Month: June 2015

We will be kicking off the game season soon – add your details for updates of when out wild game meats become available

Get primal – eat wild meat.

One of the easiest ways to touch base with a perfectly primal and paleo meat lifestyle is to go wild.  Wild game lives a natural life, grazing exactly what it needs to thrive and survive from the land, which means we get to eat the most natural, additive free meat possible.  There is yet more plus value; carefully managed wild game meat is a sustainable and welfare friendly food source and has positive effects on the ecology of our natural landscape.  It’s the nearest thing to primal you can get and what’s more, these days it’s easy – you don’t even have to do the hunting yourself!

Why going wild and primal is good for you

Wild game is a great source of lean protein; its wild diet means that it has a low saturated, and potentially inflammatory omega-6, fat content.  Game also has a higher content of the more beneficial Omega-3 fatty acid compared to grain fed meats. It is rich in iron and other healthful nutrients and of course, and very importantly – it tastes delicious.

Wild game is ideal for those following a paleo approach to eating.

Modern-day paleo hunting

These days, it’s generally impractical to let your primal side take over and to head out hunting game in the local woods.  So, we leave it to the game keepers. All the wild game sold at Primal Meats is hunted and shot in the North Lancashire and Cumbrian regions and is from well managed estates.  So much easier to just have it delivered to the door!

The game section of the website covers game defined by the Game Act 1831: Red and Roe venison plus other animals and fowl that can be legally hunted in the UK. Our game is taken from sustainable stocks of wild animals which is killed in its own environment. This is considered to be a very humane slaughter technique, as it limits the stress of travelling and handling – something which would be even more stressful than for their domestic counterparts – and the animals themselves have little or no idea that death is imminent.

Wild game is often a product of land managed for conservation.  This retaining of natural balance is something our paleo ancestors would have inherently understood; a natural landscape provides an abundance of food.   Today, apart from the obvious positive effect on our landscape and environment, conservation has significant carbon sequestration benefits, sequestration being the process whereby harmful atmospheric carbon is ‘locked up’ in the soil, plants and trees. More about that later.

Count me in, I want to go primal.  What can I eat?

In the UK game is defined in law by the game Act 1831. It is illegal to shoot game on Sundays or at night. Other (non-game birds) that are hunted for food in the UK are specified under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. UK law defines game as including:

Black grouse (No longer hunted due to decline in numbers), Red grouse, Brown hare, Ptarmigan, Grey partridge and red-legged partridge, Common pheasant.

Deer are not included in the definition, but similar controls provided to those in the game Act apply to deer (from the Deer Act 1991). Deer hunted in the UK are:

Red deer, Roe deer, Fallow deer, Sika deer, Muntjac deer, Chinese water deer, and hybrids of these deer

Other animals which are hunted in the UK include:

duck, including Mallard, Tufted duck, Teal, Pintail and Pochard

Goose, including Greylag Goose, Canada Goose, Pink-footed Goose and in England and Wales White-fronted Goose, Woodpigeon, Woodcock, Snipe, Rabbit, Golden Plover.

Capercaillie are not currently hunted in the UK because of a recent decline in numbers and conservation projects towards their recovery. The ban is generally considered voluntary on private lands, and few birds live away from RSPB or Forestry Commission land anyway.

Wild game can only be shot in certain seasons. These seasons dictate when fresh wild game meat will be available. Please see the dates below.

In the primal kitchen

Our paleo hunter-gatherers (aka gamekeepers) have provided you with your wild game – now what to do with it?  Way back when, the only cooking medium was the open fire.  Today, we have all sorts of methods of cooking game but generally the rule ‘slow and steady’ is the one to live by.

Wild game is generally very rich in colour and flavour and may be a little tougher than meat from domestic animals, depending on the age of the animal and how natural its life has been. To counteract the toughness, it’s ‘hung’ after shooting to help tenderise the meat and encourage the development of ‘gamey’ flavours. The longer meat is hung the more pronounced the flavour will become, but in general hanging periods usually range from two to 12 days.

