Editorial: Clingwrap folk quick to criticise

Wairoa Police officer Johnny Yuile found himself on the wrong end of a public towelling this week.

The proud father shared photos of his young daughter after she shot her first deer and was subsequently labelled "sadistic" for allowing her to taste the animal's raw heart.

His Facebook post said: "I'm a proud Dad ... check out my little pink ninja princess with her first deer, a young stag". Many were offended, one writing in response "I thought this post was choice until the 'warm quivering heart' bit."

When, and why, did offal fall so far from favour?

Old-school butchers called it "the fifth quarter" - which encompassed all non-skeletal meats.

Because undoubtedly, if a magnificent animal is to be felled, we owe it to the beast to utilise as much of the frame as possible. To shoot a stag and take only the back loins is surely a cause clbre of higher merit.

What the outpouring of sentimentality underscored this week was just how far we've come from our hunter gatherer origins. Or specifically, how wide the divide is between those who hunt - and those who prefer others to kill their meat and clingwrap it.

As fate would have it, this happened in the same week that high-profile Italian chef Gianfranco Vissani sparked a mighty clamour when suggesting all vegans should be killed.

He echoed the infamous claims made by celebrated food writer and chef Anthony Bourdain, who, in his New York Times best seller, Kitchen Confidential, wrote: "Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn".

Who'd have imagined, given our predatory species has survived - and thrived - by preying on animals, that one of the most polarising issues in the 21st century is protein.

Eating a still-warm ticker may be a little Paleo for some, including me, but let's not confuse primal diet with primitive parenting. In an age of digital entertainment Mr Yuile should be congratulated for choosing more bucolic pursuits to spend quality time with his children.