Want to know what nutrients are in your foods, meals, or menus?

Kwe,

September is a busy time for me. This is a time of harvest, canning and preserving jellies and bounties from the year's gardening, while the hunting season and fishing runs begin. And let me tell you, I had my first taste of tenderloin moose steaks yesterday and "oooohhhhhhhhh" gawd I missed the taste of wild game. There is nothing like the taste of the wild. Honestly it doesn't just taste better, its also healthier! This is not just my personal opinion but a scientific fact.

There is a web tool on a website I use once in a while its called nutritional data.com . On this site, there are several useful tools for someone who likes to keep track of what they consume and the nutritional information on not just your foods but your entire menu and recipes. They have so many foods in their database, including wild game such as moose. I experimented with a few recipes a while back, I took two exact recipes with only one difference, recipe 1 was made with 100% beef and recipe 2 was made with 100% moose. Once I was done computing these recipes into their database, I had the option to print out a nutritional label that looks like the labels posted on the sides of almost every food product we ever buy which basically tells us the per cent age of all the minerals and vitamins are in the product. So I did this and compared the nutritional values side by side. I was impressed with the health benefits of wild game in comparison with the beef, the moose is leaner, which is why it usually requires a bit of more tenderizing or marinating but it also contains less fat, the fat in the moose also contains more omega fatty acids which are a healthier alternative to the fat in beef. I think I will take a recipe and show you what I mean sometime so you will understand what I am talking about, I can not verbalize it as well as I can just show you.

The more I understand diet and nutritional values, the more awed and inspired I become of our ancestors who had an incredible lifestyle, diet and ways of life that we can not compare with today. We do the best we can with what we have though and many times these cuisines are spectacular. I love to cook and trying new foods.

Speaking of trying new recipes, I will be preserving and I will keep you posted and let you know how these canning projects come along. I have no recipes to share today but I am working on them. I justed wanted to give you a bit of an update and let you know there are more stories and recipes to come in the near future, including stories from Mi'kmaw role models. So stay tuned.

Take care
Eva