Eating kangaroo meat will cut down on green house gas emissions

 

By JANE FRYER - More by this author » Last updated at 00:40am on 22nd October 2007

Lunch: A scientist has declared that eating cuddly kangaroos instead of cows will help reduce greenhouse gases

 

Poor old Skippy — what an utter nightmare.

 

 

One minute, he's bouncing happily through the outback, ears flapping, tail flopping, with not a care in the world.

The next, he's heralded as the latest superfood — delicious, nutritious and fabulously low fat — the natural solution to global warming, and 20.4 million Australians are being urged to "throw a few kanga bangers on the barbie".

Thanks to a special report commissioned by Greenpeace which claims that Aussies can dramatically reduce their carbon footprint by eating less beef and more of the local wildlife, suddenly everyone's terribly over-excited about kangaroos.

Why? It's all because they don't …er, break wind.

Or, to put it rather more scientifically, whereas cows and sheep release vast quantities of methane through belching and flatulence, kangaroos release virtually none.

The report says cutting beef consumption by 20 per cent (and thus the amount of cattle reared) and substituting it with kangaroo steaks, mince, burgers, ribs and so on would reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions by a staggering 15 megatons by 2020.

It's not as mad as it sounds.

On top of their impressive personal hygiene, kangaroos make model livestock.

They need less food than sheep or cattle, are better adapted to drought and are far less damaging to the fragile topsoil than their sharply-hooved bovine counterparts.

And they don't taste bad, either. With a distinctive gamey flavour, very tender, best brushed with oil and cooked rare to medium rare (to stop it becoming dry and chewy), it looks just like prime roast beef.

None of which, of course, is good news for poor Skippy.

He's had a bit of a time of it of late. Since 2002, drought has halved the population to 25 million, and already 10 to 12 per cent of those are killed and harvested each year for their skin and meat — shot with high-powered guns between the eyes at night.

 

 

But while kangaroo has long been considered an occasional exotic delicacy, eating it on an industrial scale instead of beef or lamb is a novel and highly controversial idea.

Granted, Aborigines have been happily tucking into kangaroo for 40,000 years — killing them with spears, pulling out the guts, lopping off the feet and tail, quartering, singeing the hair off on the camp fire and drinking the warm blood and fluids from the thorax while they wait for it to cook — but modern diners have struggled to embrace it.

Even in today's less visceral and more vacuum-packed form.

The "Skippy factor" hasn't helped.

Modern Australians are uncharacteristically sentimental about an animal that has become a national icon and which pops up on the country's coat of arms (opposite an emu) and coins.

They claim it just feels wrong — disrespectful, almost — to be tucking into their national emblem.

The kangaroo industry, meanwhile, is doing its best to toughen them up and overcome their squeamishness and two years ago, amid much fanfare, it launched a five-year "eat roo" campaign.

There were specialist recipe books (invaluable if you fancied a seared kangaroo salad, smoked fillet of kangaroo with brioche and pear chutney, or maybe a nice bowl of kangaroo tail soup).

There were also new products (kangaroo microwave meals, kangaroo kebabs, kangaroo burgers) and a huge drive in supermarkets.

Many now have whole sections dedicated to kangaroo meat — steaks, mince, readymade microwave meals, barbecue packs, kanga-bangers, you name it — nestled between the beef and chicken.

There was even a competition to come up with a new name that wouldn't put diners off their dinner — a sort of equivalent to pork for pig and venison for new deer.

Sadly, not a great success — after 2,700 entries from 41 countries, "australus" was chosen, but was dismissed by restaurateurs as "silly" and "pathetic" and was too similar to a brand of cosmetics (called Australis) to catch on.

Today, kangaroo meat is a £100-million-a-year governmentsanctioned industry — in which a Code Of Practice For The Humane Shooting Of Kangaroos specifies the firearms that can be used in the killing, or "harvesting" of kangaroos.

It also requires that "all animals be head shot" and sets out procedures for the "humane dispatch of any pouch young".

But it needs to be put in context.

Despite all the hard work, Greenpeace and the kangaroo industry have a long slog ahead.

Of the 30 million kilos of kangaroo meat produced each year, Australians eat less than a third — 10 million kilos, as opposed to 70 million of beef — and Australian websites are awash with bloggers who call it "dogfood" or "Aussiehog" and claim they'd "rather eat my mother's pet cat".

We British appear equally reluctant to tuck in.

The occasional restaurants feature it here and there as an exotic novelty, but it is far from a staple.

But the rest of Europe, it seems, are mad for it.

The French eat it in steaks.

The Belgians like a nice bit of fillet.

The Germans are partial to a warming tail soup and the Russians are particularly partial to sausages — so partial that they eat more kangaroo meat than Australia itself.

Kangaroo meat makes up more than half of all Australia's exports to Russia.

But if kangaroo meat, with its myriad benefits, seems almost too good to be true, animal rights campaigners are rather less excited by it all.

They insist that while the Code of Practice says the pouch young, known as "joeys", can be disposed of by being hit on the head with a water pipe or iron bar until dead, they are often ripped out of the pouch and simply left to die.

They insist the killing of kangaroos by hunters with spotlights at night is cruel and that often the shooters don't manage a clean head shot in the dark, so they die in agony.

But are we in Britain missing a trick?

Maybe so.

Kangaroo meat is low in cholesterol and fat — 2 per cent — and high in protein, iron, zinc and conjugated linoleic acid, which reduces blood pressure.

It also keeps for ages, because of its low fat content, and will sound exotic if you're having a dinner party.

It's enough to put a spring in your step — if you can just forget for a moment that you're eating poor Skippy.

Jack in the Box got busted, in the 70's I think, for selling Kangaroo burgers. Has anyone from here ever eaten Kangaroo meat?

everyone in my family has cept me! apparently its tougher than most meats and more lean.

 

 

"Or, to put it rather more scientifically, whereas cows and sheep release vast quantities of methane through belching and flatulence, kangaroos release virtually none. "

well you learn something everyday! judging by faeces, which has no correlation to the amount flatulence they produce (just my own misconception) i thought otherwise.

These global warming folk :confused:

everyone in my family has cept me! apparently its tougher than most meats and more lean.

 

 

"Or, to put it rather more scientifically, whereas cows and sheep release vast quantities of methane through belching and flatulence, kangaroos release virtually none. "

well you learn something everyday! judging by faeces.

 

Do you mean kangapoo??:rolleyes: