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TIL kangaroos are harvested for meat
by foobarian 3y ago
TIL kangaroos are harvested for meat
- ceejayoz 3y agoYeah. Very similar to venison, in both taste (lean and a bit gamey) and reasons for culling; too many in an area and no real predators other than humans.
- aziaziazi 3y agoThat sounds ironic as kangaroo’s predators were predated (“culled”) by humans.
- 9991 3y agoWe're just going to work our way down the food chain.
- pfannkuchen 3y agoAlready have, many people personally cull grass periodically.
- oefnak 3y agoWe even have solar panels.
- ambicapter 3y agoOut of curiosity, what are/were kangaroo's predators?
- ceejayoz 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacoleo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacoleo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine too, but probably not for adult kangaroos.
- callalex 3y agoSame with deer (wolf culling)
- senectus1 3y agonot just, but yeah ! Kangaroo meat is super lean and very tasty. needs to be cooked very carefully or it goes very chewy and dry.
- reaperman 3y agoLeather as well - kangaroo leather was rather prized in the motorcycle community for being more abrasion-resistant per thickness/weight than cow-hide leather. I think its popularity has somewhat fallen off but I believe it's still the most performant material.
- abracadaniel 3y agoSame for whips as I recall. Niche use cases, but it’s apparently much better than others.
- reaperman 3y agoHmm, I wonder which material properties contribute the most benefit to that application. "Abrasion resistance per weight/thickness" seems like it would be somewhat lower on the scale for whips than it is for motorcycle rider protection.
- tsol 3y agoYou can buy the jerky on Amazon last I checked. This amazed me the first time I learned about it but apparently it's pretty mundane in Australia
- pdabbadabba 3y agoIt's a common ingredient in dog food. If a dog is having some sort of allergic reaction, a vet will often recommend switching to kangaroo food to try to rule out a dietary cause. (I guess because kangaroo allergies are rare in dogs? At least in NA?).
- nineteen999 3y agoIt's a common ingredient in human food here in Australia. https://www.coles.com.au/search?q=kangaroo https://www.coles.com.au/search?q=kangaroo It's pretty gamey, I don't find it unpleasant, but I wouldn't eat it in favour of a good beef steak.
- microtherion 3y agoIf you're in the US, meat selection tends toward the conservative. People have literally been fired for serving kangaroo: https://time.com/5430454/nebraska-school-cook-fired-kangaroo-meat/ https://time.com/5430454/nebraska-school-cook-fired-kangaroo... But in some European countries, more bits of the animal are being eaten (beef tongue, e.g.), and more animals are being eaten (e.g. horses). In Switzerland, kangaroo and ostrich became somewhat popular when at the height of the Mad Cow Disease epidemic, people were reluctant to eat beef.
- tourmalinetaco 3y agoAnd that’s a shame, I really feel like we need more exotic meats in the US. Maybe we can bring back the “lake cows” and their “lake cow bacon”. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-us-almost-became-a-nation-of-hippo-ranchers-180982244/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-us-almost-bec...
- cdot2 3y agoYou can definitely get beef tongue in the US.
- microtherion 3y agoYes, I did not mean to imply that you can't. But in my informal surveys of Americans, "Do you eat beef tongue?" is an interesting shibboleth to determine culture of origin of the respondent. I think I've yet to meet somebody with a Christian Anglo-Saxon background who said they did. People with Hispanic, Jewish, Eastern European, and many continental Western European backgrounds often do. Of course beef tongue is also found in Chinese cuisine.