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Roadkill: It's What's for Dinner
Along America's highways and railroad tracks, there's an often-ignored food supply: roadkill. Among the many benefits of this accidental cuisine, the San Francisco Chronicle (Dec. 3, 2006) notes, is using it to feed the needy.

Food Bank of Alaska has an agreement with Alaska Railroad to retrieve moose killed on railroad tracks and process the animals into one-pound packages of ground meat. Amy Stevens, communications manager for the Anchorage-based outfit, tells Utne Reader that the packages are distributed to 300 agencies across the state. Last fall, the food bank signed an agreement with the Division of Alaska State Troopers to retrieve and process moose killed by cars in the Anchorage area.

In Spokane, Washington, volunteers with the Inland Northwest Wildlife Council's roadkill recovery committee work with the state's Department of Fish and Wildlife and local and state law enforcement agencies to retrieve deer, elk, and moose that are killed or injured on Spokane-area roads. Every year, says committee head Jim Kujala, the program collects about 5,000 pounds of meat, which is donated to the Union Gospel Mission in Spokane. Only the freshest roadkill will do: 'If you wouldn't eat it yourself, don't take it to the mission,' Kujala says.

Test-Tube Meat
Forget Tang. How about a nice steak dinner for the astronauts? NASA scientists trying to boost cosmic menus hit upon the idea of sending cells from farm animals into space to be cloned for food. VegNews (Jan./Feb. 2006) reports that their concept of lab-grown meat may spread to the earthbound. With a single cell, university researchers say, it's theoretically possible to produce the world's yearly meat supply-in a way that's cheaper, cleaner, and more humane than the current factory-farm model. There would be no manure or slaughter to deal with, nor any E. coli, salmonella, or mad cow disease. And no pesky animal rights activists.

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