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| Bill Kinney Photography |
Have you ever heard someone tell you they don't eat their deer because they don't like the taste of deer meat? Are you one of those people? Frequently, people say that they tried it once and didn't like it and that it wasn't worth eating. This isn't always a bad thing...sometimes they offer to give you their deer when they don't want it...free deer meat? Yes! But everyone should know how good deer meat is! So we think you should know, bad tasting meat comes from how you hunt.
What makes deer meat so distasteful?
Deer, like other livestock, have nice juicy red meat and can be prepared so well you wouldn't know the difference between your deer steak and your normal one. The problem is that the meat can get tough making for a chewy, not so yummy, venison steak. What causes this?
Tough, chewy meat happens when a deer has a lot of adrenaline pumping through his veins when he is killed. Adrenaline will cause the blood flow to increase throughout the body especially amassing in the muscles so as to sustain the deer and give it more energy. That's why when butchering a goat in the olden days they would always drain the blood, or why your steak is so juicy, because it came off fat, lazy, grazing cattle.
Hunting to Avoid Bad Meat
If you have bad tasting meat you may want to change the way you hunt. Running deer will give you some of the chewiest meat ever. If a deer is being ambushed or run by dogs its going to be scared, and with its blood pumping it can run for hours before you actually get it. The best tasting deer is going to be the one who just woke up from a nap.
Have you sworn off venison because it is too tough?
Try using some of our recipes and let us know if that steak isn't just a little bit tastier!