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In a world where we are increasingly removed from our food, hunting is a way for us to connect with what we are eating. Meet Danielle Prewett, founder of Wild + Whole, Wild Foods contributing editor for MeatEater, and proud hunter. In 2014 Danielle and her husband pledged to only cook meat that they hunt and fish themselves, allowing her the privilege of having a deeper connection with her food. 

In my conversation with Danielle we discuss:

• Danielle’s story of how she got into wild game and her first experience with eating mindfully
• The way she eats and the privilege of hunting that may not be accessible to everyone
• The inaccurate stereotypes of hunters
• The responsibility of killing an animal is on you
• How hunters are conservationists
• The overpopulation of deer and how hunting is a solution
• Danielle’s best hunting experience
• How to get started hunting
• The misconception of a natural death 

Resources:

• The Meateater &  Steve Rinella
• Deer in Molokai
• Deutsch-Drahthaar
• Theodore Roosevelt National Park
• Sacred Cow 
• Nature is Metal (@natureismetal)
• The Flavor Bible
• Backcountry Hunters and Anglers
• The Pittman Robertson Act

Connect with Danielle:

Website: Wild + Whole

Instagram: @danielleprewett or @wildandwhole

LinkedIn: Danielle Prewett

Facebook: @wildandwhole

Twitter: @Danielleprewett

YouTube: MeatEater

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Episode Credits:

Thank you to all who’ve made this show possible. Our hosts are Diana Rodgers, Lauren Manning, and James Connelly. Our producer is Meg Chatham, and our editor is Emily Soape. And of course, we are grateful for our sponsors, Patreon supporters, and listeners.

This episode is sponsored by FOND Bone Broth, one of my favorite “better broth” companies. Their broths and elixirs are not only well-sourced, but they are delicious. Visit their website here and enter the code SUSTAINABLEDISH for 20% off your first order.

It’s also sponsored by Paleovalley, my go-to, grab-and-go source for products that prioritize nutrient density in an industry that prioritizes everything else. Their epic lineup of products includes Organic Supergreens, 100% Grass-Fed Beef Sticks, Grass-Fed Organ Complex, 100% Grass-Fed Bone Broth Protein, and low-sugar snack bars. Visit their website here and enter the code SUSTAINABLEDISH for 15% off your first order.

Quotes:

“There is so much more to food than just what it tastes like” – Danielle Prewett

“When I go hunting, I see the habitats, the land, where it’s at, and all the things that it takes for this bird to survive. And it was just an overwhelming feeling of understanding. And so that was sort of my first glimpse at what it meant to eat with full consciousness.” – Danielle Prewett

“This is a privilege. Not everybody can go out and hunt.” – Diana Rodgers, RD

“Most hunters are conservationists at heart.” –  Danielle Prewett

“I personally felt an overwhelming amount of responsibility on my shoulders. Everything that happens to this animal is my responsibility.” – Danielle Prewett

 “So if we don’t have hunters managing populations that are exploding, we’ve got a problem.” – Diana Rodgers, RD

“A deer dying, unknowingly, at the hand of a hunter, is such a better death than the other ways they go out in the wild, that’s for sure.” – Danielle Prewett

“I think there’s often a perception that dying naturally means closing your eyes and going to sleep and never waking up again. And that is absolutely not necessarily how things die naturally. It’s much more violent than that.” – Diana Rodgers, RD

“I think ignorance is bliss. If we don’t see it, it doesn’t happen. And I think a lot of people want to live in that world. But I think on the same token, people who don’t know or understand hunting, have really false perceptions based on terrible movies that portray hunting in a bad way.” – Danielle Prewett

Transcript:

Diana Rodgers, RD  0:00  

Welcome back to the podcast, everybody, Diana here, and I have with me today, Danielle Prewett, she is a Huntress and many other things. And reached out to me, works with Steve Rinella’s team, and also has a lot going on on her own. And so, so happy to have you with us. 

Danielle Prewett  0:21  

Hi! Thank you so much. I am super excited to be on this podcast. I’ve been a fan of yours for a while on Instagram and following everything you do. So this is an honor to be here.

Diana Rodgers, RD  0:33  

Yeah. So. So we chatted a little bit, and you told me about your background. So why don’t you share with everybody how you got into what you’re doing?

Danielle Prewett  0:44  

Yeah, so I am, well, to share what I do now before I back up. How I got here is, I feel like one of those stories that just, you would never expect in life. But what I do now, for those who don’t know me is I am a wild game cook, I basically travel around the US and hunt, fish forage for my food, I have a website called Wild + Whole. It’s focused on helping others redefine their connection to food. So my philosophy on food is, is not just about cooking, and eating something that tastes good, but by knowing the story of where food comes from, and so that we can build a better relationship with our food. And I say, a healthy relationship with our food. I think that has a lot of different connotations for so many different people. But I look at it in a holistic way. And so that’s kind of what I do with Wild + Whole. There’s a lot of recipes, but you’ll also find some articles about raising chickens and preserving food, or what does regenerative farming mean. Different resources and information to help you make the best decisions you can whenever you’re sourcing your own food, essentially. And of course, I hunt and fish and garden. So there’s a lot of content surrounding that. So that’s what I do, I think I have the best job in the world. It’s so much fun. But I got here by accident, I would say I didn’t grow up cooking. It was not a huge part of my life growing up and I went to school for fashion design. So I didn’t grow up cooking, and it didn’t grow up hunting. None of those things really happened until later in life. And it’s funny because growing up, you know, I’ve always looked at food and have been very curious about what we eat in terms of most people think of meat as being beef, chicken or pork. And at an early age, I remember my mom really wanted to have a farm, but it was the 90s. And she talked my dad into having a very small emu farm. And so I remember going in the middle of the night and grabbing the big emu eggs and having emu burgers and emu steaks. So as a kid, I was immediately always thinking that animals were food and a very general sense. Like, what else can we eat? You know, well, how come when you go out to eat, I only see these three things like what about all the other animals out there in the world at it, I’ve always been very curious about it. But I didn’t really enjoy cooking or start cooking. I think a big part of that had to do with my mom being really sick as a child, and she passed away when I was 16. And food was very, very much about convenience and just sort of like, eat what you can when you can. And I just didn’t really think about food. It was kind of a mindless thing. And I ate a lot of junk food too. That’s what happens when your dad lets your 13-year-old daughter, go grocery shopping. I bought a lot of cereal, a lot of pizza. So years and eating junk food eventually caught up to me as it does. I didn’t feel very well I was in college feeling like crap. Granted, I was probably you know, being a college kid and having too much fun anyway, but I wasn’t eating very well at all. And so I knew that I had to make really big life changes. It started with food. So I started doing a lot of research, looking into functional medicine, elimination diets, and really trying to rewind the clock a little and figure out what is it that makes me feel good and eat a little more intuitively. And at the same time, I was kind of going through this journey of falling in love with cooking and food in general. I met my husband, who is an avid outdoorsman. And he did a lot of hunting growing up and he would bring game over to me which I thought was fascinating because it was something I got to cook with that didn’t come from a grocery store. So like there was sort of this exclusivity factor. And I thought it was just a ton of fun. And so I started cooking with a lot of wild game. And then we got married like little by little, it became like almost the only thing we were eating. And then at one point, we moved to North Dakota from Texas. I live in Texas now. But we spent five years in North Dakota. And when I moved there, the pace of life slowed dramatically. And everything changed. I guess it’s sort of one of those places where you know, I’m from a big city, or I live in Houston, and you kind of get taken out of your element here to this like very quiet town out in the country. And it just changed my life. I spent all my time outdoors and I started hunting with my husband. And I remember pheasant hunting, I shot my first bird behind my dog Marina, she’s a golden retriever, and the cattails we were hunting – it was freezing outside. And I remember cooking that pheasant as I had cooked many times before because my husband had shot them. But I remember this was the first time that I had killed or shot an animal. And I remember eating it and thinking it was just had this overwhelming feeling of gratitude and appreciation for my food in a way that I had never felt in my entire life. And it made me feel as if this entire life that I’ve been living just eating mindlessly just suddenly clicked to me that there’s so much more to food than just what it tastes like. There’s it has, so it can carry a lot of meaning. And I suddenly realize that I can now eat in a way that gives my life meaning. And to sort of explain that further. When I go hunting, I see the habitats, the land, where it’s at, and all the things that it takes for this bird to survive. And it was just an overwhelming feeling of understanding. And so that was sort of my first glimpse at what it meant to eat with full consciousness. And I sort of set on this mission that I wanted to feel that way every time I ate. And I wanted to learn what it meant to connect with my food. And so that really kick-started the process. Here I am. So yeah, that sort of started the process of wanting to eat more sustainably and know that my meat was raised ethically. And since we were already doing so much hunting, I decided what if, what if we just hunted for all of our protein. And so I kind of made this pact with my husband in 2014 that we wanted to hunt and fish for all of our meats that we cook at home, I’ll still eat meat when we go to a friend’s house or out to a restaurant, beef or chicken. But at home, we weren’t going to buy meat from a grocery store anymore. So that’s how that started. Yeah, that was in 2014. And I’m still doing that today.

