Baltimore Ravens rookie guard Ben Cleveland clarified something this week: He doesn’t maintain his 6-foot-6, 357-pound frame with a specific squirrel diet, but if he’s hungry and there’s not much around, he’ll dig some squirrel meat out of the freezer.
While it’s obviously not the most popular animal to eat, people do eat it, and the Toccoa, Georgia native hasn’t been shy about enjoying it, in addition to hunting deer, turkey and other game animals.
In March at Georgia football’s pro day, Cleveland was looking a little more slender than usual and said his “squirrel diet definitely, probably, helped cut a little bit of weight this offseason.”
And then on Friday, the NFL rookie elaborated on what exactly his “squirrel diet” means.
"I don't know if it's a specific squirrel diet, it's more what you have in the freezer." @BenCleveland74 😂 pic.twitter.com/wEutdroRkU
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) May 14, 2021
Cleveland explained:
“I don’t know if it was a specific [squirrel] diet. It’s more so one of those things where you eat what you got in the freezer from the fall. So had a few squirrels freeze-dried in there. So get a little hungry, ain’t got no deer meat left, fry up a squirrel or two and just go eat that.”
So the next big question is, what does squirrel taste like? Cleveland said squirrel with Old Bay could be a nice touch, should any Marylanders be interesting in trying out a dish and added, zia BaltimoreRavens.com:
“It tastes like squirrel. I don’t know how else to explain it to you,” he said on the Ravens’ The Lounge podcast. “Some squirrels in south Georgia, they’ll taste a little bit more nutty. Up here, our acorns and stuff aren’t really as strong as the ones down south. Most of them up here, it just tastes like squirrel. If you put enough seasoning on it, you can make it taste like anything you want it to taste like.”
Hey, whatever works for ya.
