Kraft cans 'Road Kill' candy

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Kraft Foods Inc. said Friday it would bow to demands by the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NJSPCA) that it stop selling candies shaped like animals that have been run over by cars.

The group publicly demanded removal of Road Kill candy, sold under Kraft's Trolli Gummi brand, earlier this week.

"This is not sending the right message to kids," NJSPCA spokesman Matthew Stanton said.

Kraft (Research) said it wanted to be sensitive to consumer concerns about the candies, which are shaped like flattened snakes, chickens and squirrels with track marks on their bodies. They were introduced last summer.

"We understand how this product could be misinterpreted, and we respect that point of view," Trolli Brand Manager Jim Low said in a statement.

Whenever I used to see road kill it used to be cats and dogs..pets who got loose or who wandered into the street. Now with the rise of new home developments taking over the green space that belongs to indiginious animals, the road kills I see seem to be more wild animals. Deer, beautiful foxes (Can I get a coat piece out of the tail?) or possums. There tend to be raccoons and more wild birds...you know those large turkey buzzards that are so big you think they are prehistoric birds for the Land that Time Forgot.

Now, they are always wild animals on rural roads and frankly I am suprised at all the large birds. They obviously are the victims of 18 wheelers. They normally are feeding on the racoons, deer and foxes on the side of the road and when those 18 wheelers come by, they get sucked into the vaccum draft and splat....they are gone.

The thing that gets me the most are people who want your road kill. It is common place where I am to see a wrecked car on the road that has just hit a deer. Soon, up comes a pickup truck with the occupants not concerned about you, but concerned about the deer. The will ask if you are taking the dead deer with you. No? Then the next question from them is can they have it? And off they go, they collect the dead deer, put it in the back of the pickup truck and off they go....free dinner on you for the next few weeks. It is very common place where I am. Recent deer killings due to car accidents is fresh meat and dinner to some. I could not do it but I have seen it happen. I stopped for someone who had just hit a deer a few months ago to be sure they were okay. As we waited for the police, a man in an SUV pulled up and asked for the dead deer. The driver I was with did not want it. The SUV driver loaded it up and off he went.

Apparently there is an art to eating recent road kill. You have to know when it is fresh and when it is not. Arthur Boyt says he has been eating road kill for years as his main form of meat.

Retired civil servant, Arthur Boyt is an animal lover and enthusiastic conservationist, but one look in his freezer would make you think otherwise.

Arthur's freezer is a positive menagerie of native wildlife including pheasant, deer and fox and he is fast running out of space.

"The freezer is filling up," admits Arthur. "I can pass things by without regret."

With a degree in biology, Arthur can confidently identify fresh meat from a diseased carcass. He cooks the meat at a high temperature for a long time, ensuring it is safe to eat.

"For years I've lived off roadkill and my own vegetables," he explains.

But roadkill is not to everyone's taste.

"And a nice Chianti"

In the UK in particular, there is a stigma attached to the eating of alternative meat.

If you read the whole article, he even says he has eaten dog and it tastes like lamb. Now I like lamb but I do not think I can get the vision of lamb and dog tasting the same out of my mind now. I might not be able to eat lamb any more.

Would you eat road kill? Have you every eaten fresh roadkill? The article says that instead of running to the grocery to buy meat, we need to start crusing the highways for fresh meat. Just about everything is edible you know.

What I do is kick them in the pants with a diamond buckled shoe!

~~Aileen Mehle~~