Is elk vegetarian-compatible?

Watch for

• Chronic wasting disease is a prion disease of the deer family and elk are one of its main hosts, in wild herds and on game farms across a widening list of US states and Canadian provinces.No human case has ever been confirmed, but the CDC advises hunters in affected areas to have the animal tested and not to eat meat from one that tests positive, and the WHO position is to keep any known prion-diseased animal out of the food chain.
• Prions are not a cooking problem, which is what makes this different from every other game-meat warning.Roasting, freezing, smoking, curing and dehydrating all leave them intact, so the safety habits people carry over from pork or bear do nothing here. The test result is the decision, not the internal temperature.
• Farmed elk and hunted elk are two different supply chains.Restaurant and retail elk comes from farms enrolled in herd certification and surveillance programmes; an animal you shot yourself is outside all of that unless you submit the head for testing.
• Elk is mammalian meat, so alpha-gal syndrome includes it, with the usual delay of a few hours between the meal and the reaction.
• Rifle-shot elk carries the same bullet fragmentation issue as wild venison, with fine lead particles landing well beyond the wound channel.Non-lead ammunition or farmed elk removes it.
• Elk velvet antler capsules are a joint supplement, not this food.If you take them, log them as their own entry rather than under elk.
• Oxalate is unrated rather than graded low here, so do not read the clean chart as an oxalate clearance.