Bison Paleo Chili

Bison paleo chili makes a great meal and leftovers are especially delicious.

Many people think chili has to contain beans, but that is simply not true. This bison paleo chili is great any time of year. When I make this bison chili I add more vegetables and leave out the beans.

The paleo diet is constantly in the news and many doctors are advising their patients to give it a try.

Why Paleo For Me?

As someone living with an auto immune condition, I wanted to give paleo a try. The problem was I love vegetables!

I’ve tried being a vegetarian, but I was hungry all the time. For me, changing my regime to eating a more paleo friendly diet has helped me to balance my blood sugars and I find I have less fibromyalgia pain in my body.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I eat a lot of vegetables, mostly greens. If you were to look at my plate you would see that 95 percent of my plate is greens and vegetables and five percent will consist of a healthy, organic meat, poultry or wild fish. Research shows that the more greens you eat the better it is for your heart. So love your heart and eat more leafy greens!

Healthy Heart Diet

I truly believe that each person is different and that it’s important to listen to your bodies messages when it comes to food and how your body responds to foods that you eat. Only you can determine whether you feel better eating a vegan style diet or opting to include some animal protein into your diet. One person can eat meat and it fuels them with energy while others feel heavy and tired after a animal rich meal. My advice if you decide to include animal protein into your diet is that I recommend that you only eat grass fed beef and opt for organic poultry, pork and wild caught fish.

Why Bison?

Bison is a great alternative to regular beef as it is lower in fat and contains much more iron. It is readily available at butcher shops and last year we found a local farmer and purchased bison from him. It was nice to support our local farmer and it was much cheaper.

bison-2

In the cooler months I like to use my slow cooker as it makes meals easy. By simply adding your ingredients into your slow cooker in the morning and turning your cooker on low you have a ready made meal by dinner time. Often times I will prepare the slow cooker the night before, store in the fridge and simply remove and plug in the morning.

Some of the newer slow cooker models even have a timers that you can set to come on when you want them to, and clean up is easy.

If you don’t have a slow cooker check your local big box stores or hardware stores and watch for sales, as they often do go on sale.

slow cooker isolated on white background

Bison Paleo Chili

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 green pepper, diced
1/2 cup diced celery
2 lb ground bison
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 can tomatoes
1 cant tomato sauce
1 tin tomato paste
3 tbsp chili powder
1 bay leaf
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
1 tsp cumin

Directions

Add olive oil to a large saucepan and sauté onion, pepper and celery for a few minutes.
Add in bison and brown meat
Add in remaining ingredients and cook on low for 30 minutes
Remove bay leaf and serve over cooked spaghetti squash