Venison -- Just For The Taste Of It?

[raven]

Hello,

I just thought it’s time to speak of the health aspect of eating venison (and other wild game). I know it may seem boring. And many of you, I’m sure, realize just how healthy venison is. But I for one am getting sick of watching so many healthy-appearing middle aged folks grab their chests and conk over from a heart attack! It just doesn’t need to happen! Venison is such a great meat and these facts beg to be mentioned:

Do you realize that venison is great for your heart? Venison has a super high ratio of Omega-3 fats compared to Omega-6’s (For simplicity sake: Omega-3’s raise your GOOD cholesterol levels, thin your blood and protect your heart, while too much Omega-6’s do the exact opposite -- Omega-6’s also raise your BAD cholesterol levels.) The vast majority of beef and nearly all other domestic meat has lots of Omega-6’s and very little Omega-3!

Venison is 2-3 times lower in saturated fat than is a comparable cut and portion of domestic beef! (And the fat venison does have is laced with heart-healthy Omega-3’s, not Omega-6’s!)

Venison is much lower in toxic residue than is most domestic meat (most domestic sources are given antibiotics and other treatments to keep them healthy. Such toxin biomagnifies -- increases exponentially in intensity and concentration-- in the fat of the meat). While Iowa whitetails would likely only pick up trace amounts, via accidental ingestion from various herbicides and pesticides on grain sources, and far less would bioaccumulate because of the much lower body fat of deer than of cow (99.9% of cattle would also get these trace amounts, since they are grain fed before slaughter).

Of course, venison is also a super source of protein and complex B vitamins. So is beef.

The cholesterol in venison is mostly the good kind (HDL) that thins your blood: in beef it’s mostly the bad kind (LDL) that sticks to artery walls! (More Omega-3’s vs. more Omega-6’s).

Hey, I just wanted to post this because I hear so little about it. I’m not trying to shun beef (though we’ve never purchased any for our freezer) and farmers are some of the greatest hardest working people I know. (And, yes, I eat beef and other domestic meats at restaurants on occasion). I needed to use a popular red-meat for comparison. You can see from this -- or prove to yourself by reading elsewhere -- that venison is such a great meat choice. Why in the world aren’t more hunters bragging up the health issues of hunting and the wild game they eat? I sure enjoy hanging antlers on the wall but I enjoy eating venison and being healthy way more!

I’m no fool, no sir’e, I wanna’ live ‘till I’m a 103. Okay, that’s a little corny, I know -- and now you know that I spend a lot of time playing with my 3.5 year old son (I love it!)

Any thoughts?

Raven

The greatest mistake a man can make is to sacrifice health for any other advantage. Arthur Schopenhauer

 

[Songdog Ranch]

This would also be a great arguement against feeding deer. Wouldn't the feeding of a herd basically turn them into the cow in terms of the fat ratio? I realize they wouldn't immunized and such but a lot of people that feed the deer feed them the same type of grains as are feed cattle.
I wonder if a study has been done on these pen kept deer for canned hunts to see if they have the same health benefits as the wild ones?
I read an article the other day that was comparing venison to chicken and how it was similar in some health aspects and better in others.

 

[hunt-m-up]

I understand where you're headed songdog, but venison isn't marbled like beef so wouldn't you still be trimming fat off? I could see more residue in meat if you fed them a medicated ration or mineral blocks and mineral/fly blocks.

 

[Songdog Ranch]

But in the same respect how many people do you see that put out the mineral blocks made for deer for them to lick? I don't know if these would have the same effect on them as they so cattle but I can't imagine it would be the same nutrition wise since they are basically "hand fed".

As a side note, I fixed a couple deer steaks last night and boy were they good. I dry aged them for 4 days and then marrinated them in Italian dressing over night. I fixed one for myself and one for the wife, figuring my 2 year old daughter would have a hotdog. Well she took one bite of the steak and wanted nothing to do with that hotdog. She ate my entire steak leaving me with nothing. So it was back out to the grill I go with the other 2 steaks I had marrinating. Fixed those 2 and low and behold she ate about a third of one of those!

 

[Songdog Ranch]

I was also going to touch on the fact that doctors have long thought the reason so many women are getting breast cancer at younger ages is because of the meat they eat.
My mother just went though it and in talking with the doctor he said that women are being exposed to all of these hormones that are in the meat. What he said made a lot of sense. He said this is also the reason girls are hitting puberty earlier and earlier. That's reason enough for me to feed my daughter nothing but wild game!

 

[Old Buck]

Songdog Ranch,

I liked the story about your daughter and the hot dog vs deer steak.

A question, you mentioned 'dry aged for 4 days'. What does 'dry age' mean and exactly how do you do it?

Old Buck

 

[Nontypicalhunter]

OldBuck,
This is the closest of what I do to dry age meat that I could find.

" The old method of aging meat is known as dry aging. Dry aging is done by
hanging meat in a controlled, closely watched, refrigerated environment. The
temperature needs to stay between 36oF and freezing. Too warm and the meat
will spoil, too cold and it will freeze, stopping the aging process. You also need a
humidity of about 85% to reduce water loss and to control bacteria and you
need a constant flow of air all around the meat, which means it need to be hanging in a ventilated space."

I've had my best luck with just a regular old fridge (one door for fridge and freezer) and a couple shower curtain hooks. Take out the shelf seperating the two compartments and turn it into a freerator. I use mine to keep my beer cold 33* on the bottom and hang the meat up high 34*. Skewer the meat and hang it on the higher shelves and the humidity stays darn near perfect, as long as the door isn't opened and closed frequently. Just don't use a frostless one, the change in temp will really throw a monkey wrench into it.

This works on any kind of meat, esp. beef and venison.

 

[Shredder]

I have to agree with Raven about the health benefits that venison offers over beef. One thing I think is a little shakey are the amounts of antibiotics in all beef. Sure some will have trace amounts of antibiotics but not near to the effect one would think. One way this falls short and we do see drugs in slaughter animals is when farmers do not follow veterinary and drug label recommendations and ship animals before the required withdrawl time ( the period of time from injection to when the antibiotic has essentially cleared the body average 1-28d) Anyways, just my two cents. Those of you that just have to have beef, one breed that has a lot of the health benefits such as lower cholesterol and fat are Peidmontese, an Italian breed of cattle that is starting to enter the beef markets.

Raven, good to get people in the health concious mode and promote the consumption of venison.