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

The Power of Mobile or Cell Phones...

This morning, I opened my email and found this very interesting and helpful piece of information. This is information for Australia, though many may apply to Cell phones outside Australia also, for example, the emergency number.  Give it a read!

Four things you never knew your cell phone could do!

There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies. Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for survival. Check out the things that you can do  with it:

FIRST Emergency
The Emergency Number worldwide for all Mobile Phones is 112. If you find yourself out of  the coverage area of your mobile network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and your mobile will search any existing network in your area to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number 112 can be dialled even if the keypad is locked. This works on all phones worldwide and is free. It is the equivalent of 000 (in Australia) or 911 (in the US).

SECOND
Have you  locked your keys in the car? Does  your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday. Good reason to own a cell phone:
If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at  home on their mobile phone from your cell phone. Hold  your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your  home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be thousands of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other 'remote' for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).

Editor's  Note: I didn’t believe this when I heard about it! I rang my daughter in Sydney from Perth when we went on holiday.  She had the spare car key.  We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a mobile phone!'

THIRD Hidden Battery Power
To activate, press the keys *3370# (remember the asterisk).  Do this when the phone is almost dead. Your mobile will restart in a special way with this new reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery life. This reserve will get re charged when you charge your mobile next time. This secret is in the fine print in most phone manuals.  Most people however skip this information without realising.

FOURTH
How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone? To check your Mobile phone's serial number, key in the following digits on your  phone:
* # 0 6 # Ensure you put an asterisk BEFORE the #06# sequence.
A  15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. If your phone ever get stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if
the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless. You probably won't get your phone back, but at  least you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either. If
everybody done this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones.
This secret is also in the fine print of most mobile phone manuals.  It was created for the very purpose of trying to prevent phones from being stolen.

Also -ATM   PIN Number Reversal - Good to Know  !!
If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM machine, you  can notify the police by entering your PIN # in reverse. For example, if your  pin number is 1234, then you would put in 4321. The ATM system recognizes  that your PIN number is backwards from the ATM card you placed in the  machine. The machine will still give you the money you requested, but unknown  to the robber, the police will be immediately dispatched to the location. All ATM’s carry this emergency sequencer by law.

This information was recently broadcast on by Crime Stoppers however it is seldom used because people just don't know about it.