Reports documenting how lunch meat is made have ruined the cold cut buffet culture at strip clubs. Videos showing how Gummy Bears are made transformed an adorable candy into a tiny bear shaped sack full of crushed animal skin and bones. And now the shredded raccoon carcass caked on the side of the highway, which serves as a great low carb snack on road trips, may have a similarly perverse origin.

Raccoon meat is known by most as the filet mignon of vermin. A tender, delicate meat, best enjoyed fur-on, medium rare with a glass of earthy Sutter Home. Which is why the yearning for that old familiar taste is so consuming as you pass the crumbling corpse on the side of the road.

What most people don’t realize is that the tire treads and collapsed skull, assumed by many to signify a peaceful passing by natural causes, are anything but. In over 50% of cases these can signify contact with a moving vehicle, which can contain bacteria that most humans are intolerant to! Can anyone say upset tummy?!

And that sweet taste of highway medium raccoon flesh, almost bordering on acrid, that lures you back time and time again like a sirens song is actually the meat spoiling further between every chew. If you catch it even a day too late, it can cause severe nausea! Yuck! Who would have thought?

Knowing that the raccoon filet swarming with flies in the hot sun could have possibly been struck by a car AND might be rotting is a total bummer…but NOW YOU KNOW!