Including venison from the Komi Republic in the food card of Russians will help improve their diet

Reindeer MEAT is rich in essential fatty acids. And although it is generally accepted that fattyfish is an important source of essential fatty acids in the human diet, in fact the levels of some of these substances in reindeer meat are comparable to those found in seafood such as cod, crab, mussels, oysters andshrimp . In addition, 100 grams of reindeer meat contains the recommended daily dose of omega-3 and 6, according to the findings of the author of a well-known work in dietetics, Ammar Eltaeb Ali Hasan, a postgraduate student at the Faculty of HEALTH Sciences at the University of Tromsø.

"Reindeer meat contains more than twice as much vitamin B12 as, say, veal or lamb. Vitamin B12 is essential in the human diet, among other things, to prevent anemia. One of the reasons that reindeer meat is so healthy may be the animal's diet, which consists mainly of lichen in the winter and green plants in the summer. Lichen improves the animal's digestion and is also rich in minerals. As a result, the meat contains large amounts of vitamin B12, selenium, zinc and iron," the author wrote in his paper, posted on the university's website.

In the Komi Republic, work is underway to make reindeer meat more accessible on the Russian market as a healthy food product. Thus, the planned indicator for the number of reindeer has been exceeded - at the beginning of the year, there were about 91 thousand heads of animals in the reindeer herding farms of the republic.

The Komi Republic is one of the largest Russian players in the reindeer herding industry, ranking sixth among 20 subjects of the Russian Federation in this indicator. About 6% of the total Russian reindeer population is concentrated in Komi.

The established target for the number of reindeer by the end of 2023 was exceeded by 101% - agricultural organizations and peasant farms in the republic had 64,668 heads of animals, while 64,360 heads were planned.

According to the results of the calf campaign, 26,921 calves were born in the farms of the Komi Republic, which is 358 heads more than last year.

The number of reindeer in the Komi Republic at the beginning of 2024 is about 91 thousand heads, and in the Russian Federation as a whole - approximately 1 million 632 thousand heads of reindeer.

In Komi, approximately 63 thousand reindeer are kept in agricultural organizations, 3 thousand in peasant (farming) households and by individual entrepreneurs, and 25 thousand in the personal use of reindeer herders.