Just as a rather gruesome aside, in earlier times birds would be hung by their heads until the body fell off, at which point they would have been deemed ready for cooking. This method is probably a little too strong for most people today but some form of hanging usually improves tenderness and flavour.

There are lots of ways to cook game and you’ll find plenty of paleo and primal recipes to try. In general, game is naturally very lean and therefore may dry out quickly; if you are cooking a prime cut such as a loin of venison or breast of game bird, you can avoid this dryness by cooking it lightly and enjoying it ‘pink’. Alternatively, these cuts can be wrapped in fatty bacon or add fat to baste the meat during the cooking process.

The parts of the animal that do the most work tend to produce the cuts of meat that need slow cooking. Using rich and fatty sauces and gravies and cooking over a low heat for a long period will really help keep these cuts succulent and delicious.

Health and nutrition the paleo way

Wild game meats have significant health benefits when compared to most conventionally farm reared animal meats. It’s suggested that a number of modern diet based illnesses would have been unknown to our primal ancestors because they were eating their food the way it was meant to be – natural.

Wild game lives on a primarily natural diet and forages in a way that suits the animal’s natural behaviour. The food it finds will be right for the animal’s genetic make-up and therefore will be digested well and will give the animal the nutrients it needs to be healthy. Animals that eat green foods in the wild will have meat that is higher in anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids. In addition it is generally found that the meat contains higher levels of many beneficial nutrients including vitamin E, Beta Carotene, Zinc and Iron.

For an insight into game Hunting and what it involves have a look at these videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkXw2wQV4b4&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJvvruDiQMs

Sustainability and ecology

Our friendly paleo hunter gatherers have provided wild game for our primal kitchen and we are eating natural meat which is far more beneficial for our heath.  But the news gets better, because the meat produced doesn’t involve intensive farming, is sustainable and our environment benefits enormously.

When game is taken from well managed Estates it is generally the case that they are being hunted from reserves that are either buoyant in numbers or are over populated and require a regular cull to manage the stocks humanely.  When a species becomes overpopulated it has a detrimental effect on both the surrounding eco-system and the health of the animals.

Wild game has a range of habitats, however it usually requires natural cover in woodland and on moorland. When managed well, these types of habitats are home to a wide range of flora and fauna that create biodiversity.  These habitats help the wider environment too as they have a significant beneficial effect on climate change. Plants and trees take harmful CO2 from the atmosphere and lock it down into the soil where it does not contribute to the greenhouse effect.

Peat represents this country’s single largest carbon sink, with more carbon stored in UK peat than in the forests of Britain and France combined. This type of habitat, particularly large moorland estates, can be very expensive to manage and maintain. An essential part of the income for managing this habitat has to come from selling the rights to shoot or in selling the game meat itself. I feel that this environmental benefit outweighs the moral dilemma about hunting, for fun or for management. Unlike some elements of the meat industry, harvesting wild meat involves no chemicals, hormones, abattoirs, animal housing, or land to grow roots or cereals for feeds.

Carbon sequestration

Carbon sequestration is the process of removing carbon from the atmosphere.  Ways of enhancing natural sequestration are needed to reduce the effects of global warming, by decreasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Vegetation is one of the main sources of a carbon sink (or reservoir) and the organic peaty soils of upland heath areas are a significant component of the national carbon stock. As well as forming an important sink – keeping it ‘locked up’ – the uplands must also be carefully managed to avoid damage and adding to carbon emissions.  Evidence is growing to suggest that the historic drainage of the moorlands has resulted in the significant loss of carbon from these systems, contributing to global warming. It has been calculated that UK catchments are losing 11 grams of carbon per square metre a year, a figure predicted to increase over this decade. However, if the loss is stopped or reversed this improvement would satisfy the country’s annual carbon emission undertakings from the Kyoto protocol.

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