Venison

Venison is a game meat and comes from deer. In my recent travels to NZ I was surprised by how popular venison was on restaurant menus and that venison farming is a big industry in NZ. We have some venison farming in Australia but nothing like over there.

Venison is generally considered lower in fats and healthier as they were always wild game and able to roam and graze. I am not so certain how farmed deer compares as I would think the meat would become fattier like farmed cows. Although the down side of hunting venison is the potential for lead shavings being in the meat from the bullet – interesting…

Generally though venison has always been high in protein, very lean, high levels of iron and low in cholesterol. Venison has similar amounts of B vitamins to beef but has a much higher level of B12.

As it is a leaner meat, it doesn’t need to be as cooked as long as beef or it will dry out. So eating venison on the rarer side is the better way to eat it.

Some interesting facts:
– Queensland had a record number of people order venison for their Christmas lunch last year than ever before!
– NZ is trialing deer milk and cheese! They are the first ever to milk a deer (commercially) and have found there is more milk per deer, so not as many would need to be milked as cows…. Yet to know the differences in nutritional aspect as this trial only started in January this year!