I Did Something I Never Thought I Would...

The question would arise on a constant basis:

"So, have you eaten kangaroo?"

"What! No, I couldn't imagine, ever... its a national icon! Would you eat a bald eagle?"

There would be the usual laugh and then response:

 Then my usual thoughts... Well of course not, bald eagles are a national icon and well, who would? Really, I could never imagine doing that either.

Not to mention the endangered status!

...and so it went.  Everywhere.  It didn't matter where I was.  But I could never imagine having a dinner of national icon, and professed year after year that it was a hideous thought.

Crocodile maybe, after all, I've tried aligator in Texas - fried, and on a stick no less, which is the only way to have it when living in Texas and at the Texas State Fair in Dallas.  Ostrich, tried and I probably won't ever try again, and if emu is anything like it, I probably will leave that national icon alone also.


 

As you could imagine, I was not expecting this.

I thought of poor Skippies everywhere, because I really do love animals and missed kangaroos during my years in the US, and it was one of the first native animals I was looking forward to seeing again..

but after being here for a little while I also thought about kangaroos, probably not in terms that anyone would like... I'm sorry, but Skippy is delicious.  And Skippy is also readily available in supermarkets. This wasn't the case when I visited Australia almost 15 years ago.

Erin pulled our favourite kangaroo steaks from the freezer for dinner/tea tonight, and upon inspection of said rations, it was stated to me by my brother that we were 'still eating tourist food'.

"Tourists go and order kangaroo at a restaurant, they rarely go to supermarkets and buy product to prepare a sumptuous dinner".Needless to say, kangaroo is very good for you...

"Kangaroo meat is consistently very lean, with a relatively high proportion of polyunsaturated "structural" fat red meat which can be included with confidence in a cholesterol-lowering diet'. Studies have shown that low-fat diets rich in kangaroo meat are associated with a reduction in important risk factors for cardiovascular diseases" (O'Dea 1988).  

Typically, kangaroo meat contains less than 2% fat, about 40% of which is long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) molecules which are believed to improve blood flow, reduce the blood's tendency to clot, and thereby reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke. She also found that kangaroo meat as part of a low fat diet can achieve a rapid fall in plasma cholesterol (Sinclair 1988, O'Dea 1988).

There lays my argument.  Kangaroos are farmed and caught wild, though mostly farmed, but no where near endangered.  There was a lot of question from most people I met in the US that believed kangaroos were dissapearing.  In fact they are not.  With excess of 40 million.

And, kangaroos are cute, though my brother argues that point also..

And there is something to be said for cute animals.. like Daisy the beautiful, sweet natured cow....

...the horrid story of what really happens to cows in the country. I didn't eat meat for 6 months in case I accidently ate Daisy.  But that's probably best left for another time.

Bye for now
Helen