Throw Another Roo On The Barbie?
By Loren on Oct 29, 2008 in Uncategorized
As an environmentalist, I’ve struggled with being a meat eater. Like most Americans, my mouth waters at the thought of a grilled steak. I can’t get enough sushi and I find it hard to walk away from lamb chops, carnitas, grilled salmon, baked ham, and my daughter’s incredible Mediterranean chicken recipe. If it moos, oinks, bleats or swims, I’ll have some please.
I justify it with the simple understanding that humans are omnivores. We’ve always consumed flesh and are built for it. Even our teeth are designed for a diet which includes meat. Still there are many issues which trouble me, including the environmental sustainability of cattle ranching, sheep ranching, pig farms and commercial fishing. The way we raise our meat uses far too much water, fossil fuel, and grain which could be better used to feed humans directly. Our livestock are major contributors of green house gasses too. Their hooves tear up native land, and huge amounts of herbicides are used on pasture land to eliminate plants which compete with preferred grazing vegetation.
Our ancestors, at the urging of the US government, killed off the bison herds and plowed up millions of acres of native sod which fed the huge native herds. We replaced the bison with cattle and sheep which needed fences and supplemental feed. In hindsight that was not very smart. With that in mind I found a movement underway in Australia very interesting.
Just as Native Americans and early settlers ate bison meat, earlier generations of Australians survived on kangaroo meat as a primary source of protein. There is a campaign underway to greatly reduce cattle and sheep ranches in Australia and go back to eating kangaroos. There is sound reasoning behind the plan. Cattle and sheep ranching have directly led to the extinction of 20 or more native Australian mammal species. Kangaroos are able to thrive on native plants, they have soft feet which don’t damage the land, their grazing actually improves the land, and because their system uses acetate to digest food they don’t produce methane (a greenhouse gas). If cattle and sheep numbers were reduced to 10% of their current numbers, kangaroos would increase quickly to completely replace the beef and mutton in about 10 years.
One other plus is that kangaroo meat is lower in fat.
Now there are certainly negatives too. Not everyone likes kangaroo meat, and it is a symbol of all things Australian. It could sorta be like us eating Bald Eagles.
I know this may sound goofy to some of you, but it’s the kind of changes which may get more serious consideration as we look to change practices which are not sustainable for the long run.
How about you? What do you think of the scheme and do you have your own ideas which may work here in the US to help us address the long term degradation to the environment modern living has caused?
Thanks for tuning in, logging on and speaking up.
Greetings Loren:
Twice I have wanted to share some information with you. However, I have never written to a TV station, so bear with me.
Information #1
Last night, or the night before you referred to a building downtown that resembles (something-I can not remember what). Really, really local San Diegans know this building as the Champaign Building. If you view this building, on a boat, at sunset, you will see it light up like a Champaign glass.
Information #2
A story ran about old signs posted in San Diego about a place that sells old San Diego City Signs. There was one sign that no one at the news station understood. NO ICE SLIDING.
These signs were posted in Presido Park. At the bottom of the park there was a store (liquor store). At a machine out front, patrons could buy a 1 foot cubed block of ice for 25 cents each. We (locals) would buy are block of ice, it rolled down the chute where we caught it in a towel. Then we would push the ice up the hill, get on it any way we could and ride to the bottom. Hence the sign NO ICE SLIDING.
Thanks Loren
glenda gwin (chichi)
[Reply to this comment]
In response, on November 3, 2008, Gina said:
I remember ice sliding!! I also remember the cops showing up to stop us. Hehehe, good times.
glenda gwin | Oct 29, 2008
In one word, tofu!
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In response, on October 29, 2008, Bryce said:
Tofu and roo that would be good. with a shiitake mushroom on the side in a brown sauce.
yummy I’m running to Henry’s now.
Kerri Giard | Oct 29, 2008
Loren,
Roo is actually really good and comparative in experience as beef. I had some while in Australia on military training exercise and let me tell you I would include roo burgers on my ‘bahbie. Also, by the way ‘roo hide has many “soft” leather applications; it is thin but very soft.
Another wonderful thing about ‘roos too, they strive well in a climate like that we have in the south from Texas to San Diego.
I should by stock and some land now, it’ll be the next craze.
[Reply to this comment]
Bryce | Oct 29, 2008
I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to live in Australia in the mid to late 80’s. During this time we would frequently “go bush” and kangaroo meat was a diet staple. I found the meat to be similar to wild goat, in that it was a bit sweet, low on fat, and tasted great BBQ’d or stir-fried. The difficult part was getting around looking at the face, especially the eyes, kangaroos have exceptionally long eyelashes. I think part of the challenge today would be in the processing and food handling restrictions. As we were able to process our own meat, we typically let the meat hang (not refrigerated) for several days, prior to cooking and eating. For anyone that has never eaten “fresh” meat, the taste is entirely different from meat that you purchase at the store. The flavor of free range or wild meat is completely different. I would be interested in knowing if the kangaroo meat would lose its flavor and appeal if it became a processed meat. Just a thought…
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S Brown | Oct 30, 2008
For ecological reasons I have become a “borderline vegetarian.” I do not eat meat unless it is served to me by others. In those cases I eat it and don’t make a fuss. As Loren points out, eating lower on the energy pyramid reduces our ecological footprint, helps ameliorate our water problem, reduces green house gas emissions, helps make room for other creatures on this shrinking earth, and conserves resources for subsequent generations.