Diana Rodgers, RD  8:09  

I think that it’s fascinating. We have very similar backgrounds because as you were telling me the first time we spoke about your background in fashion design my undergraduate degree is in art education and art history and photography. And I also did grew up on ultra-processed foods, frozen dinners, food, my mother didn’t cook, she was raised kind of by nuns and really hated fish, because they said they couldn’t cook fish at all. So nothing was from scratch. Her idea was that you know, as a modern woman, who you know, had a job that cooking from scratch and being in the kitchen was something that she wasn’t going to identify with as a more modern woman. And I think a lot of women of that generation felt that way. And so we definitely ate a lot of cereal, and the whole time I had undiagnosed celiac disease, so I was super sick and didn’t really understand why and didn’t understand the food was connected to it and all of that. And never cooked as a kid and certainly never grew my own food as a kid. We didn’t have we had flower gardens, but not like vegetable gardens. Yeah. So I think I identify a lot with what you just described.

Danielle Prewett  9:29  

Yeah, and I think it’s interesting you say that I think there was this specific shift in history. I, I look at Travis Travis is my husband, his grandparents, his grandma was raised out in the country. And you know, they grew their food and they like had they raised cows and it’s a hard life and I think with the commercialization and industrialization of all these things it made it to where, you know, they didn’t have to do that. And that was sort of a status symbol and I remember her story of raising Seeing her kids, his parents, kind of breaking away from that because to them, it was a luxury not to have to do that. Here I am so so little, you know, a generation later, realizing No, this stuff is so damaging the real luxury is having these real foods. After a lifetime of eating foods that’s just processed and junk that don’t make you feel good. Being able to eat, the way I eat now feels like such a privilege that I never want to take for granted. Because today it is expensive to eat that way. I do think it’s interesting how we’re raised in the environment, we grow up and have such a big effect on us.

Diana Rodgers, RD  10:44  

Yeah, and we did talk a little bit before about privilege and, and that this is a privilege, right to be able to not everybody can go out and hunt. And I like, you know, I did record half a podcast with one person that I never ended up publishing because his energy was so elitist towards, you know how hunting for every meal is the only thing that’s righteous, and everybody else is beneath him. And it was so off-putting to me. And I like how you don’t do that.

Danielle Prewett  11:25  

Because there are so many people who really do want to hunt, and there are so many hurdles to getting into hunting. Access to the land itself is huge. You know, I grew up thinking that hunting was a rich man’s sport, it was something that my dad grew up in South Dakota, he hunted as a kid. But when he moved us to Texas, it was not something that he did, because it was just too expensive. We couldn’t afford it. It is such a privilege. And I think to have that stance that it’s a very like it’s the elite pure thing is such a shame to say that because as our population, our world begins to grow our wildlife is only getting smaller and smaller the wild places we have and well, I’m on the board of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. And it’s about protecting public places public land, and I can the more and more I hunt, the more I realized that this is such a privilege. So many people cannot do this. And I never want to take that for granted. So I think that attitude is what’s very sad.

Diana Rodgers, RD  12:31  

And let’s talk a little bit more because most of the people who are listening to this podcast don’t hunt. And I think there’s a perception of a hunter, from especially, you know, people who live in urban areas who’ve never hunted before. There’s this stereotype of, I mean, certainly of farmers of rural people, which is horrible, and I try to fight against that all the time that you know, just because someone lives in a country setting doesn’t mean or didn’t go to an Ivy League school, it doesn’t mean that they’re less intelligent than you or care less about the environment, all of these things. But there’s there’s a particular stigma that some people have against hunting, and will you talk a little bit about that?

