Save the Planet -- Eat Kangaroo!
Kangaroos, you see, produce a relatively low amount of methane gas compared with other animals. Research shows that Australia could lower its overall greenhouse gas emissions by 3% if Aussies were to decide to give up all beef and pork in favor of the Other Red Meat, kangaroo.
Countries that aren't blessed with a native kangaroo population are being encouraged to take other steps:
Fortunately for those of us living outside of Australia, other countries are embarking on similar projects to reduce methane by farming low-emissions animals. Examples include springbok in South Africa, red deer in the UK, and bison in the United States. With CO2 emissions from other industries showing no signs of slowing down, eating a red deer burger doesn’t sound so bad.
Compared to a kanga-burger, it sounds downright appetizing. Actually, eating bison is no hardship. As many of you probably know, it is as good as beef, if a little more robust in flavor.
What's that? A burger? Um...no thanks.
Still, that kangaroo idea might be a little over the top. If we really want to cut methane emissions from livestock,we need to eliminate farms altogether rather than changing what we raise there. The unappetizing-sounding solution is vat meat. It will provide us nutritionally enhanced meat that doesn't come at the price of animal suffering and that doesn't cause massive environmental damage.
And it will only taste like chicken when it really is chicken.
Comments
Why not transplant the digestion-aiding bacteria from the guts of kangaroo into the guts of cows?
Posted by: pouncer | August 12, 2008 08:52 PM
Kangaroo is delicious, actually. Gamey but tender, and very lean.
Posted by: Mark Wotton | August 12, 2008 09:19 PM
Kangaroo is lean and has a great flavour. I enjoy taking overseas friends to good restaurants in Sydney for Kangaroo. Even here in Australia a lot of people are not aware that when well prepared Kangaroo is a great eating experience. It can be as good as top quality beef. And very nice accompanied with a glass of Aussie Shiraz. Unfortunately a lot of country people see Kangaroo as vermin and some Americans see them as cute.
Posted by: Chris Collingwood | August 13, 2008 04:08 AM
I eat Quorn fairly regularly. I eat soy-protein (whatever it is) I eat Tempeh. I eat bison. I eat eggs. I am very fortunate to have the luxury of eating all these things. If they make a tank-grown meat-like substance that tastes like beef (or chicken, or tuna, or macaroni and cheese), I'll eat that too.
If we really want to talk about the disgusting things Americans eat, let's talk about high-fructose corn syrup or brominated vegetable oil (both are highly represented in Mt.Dew, for example)
Posted by: MikeD![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.blog.speculist.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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August 13, 2008 08:19 PM
I like Pouncer's idea:
transplant the digestion-aiding bacteria from the guts of kangaroo into the guts of cows.
There are probably other ways beef can be improved via genetic engineering. For example, make it high in Omega-3 fat.
But when vat meat gets good, harvesting animals for food will be incredibly inefficient by comparison.
Posted by: Stephen Gordon | August 16, 2008 10:56 AM