Clarence Hagmeier

Don't turn yer nose up at roadkill, either. I've pushed some limits, and I'm still here typing this. How hungry I am certainly influences how adventurous I am.

Nothing on a deer, goat, chicken, rabbit, raccoon, possum... is poison, with the possible exception of the gall bladder. I've never known anybody to try one, and can't imagine anybody wanting to.
Otherwise, what you can eat from a deer is entirely depend on where you stand on the adventuresome/squeamish scale, and how hungry for organic free range protein you are.

If the animal's large enough, I like to get the liver frying with onions as soon as I get it out, so when the jobs done we get a reward. Brains make a good meal. Tongue is great. There' a lot of good muscle on the jaws. Out of respect, I feel like I should eat the eyes. I boil them in a soup, and try to offer them around. They're not bad, but I'm glad there are only 2 to a deer.
I go through all the organs before I start on the carcass. If you have a place you can hang the carcass, it's all to the good, because the carcass needs a few days to hang to get tender.
I eat heart, liver, spleen, pancreas, testicles. I've eaten tripe, but I haven't made it myself. I tried lungs, once. I didn't like it much, but then, there's so much meat to deal with then if you don't have refrigeration that it didn't seem much of a loss. Especially with dogs and chickens and cats who deserve a share of my good fortune.
I've never tried to use the large intestine.
If I'm out in the woods, I feel good about leaving the guts and the lungs out there, for the scavengers and distribute the nutrients to the trees.

If you've ever eaten a hotdog, you eaten all those body parts and more. And almost certainly by a non-organic, non-freerange animal

First, you have to decide what you mean by "healthy". If you have meadow full of exotic grasses, grazed by an exotic ruminant and some exotic fowl in a way that makes the
land more fertile, is that a healthy ecosystem? I'd say yes. Is it a tree farm, a second or third growth forest, scheduled to be cut again at some point in the future? Is it old growth,
never been logged? You have to look at the history, to see trends.
The health of the top predator seems like a good, quick rule of thumb.
Another line of questions you could ask is, is every niche filled? (Preferably by native species, if possible.) What niches are threatened, and how important are they to the rest of the
system.

I stress knowing the history. The parable of the cattle, who eat their preferred grass to extinction, and so they simply switch to their second favorite. The first post-extinction generation,
having never tasted that wonderful stuff, think they live in a perfect world. Everywhere they go, there's something to eat.
My point is, we humans are like those cattle. An example from NorCal: We have rivers here that 2 or 3 hundred spawners in a run is a good year. Just a hundred years ago, a
large family might have taken that many home to keep them through the winter. We don't depend on salmon any more. We've found other stuff to eat. And when those run out, we'll
find something a little less palatable, and the next generation will never know the difference.

Maybe this isn't the best forum for this reply, but it fits in with the thread.
I met a guy in the High Sierras (Lake Tahoe area) who was planning to spend the winter up there with a shelter of two tarps. He'd done it before.
I thought, "Man, that cat is hard core." Wish I'd been old and wise enough to push him to the limits of his patience answering questions.
Years later, I found myself in a cabin on the California Salmon River, about 3,000 feet. The only heat sources were the propane cook stove and
a couple of propane lights. Their contribution was unnoticeable.
Keeping your core temperature up is the the key. And insulation's how to do it. And activity.
At night, when the activity level goes down, it's nice to have the propane stove, because you can boil water for hot drinks, which gets the heat right
down to the center of your core, and you can fill something with hot water to put under your blankets and keep you warm all night.
I tried hot water bottles, but the seals turned out to be untrustworthy. Dealing with a wet mattress when temps don't get out of the 20s becomes a lifestyle.
What really worked was gallon maple syrup containers. I could boil water on the stove and fill that baby, wrap it in a few towels, and it would still be warm in
the morning. And I would be warm enough to go from the covers to the daytime costume (which had been part of the cocoon) with a minimum of self pity.