Danielle Prewett  13:13  

Yeah, there’s a lot of them. I think there’s the general perception of what a hunter looks who a hunter is, and what they look like, as being sort of this big burly man, or redneck is often associated. Someone who just doesn’t think they just are trigger happy, they just shoot to kill and there are certainly people out there like that I’m not gonna lie. I think there’s there’s always good and bad, but I think most people would come to find hunters actually are the most passionate about the land and the animals than people who don’t hunt. In fact, we care so much about them that our entire way of life is making sure that these animals are producing and being prolific and have the habitats that are needed to support a healthy balance. And in the ecosystem. Most hunters are conservationists at heart. And as far as killing and shooting an animal it’s absolutely hard. It didn’t come easy for me it wasn’t something that I just thought I was gonna pick up a gun and like have had no feelings about it because I certainly did. Especially shooting my first big game animal. I remember I waited years to shoot a big game animal. I started with bird hunting. And that was because I knew that it was going to be hard on me. And I wanted the animal’s death to be very swift, very quick and I just wanted it to be easy on the animal’s life and have that respect for it. So when I go hunting for a big game animal and you find the deer. You target which you’re going to shoot and you have that place in your scope and you’re looking at it. I personally felt an overwhelming amount of responsibility on my shoulders. Everything that happens to this animal is my responsibility. I am responsible for going to the gun range and knowing that I know how to shoot and that my gun is sighted in properly, I’m not going to take a bad shot and, and wound it and let it run off and die somewhere, or have a horrible slow death. I’m responsible for all of those things. And so I take that into heavy consideration every time I hunt. And then when you do have an animal down on the ground, it’s so important to know what to do after that, because a lot of people don’t even think about that part. Because it’s something you’re not used to you go to the grocery store and your meat is already perfectly packaged for you. You know, how do you go from A to B? There’s a lot of stuff in between. Anyway, that’s another subject. And I’ll do that has to do with the stereotypes of a hunter. But yeah, to your earlier point, I think a lot of people think of hunters as being just bloodthirsty. Out for antlers. I think there’s a lot of hunters like me, who are sustenance hunters that are looking to put meat in their freezer, for sure.

Diana Rodgers, RD  16:16  

And let’s talk a little bit about conservation and the hunter’s role in conservation. I mean, it’s my understanding that a lot of our conservation land is actually paid for, by hunters. That they’re the ones supporting natural habitat that would probably be developed or, or in danger of being exploited for its natural resources if it weren’t conserved by hunting organizations.

Danielle Prewett  16:42  

Can’t remember what year but long ago, something called the Pittman Robertson act, enabled the government to put a tax on hunting equipment, firearm equipment, ammunition, various things so that when somebody buys that, that tax dollar goes into this fund, and that’s a fund for conservation. But every time you buy a hunting or fishing license, that money goes to your state. And that money is allocated towards various different initiatives within each state’s conservation or you know, hiring Game Wardens or all sorts of different things. But all of that is largely funded by hunters and anglers. There is a controversial it’s not a tax, I think, in Colorado, they’re now asking hikers to buy a permit so like if you go to a national park, you buy like your gate fee or something, park entrance fee, and I think they’re at Colorado is having hikers do the same. Because if the number of hunters are declining, less people are hunting and as that number goes down, the What do we have? What money do we have going to secure conservation in the future. And so we’re trying to think about it in bigger picture of goals. There’s a lot of private funding that goes on, a lot of it has to do with trying to acquire land, so that we are maintaining wild public places that are not going to be developed. But as we do have like an increase of development. And development doesn’t always mean like residential or commercial, I think the agriculture is a huge, huge thing and decreasing biodiversity and hurting our habitats for our wildlife. So there’s a lot of initiatives out there to try to purchase and maintain land so that they are being maintained for that purpose of wildlife. Yeah, I would say the charge is being led by hunters and anglers for sure. Because we’re the ones who actually get out there and experience it. And so there’s also this other side of the coin. It’s like, Why don’t hunt. So why should I pay for it? And I think it just comes down to do you care about our wildlife? Even if you don’t see it every day? Like do you care about our Earth having these animals?

