Health experts say you need to be very careful when grilling and consuming bear meat.
© Andrew West/The News-Press / © Gary Cosby Jr.-Tuscaloosa News / USA TODAY NETWORK
(Atlanta, GA) – The CDC says they’ve determined what sent a family to the hospital during a family reunion back in 2022: parasitic worms! Apparently the medical condition resulted from eating tainted black bear meat. A family member had brought black bear meat kebabs to the South Dakota family gathering that summer. They apparently had those worms.
Apparently the black bear had been hunted, killed, and then its meat was frozen for 45 days. At that point it was thawed and grilled. But the CDC recommends cooking bear meat to an internal temperature of at least 165 degrees. Grilling meat can get up that high, but the bear meat may not have been cooked long enough, or perhaps the coals were low at that point. The CDC says proper cooking at high enough heat kills all parasites. Furthermore, many wildlife experts say worms are so common in bears that essentially all meat is infected — making the higher temperatures especially vital.
