Friday, January 23, 2009

No Surprise. Venison is GOOD for you!



I was inspired by FringeGirl's blog to post this today! If you haven't already, be sure to read of FringeMan's success!

I originally found this out when I was looking for some nutritional information about venison for my daughter, who was at the time on Weight Watchers. Thought I would share a little of what I found.

First of all, a lot of the information about venison doesn't seem to agree precisely, although all the news is "good." I think the slight differences in nutritional info is partly because the name "venison" can encompass a wide range of different deer-like animals. And farm raised venison is obviously not going to be as good for you as the venison that you and I are most accustomed to, namely wild whitetail deer meat. Also, it would have to vary somewhat by how you process the meat, how much fat and muscle lining you trim off, etc. So take these "facts" with a grain of salt, but here's some general guidelines.


OK, let's talk nutrients. One 3-ounce serving of venison has approximately:

130 calories
26 grams protein
2 grams of fat
67 milligrams cholesterol
0.9 grams saturated fat
3.5 milligrams iron
26 milligrams magnesium
338 milligrams potassium
3 milligrams zinc
11 micrograms selenium
0.24 milligrams thiamin
0.4 milligrams riboflavin
9 milligrams niacin
0.6 milligrams vitamin B6
1.6 micrograms vitamin B12
1.2 micrograms vitamin K

Source


Venison has fewer fat grams, less calories and more protein than chicken (yes, that's right, I said chicken), beef, veal, lamb or pork. In fact, it has about 1/3 the fat of beef. WOW!

Oh... and regarding Weight Watchers... the nutritional numbers in venison calculate to one weight watcher point per ounce. So you can have a very generous portion for not a lot of points. Good for most diets.

This blog has been a public service announcement! ;-)

It's so great that something this tasty is so good for you! Pass the A-1!




5 comments:

Beth@playinwiththepaulsens! said...

wow! cool! thanks!

Anonymous said...

I had NO idea FringeMan was right. Only 1 point per ounce on weight watchers? Now that's living!

Thank you for this public service announcement!

I'm going back to add a link to my post and I'll add it to the chili recipe also.
-FringeGirl

Tracy said...

As I type this my sweet husband is in the kitchen cutting up some deer meat. I'm not one that has been a big eater of deer meat BUT with high prices at the grocery store deer is looking pretty good, haha!

Cindy said...

just found your site via Mindy's!! Nice job on her flooring you're doing, btw...i think that deserves a few beers. hehe

venison, i didn't realize it was that much more nutritional than the other meats........but i love it more than those other meats! we usually freeze / can at least 2 deer a year (from the wild of michigan)....mmmmm mmmm good!

now i'm going on to read the rest of your blog.............

The Texas Woman said...

Buffalo is better. Leaner too, if I recall correctly!

The Texas Woman