Diana Rodgers, RD  19:13  

Yeah. And there’s the whole side of folks who are for rewilding. In theory, that sounds like a lovely idea. But we just don’t have the large tracts of land available any longer for large populations of grazing animals to herd in a healthy way. And you know, and then there are other folks that will say, well, if cattle are good for biodiversity and their grazing can help with carbon sequestration and everything, why do we have to eat them? There needs to be some kind of financial reward for the person that’s managing them, but the idea that there could also live at the same time conservation land supported by hunters, where the populations are kept in check. And the habitat is preserved, not just fenced off, but actively managed by people who care.

Danielle Prewett  20:14  

I think that’s something a lot of people don’t wrap their minds around, like, why do we have to eat them? Well, imagine there is a certain quota that a piece of land can can be maintained without degrading it. And that’s true for cows as much as it is for deer. There is a term for it. I just read this.

Diana Rodgers, RD  20:34  

 Carrying capacity. Yeah,

Danielle Prewett  20:36  

 Yeah. And once you reach that you are now degrading your land. And so it is a lifecycle. Sure.

Diana Rodgers, RD  20:43  

It’s funny because in where I live outside of Boston, there’s a lot of conservation land, there’s a lot of woods, we have a lot of deer. There was a woman a couple of years ago in my town that wrote a letter to the newspaper saying how it totally ruined her day and horrified her and poisoned her children’s eyeballs, because she was driving them to school one day, and there was a dead deer on the back of a truck. And she was behind it, and how awful it was that she had to witness this, this murder situation, right. And I wrote a letter back explaining that we have this massive overpopulation of deer here. They don’t have any predators. They’re, you know, everyone wants their time outside in the woods, you know, on our conservation land to go for a hike. But these deer are eating the habitat for ground-nesting birds, and they’re destroying things, and they’re getting sick. And so now we have a large population of sick deer here. They’re causing car accidents. There are just too many of them. And if we’re not controlling their populations, with guns, then we need to bring in some wolves. And how’s that going to work? I mean, what are the solutions here?

Danielle Prewett  22:03  

Hawaii is another great example that I was just in Molokai, axis hunting and a little over 100 years ago, they brought in six deer and it is now about 50,000 deer on a tiny island. More or more than way more than that. But the population has exploded. There are no predators and you look at the landscape, there’s no grass on the ground left. It’s dirt and all the trees have been grazed all the way up to the tops where they can reach. And it’s just decimating, completely decimating all of their native habitat. And it’s, it’s

Diana Rodgers, RD  22:39  

For all the other animals that are native to that area, right? If people aren’t understanding that. And that we need, you know, habitat for the birds. But we also need that diversity of plants in order to keep the whole system in check. And so if we don’t have hunters, managing populations that are exploding, we’ve got a problem. And so while rewilding sounds like a beautiful utopia, you’re you would still need hunters, you would still need people harvesting it and then and then who’s going to eat that? You know, should it be just the wolves get it? Or can we potentially benefit our bodies through the meat that was the result of eating all of the native vegetation that’s there.

Danielle Prewett  23:29  

Right and that’s, that’s something that I take advantage of all the time. Because being able to hunt allows me to understand the interconnectedness of our world, how it works. And without, without people having some sort of connection or understanding, you know, how do you expect others who have absolutely no reference for what we’re talking about to care about this, it’s really hard to care about something that you just don’t understand. And then I feel really grateful that I have that first-hand witness to be able to see what it takes for healthy habitat to thrive and a diversity of animals it’s very enlightening.

Diana Rodgers, RD  24:12  

Well, you describe for me this what I was gonna ask you before because you talked about when you go hunting and a little bit about what it’s like to actually like shoot it but so I have two questions for you. One can you describe just the whole day I mean, the actual shot you’re taking is such a small part of it. Will you just describe how many days you might go out for? What does it look like? How do you feel when you’re out there? And then I want to also know what you would recommend to someone like me or one of our listeners who’s never done this before? I’ve benefited from hunting for sure. I have lots of people that have given me meat, but I personally have never done it. Do I start with lessons? Like, what do I do?

