Red meat has a huge carbon footprint because cattle requires a large amount of land and water.
https://sph.tulane.edu/climate-and-food-environmental-impact-beef-consumption
Demand for steaks and burgers is the primary driver of Deforestation:
https://e360.yale.edu/features/marcel-gomes-interview
If you don’t have a car and rarely eat red meat, you are doing GREAT 🙌🙌 🙌
Sure, you can drink tap water instead of plastic water. You can switch to Tea. You can travel by train. You can use Linux instead of Windows AI’s crap. Those are great ideas. But, don’t drive yourself crazy. If you are only an ordinary citizen, remember that perfect is the enemy of good.
i’ve replaced beef in my diet with kangaroo for exactly this reason… it’s not the same, but it’s great in its own right and contains a load of iron. makes cutting beef out much easier
bonus: roo populations have to be managed otherwise in modern australia they tend to multiply uncontrolled and it’s a problem, so it’s either eat the meat or waste it… roo meat isn’t farmed
This is why I’m mostly okay with hunting deer, here in the US. We displaced their predators so it’s on us to make up the balance. I say “mostly” since, like others are saying in this thread about taking habitat away from kangaroos, the better answer is to give them an actual functional ecosystem to live in.
Roos are culled mostly because they compete for pasture availability and water access for livestock, especially because we reduced their predators (again, to protect animal livestock).
It’s certainly better to eat roo than cow, but a diet that doesn’t include killing animals at all is objectively better.
assuming animals wouldn’t be killed either way, yes… but even if they’re killed for other livestock, that’s going to continue regardless of eating them or not so the difference is practically nothing. you have to reduce the other livestock before any effect on kangaroos is felt
and also, something is better than nothing… i think convincing a majority of people to not eat meat just isn’t realistic. subbing out beef for roo (and chicken and pork) is a very easy trade, and i’ve switched a lot of people to do the same. it’s pretty easy to convince people to do that. it’s very difficult to convince people to eat exclusively vegetarian
Yeah currently the difference doesn’t amount to much because we’re still eating livestock, BUT if we stopped eating that livestock, we could return to a more natural Australia where shooting our national animals isn’t a requirement.
As I said, you’re right, eating roos is definitely better, but your argument is an appeal to futility, “I won’t be able to convince everyone to stop eating meat, so I’ll continue doing moral failures”. You could use that argument to continue all horrible injustices, right? “I won’t be able to convince everyone to vote for Labor, so I’ll vote Liberal as well”.
It’s much MUCH easier to convince people to drop meat when you’ve done it yourself, I’ve converted 5 of my friends over the course of my 6 years, two of which are from rural NZ.
Americans are trying to ban it.
We have the same problems in America, but with deer, and the same solutions to that problem.
But those same nutjobs who want to ban roo meat also want to ban deer hunting. Because they are idiots.
i heard about that… it’s wild lol… and their argument is basically “it’s cute”
Plus it’s delicious, it either tastes exactly like white tail deer or perhaps i was scammed
i’ve heard it does taste like that yes, but haven’t tried myself because idk where to get venison in aus! roo is literally available in mince, diced, steaks, sausages, etc in supermarkets here :p
I myself eat venison, moose and reindeer. Sometimes horse when it’s off-season for hunting, but that’s kinda janky as it’s not really game, but the incentives for “farming” horses don’t really exist so…
Anyway, my local butcher’s has some frozen 'roo. I’ve had some on a pizza when drunk once, but don’t really recall it that well for my BAC was kinda high. I do remember feeling a tad absurd eating a pizza with kangaroo on it while a guy rode past on a unicycle. I’m not imagining that, although I may have also been high at the time.
Anyway, my point is how’d you compare 'roo to beef in texture and taste?
I hated lamb for instance (and generally don’t buy it because the morality is horrible, just had a chance to taste and didn’t like). Venison, moose, reindeer, horse, all awesome. Reindeer most gamy, moose second, then venison and horse on a pretty similar level. All really lean usually.
it’s pretty gamey, so i wouldn’t say it’s a direct replacement… i do like a roo bolognese though: adds a bunch of depth
imo roo steak is absolutely amazing though
it’s very low fat, so you have to cook it fast and not well done etc otherwise it gets really tough really quickly
oh also roo curries are incredible too!
i’ve heard that roo it pretty close to venison in taste, but haven’t tried venison so not sure