It’s a rare treat to come across venison, but the last couple years I have scored some from my dad’s November hunting endeavors!  Venison isn’t a favourite by many due to its “gamey” taste, but I have to say that the chops came out tasting brilliant!  I didn’t like a lot of the recipes I found online, so I decided to post this basic recipe.  It is by no means the only way to make these bad boy chops taste good, but it is definately the easiest way I know of!

Ingredients:

• 2 Venison Chops
• 1-2 shallots (depending on size) or about 1/2 regular size onion, diced
• 1-2 tsp coconut oil or ghee
• wine or stock for deglazing pan
• salt & pepper to taste
• Cast Iron Pan (ideally)

Procedure:

1.  Let chops reach room temperature and season with a little salt on both sides

2.  Get cast iron pan nice up to a high temperature.  this is important for a good final product…

3.  Pan-fry chops in a little coconut oil or clarified butter until a nice crust has formed on both sides (about 2-3 minutes a side).  It is important to put in chops when pan is hot.  You will hear a fairly aggressive “sizzle” in the pan, indicating that the temperature is right.  I cover pan with a splatter screen so oil doesn’t get all over the place.

4.  Remove chops from pan and put on plate to let rest for a few minutes.

5.  There should be some fat and flavour remaining in the pan.  While still hot, throw them shallots (or onions) in the pan.  Let cook a bit and then deglaze pan with a little wine or stock… ie pour about 100ml of liquid into hot pan and scape those brown bits off pan with a spatchula.  They will contribute to the flavour of the sauce.

6.  Reduce until sauce reaches desired consistency (normally to about 1/2 original volume) and season with salt and pepper to taste.

7.  Transfer chop(s) to a new plate, cover with pan-sauce, hit it with a side, and you’re off to the races!

I used grilled asparagus as my side, but this is clearly a choice for you to make.

Until Next time,

JN

Unfortunately, like potatoes, white rice is a pretty useless carbohydrate. First, we must consider that it is a refined version of brown rice. The process of milling removes the outer layer of the rice (known as the bran), and turns brown rice into “white rice”. The bran contains most of the vitamins, oils, and fiber from the grain, which is the main reason white rice absorbs faster (as there is less for the body to deal with), causing it to have a higher Glycemic-Index (GI) value than it’s brown counterpart. In most situations, a faster absorbing carbohydrate is NOT better, as foods that have a higher GI value are more likely to cause weight gain, diabetes, hypoglycemia, and a host of other conditions.

In the end, brown rice is much higher quality food than white rice, as it absorbs at a more efficient rate, provides more fiber for proper elimination, and helps keep our blood sugar more stable. Unfortunately, it takes about 3 times as long to cook as white rice (about 40-45 minutes), but keep in mind that you can precook a larger quantity to have on hand for a few days if time is an issue.

Better yet, another grain I recommend is Quinoa (pronounced “Keen-wah”). It has a lower GI value than brown rice, and provides more protein. In addition, it cooks in 12-15 minutes, much in the same fashion as white rice (1.5 to 2 parts water to 1 part grain). Just make sure to rinse the grain in a fine mesh strainer before cooking it as quinoa often has some powdery residue that you want off before you cook it. More information and recipes for quinoa can be found here :

http://www.quinoa.net/

Until next time, stay healthy, and stop telling me to go fu@k myself!

Episode 3
Max-Nutrients delivers the oatmeal goods!

Why? Because potatoes are super dense in high-glycemic carbohydrates. Being high-glycemic means that a carbohydrate is absorbed into the bloodstream at a rapid rate, spiking your blood sugar fast, giving you a quick energy boost, but a subsequent “crash”. In fact, potatoes have been shown to spike your blood sugar faster than white sugar!! This can be useful in certain situations, such as pre-workout and post-workout, but for the most part, these high glycemic foods cause fat storage in the body.

Mechanism of action: If we can’t burn off the carbohydrate load (which typically happens with high carbohydrate, high-glycemic foods), it gets stored as fat. The body can typically deal with moderate carbohydrate loads, but not huge loads, which is why choosing higher quality carbohydrates is probably the best way to shed the excess pounds in the long run.

Recommended Replacement foods:

Sweet potatoes - these bad boys spike your blood sugar only about half as fast as white potatoes do, and they taste badass.

Squash - these little funksters have an extremely low glycemic index rating. My fav’s are the butternut squash, and the spaghetti squash. Both are very easy to cook - you more or less cut them in half, scoop out the seeds (I dry these out on a plate for about 24-36 hours, and hit them with some sea salt for a future snack), and bake them for about an hour at 375F. instructions can be found here

I’ll be hitting ya with 3 more problem foods over the coming weeks.

Episode #2 - BIG POPPA VITAMIN teaches you how to submit your avocado into becoming a healthy and tasty treat! “Karate Chop” by Haard

Episode #1

First, “Whole grain” means that whole grains have been used in the product. This means that the grains in use (generally wheat, and/or rye, spelt, corn, etc.) have not been “processed” or stripped of some of their nutritious components. This is the first step to a good bread.

The second thing I want to recommend is the “squeeze test”. Give the bread a light squeeze to see if it is dense or not. If the bread is dense (ie hard throughout the bread… not stale or a “French stick”), it is probably descent bread. If it is soft… probably not so good. These softer breads tend to have a lot of sugar, yeast, and other crapped-out ingredients. The denser breads generally have less ingredients (often no yeast or sugar), and are much higher in fibre and other nutrients. They also have a lower glycemic index value, and thus contribute less to weight gain than conventional breads.

Hope this helps you on your bread shopping excursions!

So be sure to keep checking up with me, and I’ll be sure to keep dishing out the Hard-rocking Nutritional advice!

Cheers,

JN