Danielle Prewett  24:59  

Yeah. I’ll give you a story of my favorite hunt that I’ve ever been on. It’s last year I decided, I have a bird dog. His name is Zesu. He’s a Deutsch-Drahthaar. We trained him when we lived in North Dakota and then we moved back to Texas. And we really miss all the upland opportunities we used to have in North Dakota. So last year, I decided that in a way to really grow as a person and as a hunter that I wanted to go on a hunt by myself alone. So I drove from Houston all the way up to North Dakota alone with my dog. I stopped in Nebraska and hunted in the sand hills and camped out there for two days. And then I went to the western part, Southwestern area of the Badlands. They’re the grasslands inside of the Badlands. I don’t know if you know what that area is. It spans that area in North Dakota. And that area is right next to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, it’s a place that I hold very close to my heart, there’s just something about the energy of that place that feels just you just feel so alive. It doesn’t have that majestic look of the mountains of Montana, or beautiful ocean day or woods. It’s just this vast grasslands and some rolling hills and some buttes here and there that you can just see for miles and miles and there’s not a soul in sight. And there’s no cell service. And it’s just this peaceful feeling of being in a place where you realize that I’m just a visitor, I’m here for such a short amount of time. And this place that I’m just lucky to be here and observe. I think a lot of people think of wildlife is this other outside thing. And we as humans naturally sort of want to take ownership and control of everything, like we own this land, and it’s mine to do with what I want. But when you get out to a place like that you feel so small. When you realize no, I’m just a visitor here. This is their home. And it’s it’s just an amazing feeling. And so that trip I hiked I didn’t do a ton of hiking, I would say maybe six miles a day. I’ve certainly most certain trips are usually about 10 miles a day, depending on what you’re doing. This trip is about five-six miles a day. I’d hunt in the morning with the dog and take a break in the middle of the day and then hunt in the evening and I was specifically targeting sharp-tailed grouse. They are a native grass species in North America that aren’t really hunted a lot, but they’re out in the grasslands, and I what I love about it is it’s like feels like a truly wild bird whereas other birds like a pheasant will really tend to gravitate towards more agricultural lands and so it’s it’s feels like you’re grooming and planting habitat to draw it same with deer use a lot of hunters like you’re planting habitat to bring them in. And this is a place that is feels so untouched because it’s public land. There will be farmers out there you can lease the land and there’s a lot of cattle that roam out there. Aside from that it’s just feels like untouched land. And so I was targeting these birds and I was about day three into the trip and I hadn’t gotten into any birds yet. And that’s a lot of walking three days driving across the country and that night a blizzard came in and my tent is just like a two-person tent it’s not really made. A two-season tent it’s not made for the winter. So I pull everything out of my car and I can lay the seats down flat and sleep in the back of my car. And so I’m it’s like 19 degrees out I’m in my sleeping bag and I wake up and Z is just shaking nonstop next to me and so I unzipped my bag and I pull him in and we’re like cuddling to stay warm while it’s blizzard outside and all I can think to myself is what are you doing you’re in the middle of nowhere there’s no cell phone service. You’re in a blizzard. What are you doing all this for? And I started second-guessing myself and why are you doing this. But I woke up the next morning, got outside made coffee in the snow. We started hiking again and that day we got into bird. And I shot my grouse and I mean, it’s just it’s such a small bird. It’s such a simple thing that people are like you did all that work for that bird. But the feeling you get of accomplishment and gratitude and appreciation. It’s it’s no longer about killing that animal. It’s about everything else that you’re there for. It was just an amazing experience to do alone. And I would do it over and over again if I could. That was the best time that I’ve ever been on that I would say if you want to learn how to hunt and get started, I get asked all the time, how to start. And I think the first thing you should ask yourself is, what do you want to hunt because there’s obviously a lot of different animals. And different animals require different types of guns. So like, you don’t want to just go out and buy a bunch of different guns, You know, buy the gun for the animal, you want to hunt. Target specifically. Research how you hunt that animal, because, say deer, for example, you could live in a very wooded area and if you want to hunt for deer, you’re most likely sitting in a tree stand, because you can’t see far out and you can’t really spot and stop. So you’re, you’re holding still and waiting. That’s something that I have a really hard time doing. I would rather have in the West, and have a ton of land, and glass and stock. And it’s a much more proactive type of hunting. 

Diana Rodgers, RD  30:56  

What do you mean by glass? 

