Kangaroo, it's what's for dinner.

The times when Shane and I do our weekly grocery shopping as a team he tackles the meat section and I dominate the remainder of the grocery store. Shortly after moving to Australia he introduced me to a new category of meat, the marsupial, or macropod to be exact. There isn’t much I leave off my dinner plate but I’m sure you can understand my trepidation.

The meat isle at your local Coles or Woolworths (not to be confused with the US Woolworths) looks something like this: beef, lamb, pork, poultry and mince as in ground meat. Tucked away at the end of the isle, next to the minced dog meats, you’ll find kangaroo in the form of roasts, fillets and even “kanga bangas” (that’s kangaroo sausages for you Yankees). All this might lead the uninformed shopper to believe that kangaroo is crap and you’re better off leaving it for the mutt.

Au contraire! Kangaroo, when cooked properly, is da-licious! When overcooked, it can be a bit tough and gamey and it’s no good as a leftover. But when kept a bit pink in the middle it’s tender, juicy and perfectly tasty. Shane will only eat red meat a bit pink. To quote my high school swim coach he prefers his meal “crying for its mama” so our kangaroo is never overcooked but don’t worry, it’s definitely dead.

The buck doesn’t stop there. Kangaroo is healthy, environmentally friendly and affordable. It’s high in protein with less than 2% fat and in addition to a myriad of essential vitamins and nutrients it has a high concentration of conjugated linoleic acids (CLA) which have anti-carcinogenic and anti-diabetic properties and can reduce obesity and atherosclerosis.

Kangaroos are not farm-raised. Commercial meat comes from the wild and eating kangaroo over other types of meat can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions because, unlike sheep and cattle, kangaroos produce very little to no methane gas. But, I’m going to stop here because I’m no expert in this area. All I know is that it’s cheaper than most meats and in an expensive city within an expensive country that leaves me feeling pretty chuffed.

But when considering the above, it’s surprising that most Australians don’t incorporate kangaroo into their diet. A 2008 survey found that less than 15% of Australians eat kangaroo no more than four times a year and only 50% had even tried it. I can attest to this first hand. Most of our friends and family do not eat kangaroo. Aside from indigenous Australians who have been eating it for thousands of years, it’s a relatively new option in the Australian diet and nationally first became legal for human consumption in 1993. Maybe it’s the thought of eating a national (rather adorable) icon or concerns expressed by animal welfare advocates that don’t agree with the culling of a wild animal or environmentalists who say it will disrupt the ecosystem.

With that being said, you don’t hear much of a fuss about people culling kangaroos; when it’s done humanely of course. Kangaroos are sometimes seen as a pest and many Australians would be lucky to make it a lifetime without destroying one with their car…or should I say, it destroying their car. I once witnessed a suffering, recently hit kangaroo on the side of the road, and based on my personal experience, humane culling would be a much better way to go. Besides, the commercial kangaroo industry is government regulated with a 2010 culling quota of just over 4 million and an estimated total population somewhere around 35 million. Keep in mind Australia’s human population is only 22 million. You do the math.

I suppose asking people to add deer to their grocery list in the US would elicit a similar response, or should I say lack their of. People are happy to stick to their staple chicken, beef, chicken, fish, chicken, pork diet, or sometimes, no meat at all. But, I have to say, I don’t mind adding a marsupial to the menu from time to time.

In case you’d like to learn more, I found the following links particularly interesting:

Eating kangaroos could reduce emissions

Commercial kangaroo harvest quotas

Eating kangaroo - the real Aussie meat