Native cuisine - alternative diet

Over the past two decades there have been various experiments with changing Western culinary habits by introducing additional species to the human cuisine most often being native species as an alternative to the domestic cattle, sheep and farmed birds. In Australia this has included kangaroos, emus and water buffalo. This has met with only mixed success but of these species, kangaroos have offered the most likely option for adoption into diets. A strong incentive for the uptake of kangaroo can be seen with the following data.

Tonnes per head per year (carbon equivalents)

• 0.003 - Kangaroo
• 0.14 - Sheep
• 1.67 - Cattle

Fat Content per 100kg of raw meat

• 6.3g - Beef (lean fillet)
• 5.8g - Lamb (trimmed steak)
• 1.5g - Chicken
• 1.3g - Kangaroo

[Source: New Scientist No 2781 9 October 2010]