Oh Deer! Is Venison the Most Eco-Friendly Food?

That deer in your garden? It might just be the most eco-friendly dinner to eat — provided you kill it yourself.

Award-winning food writer Corby Kummer joined Boston Public Radio on Thursday to discuss Washington Post columnist Tamar Haspell’s proposal that venison is “unequivocally the single most ecologically friendly food you can eat.”

“If you get farm-raised venison in a restaurant, it’s not really addressing this [environmental] issue, because the only thing that’s legal to sell is farm-raised venison,” Kummer said. “You have to go out and kill it.”

Haspell argued that due to invasive deer populations posing threats to native animals and plants, the spread of Lyme disease by deer ticks, and the greenhouse gas emissions deer produce, wild venison could be considered the most eco-friendly food to consume.

In her piece, Haspell noted that a Connecticut town reversed its no-hunting ordinance in 2000 after being overrun by deer. Scientists who monitored the situation found that in the seven following years, deer density dropped by 87%, and Lyme disease cases in the community dropped as well.

“The minute I see cute deer in a backyard — which we do a lot in Jamaica Plain — I think, ‘ticks! Lyme disease!’” Kummer joked. “So there are a lot of advantages to thinning deer [populations].”

Both Haspell and Kummer believe, however, that some people will refuse to hunt and eat wild venison despite its eco-friendliness.

“As the Haspell column in the Post makes clear, the farther you are from the animal, the more comfortable you are eating it,” Kummer said. “The closer you are, and you see that it’s cute — or if you ever name an animal that you raise, there is a shibboleth against things that you see. So there’s absolutely no problem with inhumanely-raised slaughtered chickens, but when it comes to a deer that’s invading your garden and giving you Lyme disease, ‘no, no, no — don’t do it.’”

Kummer is the executive director of the Food and Society policy program at the Aspen Institute, a senior editor at The Atlantic and a senior lecturer at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.