Danielle Prewett  30:58  

You have binoculars. So you find like a knob up on a hill. And you’re just looking and watching Where are they going? How many bucks and how many does? Where are they bedding? Where are they feeding? What are their habits? And you do that for a very long time. A couple days, sometimes, The difference of that style of hunting is based on where you live and where the deer are. But I say that to the point of know what you’re getting into a lot of people see, oh, there’s this, this hunt looks amazing. And then they’re like, I’m going to do it in my in my area. This is not the same hunt that I thought I was going to do. You know, knowing where you live, what animals are around you is the first thing you should look at and know what you want to target. And be very specific about it because it takes a lot to learn how to hunt just one animal. So if you’re just I’ll hunt anything, then it’s you’re setting yourself up for like a lot of learning. So I would just say start with one thing that you really want to learn how to do. And then after that, I would go to your game and fish website. And I would research the rules. When is the season open and close? You need to get your hunter safety education. So learning how to not even learning how to shoot a gun. But the hunter safety of how to handle a firearm is so so important. So most states will require that you have that certification. And just knowing the rules of what’s the legal limit, what’s the size limits, you know, some deer, you are allowed to shoot a spikes and some whitetail, the antlers need to be passed the ears. You have to be confident that you can identify that animal correctly before you squeeze a trigger. Once you squeeze a trigger, there’s no going back, Taking that responsibility of all the things you need to know ahead of time is important. And then of course having access and a place to hunt. So if you live in an area with a lot of public land, you can get on your game and fish website and look up what areas are available to hunt. Sometimes you have to apply for a tag to hunt in those areas. So you have to apply for it. If you get drawn it, that’s great. If not, you can find a private area with the lease and do a guided hunt. That’s usually the easiest route to take. Because you can have a guide to take you out and show you where to go. And you’re on a private land and, and the thing about that is you might have to pay a pretty penny in order to do that. So yeah, those are kind of the immediate steps to take. And then there’s organizations like that Country Hunters and Anglers, which is really geared towards helping adults who didn’t grow up hunting and fishing, learn how to do that together through a community. And there’s a lot of mentor hunts through that. And a lot of just really good resources for learning how to hunt. It’s a hurdle. I’ve been doing it for many years now and I’m still learning every day.

Diana Rodgers, RD  33:59  

That’s awesome. I didn’t even think about deciding what animal first that didn’t even occur to me that you might do that.

Danielle Prewett  34:07  

Yeah, I mean, I mean, it doesn’t need to be this big thing. It could be rabbits. You know, it can be birds. It doesn’t need to be this big animal. I think a lot of people want to start off with deer hunting. And that’s fine because you get a lot of meat out of it. But small game hunting is is fun and rewarding. And it’s a great introduction.

Diana Rodgers, RD  34:30  

Yeah, my son on the farm will shoot bunnies and English sparrows because those birds come down. There’s too many of them there. They’ve they’re very aggressive towards native songbirds and they eat all the seedlings and all the seeds we put out. People definitely look at him funny when he does that. Or some actually one of my friends actually brought a bunny to the farm one time to release it on the farm and we were like what are you doing?  You’re just bringing something to eat like this gigantic salad bowl that we’ve planted here. And it gets back to in the film Sacred Cow. In order for people to eat their lettuce, their locally grown lettuce and kale and everything that is salad bowl habitat for deer, right? And it’s the perfect because especially in New England, it’s very wooded. So we’ve got a nice clearing of beautiful salad for them. Exactly the yummiest option. And yes, there’s deer fencing, and it’s expensive, but most farmers do that, but they can get through. It’s difficult for people to wrap their heads around the fact that yes, things can die for them to have.

Danielle Prewett  35:45  

Yeah, there’s a lot of things that have to die in order for food to be grown. And I think deer and rabbits are one example. But I think there’s a lot of things that get mowed over big agricultural production. 

Diana Rodgers, RD  35:59  

Right? But I mean, even as you observe, I’m sure when you’re out on your hunts, and you’re deeply immersed in wild places, it’s constantly things dying and other things growing. It’s just what, yeah, like this. 

Danielle Prewett  36:16  

Oh, yeah, I mean, every time you have, you know, I always find deer that got eaten by coyotes. And their bodies are, you know, you can see where they’ve been eating, and it’s stinking, flies are everywhere. I mean, their nature itself can be brutal. Can be really brutal. A deer dying, unknowingly, at the hand of a hunter, is such a better death than the other ways they go out in the wild, that’s for sure.

