the wilderness like Steve Rinella. the bone marrow makes a great substitute for butter when preparing meats and meals, but other than that, it’s not exactly our cup of tea. Mainly because we're the farthest from being anywhere near as badass of a hunter as The Meat Eater himself. 

The use of antlers that surprised us the most was in gelatin. That’s right- deer jello. We're not sure who the F*** would ever want that but hey, we're not here to judge.

While we're sad that we can’t proudly use the classic line to protect ourselves and our weak choices as okayest hunter's anymore, it’s pretty neat that you can get even more use out of your harvested animal!