Is rabbit meat too lean?

This question is with regard to the looming global food shortage.
If you don't have a lot of land, rabbit seems the best idea, and the food seems to be very easy to grow for them, much easier than grain for chickens.
However, we need protein and fat and rabbit meat seems notoriously low in fat - is that true?

My understanding is that if you are relying on soley rabbit for protein than you would be benefited from also consuming the offal to prevent acute protein poisoning.

In my mind, I would want to have a secondary source of fat/carbs to supplement with if possible.

Rabbit has more protein than chicken and fish.

Rabbit has more fat than chicken and fish.

I eat mostly fish and some chicken so eating rabbit would give me more protein and fat.

My observation from butchering various animals is that deer are leaner than rabbits as a percent of total body weight. I think a lot of folks have and do subsist off of deer meat but I am not sure about the health outcomes. I think the hunter gatherer peoples probably ate a very lean diet and here we are so I suppose it may be fine for most folks.

Here are my opinions and while we have been raising rabbits and eating them for a few years, I only have our experience to share.

The rabbit is very easy to feed without store bough inputs. You can select breeders that have more fat, grow well from what you feed them, breed well, etc. Typically a rabbit litter will display similar characteristics. When you start butchering, you can size up fat content and keep some breeders from that litter if you notice them having a lot of fat.

I have found that the older the rabbit is before you butcher, the more fat they have. 12 weeks verses 16 weeks for example. Of course this may eat into feed efficiency but if you can feed them from your land, it is not much of a concern.

I think at this point I have tried every rabbit butchering and cooking method that I could find. I have found to retain the most fat and use the animal in what I feel is the best way, I have arrived at a permanent method.

I do this: https://permies.com/t/283537/Deboning-Rabbit and save all of the bones for broth. I save all of the fat trimmings, edible organs, and grind it all up with the boneless meat in my grinder. It yields a higher fat content and is very versatile.

From all the figures I've seen, yes rabbit meat is rather lean.



But if you were eating it with other things it could easily be balanced out. Maybe a rabbit pie with a milky sauce. Or simply served with bread and butter, or peanut butter.

Or how about a rabbit 'pie' with a flax-seed based topping, a bit like a cobbler.

Rabbit meat is quite lean, but it's reputation is a bit exagerated due to the unusual cases of "Rabbit Starvation." https://hekint.org/2022/01/26/rabbit-starvation-protein-poisoning/  Basically,  if you're crossing the rocky mountains in the 1850s, run out of food, and try to live only on the rabbits you catch, you're going to starve because they don't have enough fat. However, in the other 99.999% of situations, rabbit meat is a wonderful part of a complete diet.

Sounds like you're fine as long as you eat some beans with your rabbits, no?

Jackson Bradly wrote:

I think the hunter gatherer peoples probably ate a very lean diet and here we are so I suppose it may be fine for most folks.

John Wolfram wrote:

Basically,  if you're crossing the rocky mountains in the 1850s, run out of food, and try to live only on the rabbits you catch, you're going to starve because they don't have enough fat.

Just as humans "are what we eat", so is true of rabbits, deer, chickens etc.

Studies have shown (with all the usual caveats about "studies") that chickens with flax seed as part of their diet, will lay eggs higher in certain important for humans fats. There are certain, "essential fatty acids" needed in the human diet for health.

Hunter and gatherers in my area ate a diet heavy in Salmon which is known for its healthy fat. They also ate many other sea foods which provided healthy proteins and fats. They also made good use of organ meats and bone marrow in animals they hunted.

We have European brown rabbits in our area that fend for themselves, but I also see a lot of more modern domestic rabbits that are much larger and are considered a pest by many. It would be interesting to compare the quality and quantity of fat in the two groups.

I am surprised by Burra's two labels. I would have said that the meat chickens we used to raise were higher in fat than the odd rabbit we ate, but soooo... much depends upon the animals breeding and diet, that comparing different countries and even different animals could be tricky. Sometimes the results of archeologists who discover diet-related information (which is getting easier with modern tech) have been surprising and very time/location specific. Relying on stored nuts for late winter calories, wasn't just a squirrel thing!

So it depends on whether the rabbit fat is being compared with chicken without skin or with skin.

Most rabbit meat is skinless.

As Jay said, it depends ...

I'm not a great fan of rabbit meat.  I find it needs bacon.

Which on a farm is a good match.  Rabbits eat a limited diet.  5hey make poor garbage disposal (kitchen scraps). For that, chickens and pigs excell.

If i had to choose one animal, chickens because of eggs and meat.  Rabbits make a nice secondary animal for my style of farming and diet.

Yes

Should lean rabbit be balanced with chubby woodchuck? I was told woodchuck is delicious by someone I trust.

Brian Cady wrote:Should lean rabbit be balanced with chubby woodchuck? I was told woodchuck is delicious by someone I trust.

Woodchuck/ groundhog is, in my experience, actually pretty tasty.

Studies have shown (with all the usual caveats about "studies") that chickens with flax seed as part of their diet, will lay eggs higher in certain important for humans fats. There are certain, "essential fatty acids" needed in the human diet for health.

OK this is interesting. I guess I can grow flax seed, I've never done it though and I don't know what the birds would say (I mean the always eager wild ones).

Rabbit is the only smaller animal that can be grown on vegetables clover and grass, no input of the feed store needed. We are in USDA zone 10 a and can grow something year round.