iatebrisbane.com

Kangaroo meat is delicious. It’s Australian and most importantly it is a SUPERHERO when it comes to the your health and the environment. I really want to raise the awareness of kangaroo as a healthy food source, not just as an alternative meat.

A kangaroo we met at Lone Pine Sanctuary on the weekend

10 reasons why YOU should eat Kangaroo Meat

1. It tastes great! it’s not too gamey, rich and delicious. Use it in place of beef.

2. It’s REALLY lean. Less than 2% fat and has less kilojoules than lamb or beef. The fat in it is low in saturated fats and contains Conjugated Linoleic Acid – an antioxidant.

3. It’s high in iron and zinc

4.   It’s high in protein – about the same as beef

5. They emit just 0.003 tonnes of greenhouse gases per animal per year, compared to 1.67 tonnes per cow per year. This is incredible – since some estimate that 18% of greenhouse gasses are caused by livestock. Read more here and here 

6. Kangaroos eat less than sheep or cattle

7. They are less damaging to the top soil as their feet have pads (like dogs and cats) not hooves like sheep and cattle.

8. Kangaroos are wild, not farmed. We have so many kangaroos in Australia and the population boom is caused by humans.  In some areas of the country there are way too many kangaroos because we have put infrastructure in place for other animals (sheep and cattle) to use, like feed and watering holes. They naturally flourish because of this. We caused the Kangaroo glut, and now we’re fixing it. To keep the population in check, the Australian government allows a cull of 10-15% of the kangaroo population each year. Of the 48 species of kangaroo only 5 of the most common kangaroos are for commercial use,  these populations are common and not endangered. The wild kangaroos go through a 12 step checking process before they are allowed onto the consumers plates.

9. By having the kangaroos happily roam wild in their own natural habitat there is no need for costly infrastructure of fencing and feed etc. They are PERFECTLY adapted to their environment!  The animal is killed quickly with a single bullet in its own environment. To me, this sounds less stressful for the animal than going to an abatoir.

10. It’s cheap – it floats around $16 a kilo for a nice steak. Beef can sometimes be twice that much.

So, how do you cook it?  You can use it any meal the same as you would beef or lamb. If you’re going to have it as a steak cook it on a high heat until it is medium-rare. Any longer and it becomes tough, because it is so lean. Make sure you rest it for at least half the time you cooked it for. This will keep all the juices in the meat.