Venison (sort of)

[lbosmer]

Ok, so I really don't know where to post this but I figured this was the best place. My husband is a hunter and this past deer season he was able to harvest 2 does for the meat. Having just started my first W30 Jan 1st I was very excited about the idea of having 100% Organic South Alabama deer meat in our freezer. The deer was processed and we ended up with the "filet" portion of the meat and the rest was ground into hamburger. We ended up with a TON of hamburger meat. So I have been using it (and actually liking it) in most of our meals that call for ground beef. However, since then, I found out that the processor ADDS cow fat to the hamburger meat! What!? (I'm sure it's not grass fed...I haven't asked but I'm 100% sure it's not) (Since then my husband asked the processor why they did this, and basically the reason is because deer is already so lean the can't get the meat to stick together when the grind it into hamburger because it has no fat in it) I am so sad about this. The fat content of the ground beef is still very low. I'd probabaly call it a 93/7 If I bought it from the store. But do you think I need to not use it? I have been really picky about my meats (apparently not picky enough) Thoughts please...I'd really hate to let all that meat go to waste.

[Emily]

That is one of the bummers of having your meat processed somewhere. In the future, you can consider getting fat from grass fed beef and giving it to your processor (this is fairly difficult and I have not had luck getting this entire process to work). We have begun processing our own meat, but that takes a lot of time.

In my opinion, to honor the life of the deer, I would still eat the venison. You are likely getting corn-fed fat, so high Omega-6s and possible antibiotics, etc. Perhaps you can dilute this by eating grass-fed beef some nights?

Sorry I'm not too helpful... I hear your concerns!

[lbosmer]

I actually thought about taking in my own fat (However I have no idea where I would get it from) and would also chuckle to think of what they would say when I brought it in...So I am gathering from your response that processing your own deer is pretty labor intensive?

[Sharon Simpson Thumann]

I wouldn't sweat it too much honestly. Just thoroughly drain your ground meat after cooking. I bet it is delicious! Yes, processing can be labor intensive but worth it. My Dad always processed his own deer.

If I can only afford conventional ground beef, I rinse in warm water after cooking them toss back into the pan with some ghee or coconut oil.

[Tom Denham]

Definitely eat the venison. A small amount of conventional fat does not erase the good of all that wild meat.

[1Maryann]

My venison came from deer bagged on cattle ranch property. Since there is little to no pasturage here on the edge of the Everglades, most likely the deer are corn-fed, too. Some things you just don't have control over. At least they aren't subjected to all the hormones and antibiotics that conventional cattle are.

[Emily]

So far, we've gutted the deer in the field, then brought it to our garage to do everything else. Everything else usually takes us 4-6 hours the first day (or night) while we cut it into quarters... we age the quarters just a little bit (3-5 days) then cut steaks and stew meat off them (we don't own a meat grinder... yet). I'd say it take another 8 hours total to get all the meat into "packaged" (freezer paper) cuts.

So for us, probably about 14 hours total.

We are by no means experts though... over the last two years we've done two deer and one elk. I'm sure as we get better it will be faster.

I do get a huge satisfaction from eating "our deer." The best meals are the ones with "our deer" and "our green beans" (we canned green beans last year).