Diana Rodgers, RD  36:47  

Yeah, you want to address that really quickly, because I do that in the book, Sacred Cow. And I think there’s often a perception that dying naturally means closing your eyes and going to sleep and never waking up again. And that is absolutely not necessarily how things die naturally. It’s much more violent than that. And I think if I had my choice, and I were a deer, I would much rather be taken out by a gun unknowingly then being I’ve watched National Geographic, I know,

Danielle Prewett  37:22  

Nature is Metal. 

Diana Rodgers, RD  37:24  

Yes.

Danielle Prewett  37:25  

 Don’t believe me follow Nature is Metal.

Diana Rodgers, RD  37:27  

I was just about to mention that. But I almost worried that it was too crazy of an Instagram feed for people but it’s just what it’s real. 

Danielle Prewett  37:36  

Yeah. I think ignorance is bliss. If we don’t see it, it doesn’t happen. And I think a lot of people want to live in that world. But I think on the same token, people who don’t know or understand hunting, have really false perceptions based on terrible movies that portray hunting in a bad bad way. A very unrealistic way. Any In fact, I will say that most movies that you see where they are hunting, have it all wrong. It’s just not the way it works the way they portray it. And so like I don’t know how other people think that mammal dies when you go hunting, but it is not like this. A deer stops looks at a hunter and you meet in the eyes. And then you’re like, yeah, right kill you. And then they’re like, and then they die and they slow sad death at the deer sees you you’re they’re gone. Yeah, like you’re not hunting, though, that’s the first rule is. In order to successfully hunt, they need to not know you’re there. And most of the time, when you are shooting an animal, they’re grazing and they’ll pick their head up and kind of I mean, that’s what they do all day long anyway, they’ll graze and another one will be on the lookout and they’ll kind of rotate back and forth. And you’re just waiting for them to be in the right body position. So you know where your shots gonna pass through the vitals quickly. So you’re waiting for the right opportunity for that to happen. And when that gun goes off, and they are hit, assuming that you took a really clean shot, they don’t walk very far before they fall to the ground. I mean, sometimes it can be 50 to 100 yards and they’re wounded but it is very short-lived. And of course, there’s going to be bad situations that nobody wants to happen where it’s not a clean shot and maybe you do spend 30-45 minutes tracking it out until you find it. It’s not a situation people want to happen. It does happen. It sucks for an animal to die by a rifle shot is so much quicker than a pack of coyotes slowly eating on you.

Diana Rodgers, RD  39:41  

Exactly, exactly. Where can people find you. You’re working on a book, you’re you’ve got some filming happening, Let people know a little bit about how they can follow along and support you.

Danielle Prewett  39:56  

Yeah, so I’m on social media. Facebook, and Instagram Danielle Prewett. And then my website is Wild and Whole. And so if you go to Wild and Whole dot com, you can find a bunch of articles and recipes. Of course wild game, but also a lot of foraging, a lot of gardening content. And then I’m working on Season Two of my show season one, it’s called Sourced. So it’s a cooking show that is not just about how to cook food, but how to go to the source and the origins of where food comes from. And that’ll be released on YouTube, early October. And I’m working on a cookbook, which will be released a very long time from now as books tend to be.

Diana Rodgers, RD 40:47

When I was making, I am going to give you a tip. When I was making my cookbooks, I got the book Flavor – The Flavor Bible by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenberg. And it was really cool because and I recommend this to even to people that are creative in the kitchen and see cooking as a fun challenge and not a drudgery. I have a hard time following recipes and so I will look at a recipe and see they are using cherries and pork but I have cranberries and duck. How can I but it’s really cool because it will highlight different flavors that go together and you can kind of construct a recipe based on complementary flavors that you may not be thinking of.

Danielle Prewett 41:32

Yeah. I’ve seen that cookbook so many times and I always say I need to go buy it and now I need to.

Diana Rodgers 41:37

It’s really good. I like it a lot. It was really helpful when I was developing recipes.

Danielle Prewett 41:43

I will check that out. Thank you.

Diana Rodgers 41:46

Thank you so much for having – having me on your show.  For coming on my show. We’re going to talk offline, I think about potentially, maybe collaborating in some other way. So, thanks for listening everybody, and see you next time.