This is a good example of the self-control and self-limitation that is required of all of us in order to address the ecological problems we face. We either do it voluntarily or continue our self-indulgence until either the government or nature impose those limits upon us (or our children or grandchildren). The choice is ours.
This is obviously the right thing to do in this situation. So if we know it’s right, we should all do it. Right?
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John Mustol | Nov 3, 2008
Well then to bring more kangaroo meat in, means they would have to start farming them. So in the long run wouldn’t they be back to the same problem as they currently have? I am sure the Aborigines (sp?) ate kangaroo meat. But the population was of course lower then it is now. I think that the positive change would only last for so long.
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Gina | Nov 3, 2008
Given the American appetite for meat, wouldn’t all the disadvantages of industrial livestock production attend any shift to a different animal? Isn’t it likely that agents such as antibodies and dietary supplements particular to livestock would still be used? And while we’re on that subject, and as far as greenhouse gasses are concerned, perhaps something similar to Beano might reduce the flatulence of cows and sheep.
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David L. Caster | Nov 3, 2008
Just a couple notes to clarify. The Australians considering this unique idea believe kangaroo herds would replace cattle and sheep in numbers within 10 years of removing the competing cattle and sheep ranches. Currently kangaroos are culled to make more room and less competition for cattle and sheep.
I am not suggesting Kangaroos for the American dinner table. The value of the idea is for Australia where the kangaroos are native and well suited. Importing them here would only serve to replace one exotic species with another.
My reason for raising the issue is to show how creative thinking is called for in addressing climate change and other environmental degradation issues. If a native animal well suited to its habitat can provide the protein a nation needs and do so with less of a footprint then it should be considered as part of the wider solution.
[Reply to this comment]
In response, on November 6, 2008, David L. Caster said:
The unwise destruction by man of the North American bison herds and their habitat for the purposes of introducing a non-native species disrupted the natural environment in a way that is now unlikely to be reversed. Though they might be interesting to contemplate as part of addressing the problem, attempts at restoration may themselves bring negative consequences we had not anticipated. Even if it is unlikely that much large-scale reversal of man’s affects on Nature will happen, it would be nice to know if at some point we stopped doing more harm. This has been hard in the past and continues to be so, not just because we refuse to relinquish control of our environment, transforming it as if entitled by some authority to do so, but often because we do it without explicit awareness. We have become unable to perceive our own belief that we own Nature which is here to serve our purposes alone. Much evidence suggests this is not a sustainable paradigm.
There is a larger perspective to be gained by examining the patterns of such unwise choices. If we could recognize them before harmful changes are made in the complex systems of nature, we might be able to, on average, undo or at least mitigate the effects of past bad decisions. Unfortunately, figure and ground distinctions are blurred in this domain: we’re mentally distinct from our surroundings and simultaneously embedded in them, which tends to confound objective reasoning about the affects we have upon our environment. We’ve gone native in a way anthropologists shouldn’t, and we can’t see ourselves objectively enough to perceive the affect we have upon what we observe. To clear our minds enough to see patterns of unwise environmental behavior requires a reappraisal of our mistaken belief that we can separate ourselves from Nature.
It will take careful study and research to develop a plan for moving to a more sustainable relationship with our environment. Fortunately, Nature gives us a small beacon we can almost always track: how much energy must you consume to do any unit of survival work. That does not mean we must forsake electric light or warmth in the winter, but it does mean that we should look for the most naturally occurring sources of energy we can find. The sun, wind, wave-action, and water falling under the influence of gravity, are all natural, and you don’t have to burn anything to get the actual energy from them. Analogous arguments apply to feeding ourselves, and grazing low on the food chain is almost certainly more economical from a foodstuff energy perspective.
We’re not machines, we don’t run on electricity, fossil fuels like oil and gas, or even switchgrass. We do eat plants and other animals, joining thousands of different species in that tradition, and as much as we would like to continue the convenient fiction that we are not animals, one can easily disabuse themselves of that belief by trying to eat coal, oil, or even money.
We are a young species, we’re still learning, and in spite of how much more we think of ourselves than the rest of the plants and animals on this planet, their health and abundance cannot be separated from our own.
loren nancarrow | Nov 4, 2008
Wow. Well put and you’ll get no argument from me.
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loren nancarrow | Nov 6, 2008
While the kangaroo may possibly be lower in fat, I’m against creating an exotic meat sensation. What’s next? A run on crocodile filets? Komodo dragon? Penguin? Why not bring back shark fin soup?
I see this as sort of a slippery slope — if one exotic animal is tasty, might there be others?
What if someone declared polar bears to be low in fat and high in some crazy protein/calcium combination? Would that make it suddenly okay to help wipe out a species?
I suggest, instead, that we focus on well-established livestock and choose healthier cuts of meat if that’s of true importance to us, not in creating a “new market” for exotic meats that could lead to exploiting precious populations of animals that fit that niche.
I encourage you, Loren, to contact Pat O’Brien, president of Wildlife Protection Assn of Australia. Not only can he provide you with more information on the kangaroo, he can also help you understand what measures have been taken by the Australian gov’t to eradicate roos (dangerous 1080 poisons and inhumane culls). As well, I think you’d learn quite a bit about how some of the so-called sustainable farms treat their animals.
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Joan Hunt | Dec 10, 2008