Mary Kekatos of the Daily Mail reports a New York man died after he developed a rare and fatal brain disorder from eating squirrel brains.

In a case report, researchers said the 61-year-old was brought to Rochester Regional Health in 2015 saying he was having trouble thinking, he was losing touch with reality and he couldn’t walk.

(Sounds like me, but I don’t eat squirrel brains; I got a whole other basket of dementia in my future).

Doctors discovered he developed a degenerative disease caused by the same infectious proteins that also result in the more infamous ‘mad cow disease’.

However, it wasn’t contaminated beef that caused this man’s death. His family told doctors he enjoyed hunting and had recently eaten squirrel brains – although it’s unclear if he ate the whole brain or squirrel meat contaminated with parts of the brain. 

The findings of the report were presented on October 4 at IDWeek, an annual meeting of infectious diseases professionals, reported Live Science.

Lead author Dr Tara Chen, a medical resident at Rochester Regional Health, told the website she discovered the case while doing a report on cases of the disease seen at her hospital during a five-year period. 

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is a rare, degenerative brain disorder that is caused by coming into contact with tissue that has been infected, such as eating contaminated meat.

Amy says squirrel tastes like chicken — if you add ketchup.

Fortunately, she wasn’t into the whole squirrel-brain culture thing.