So, you'd like to eat kangaroo meat because someone on TV said it was safe?

One of our WPAA Members was watching the Channel Nine Today show last week (1st week in January 2012) and this doctor (nutritionalist) was promoting kangaroo as a healthy meat to eat. She was actually promoting it as the only meat to eat!! Did not promote fish, or even lean meat, or poultry, or vegetables! This is her response to our reader's email below. Our other readers might like to follow up with a response?? Her address details are listed below the story.

It's quite obvious that this woman has been paid by the kangaroo killing Industry to talk up some perceived health benefits of eating kangaroo meat. She also promotes other Industries on her website. No-one could be so foolish as to talk up the appalling commercial kangaroo Industry unless they were paid for it.

Wildlife groups have a name for these people, they call them the "kangaroo mafia", usually academics who have prostituted their learning by being paid by the kangaroo Industry. Professor Gordon Grigg is one such person, he is known to the wildlife groups as the "kangaroo mafia Godfather". There are others, Dr Tony Pople, Professor Micheal Archer, Rosey Clooney, Dr George Wilson, and a few more, all known to wildlife groups as the "Kangaroo Mafia", paid money to support and justify the kangaroo Industry. Cook Margaret Fulton is another who has promoted kangaroo meat.

Grigg's particular claim to infamy is to lobby for a "sheep replacement therapy" where sheep would be removed from the land, and replaced with kangaroos! Grigg has failed to explain how we would replace our billion dollar wool clip, or the fact that our export meat markets demand mutton and lamb, not kangaroo meat.

So we decided that the good (or not-so-good, depending on your opinion) Dr McMillan's arguments to support the Industry were so wrong we would respond to her letter to our member, and because the arguments she made are so unrealistic, the subject would make a good webpage! We have put our responses to her claims in bold!

She says, " Dear.......

Thank you for taking the time to write to me, but I'm afraid I have to defend my position on kangaroo. You are absolutely right that I base my information on the evidence and that is exactly what drives my support for using kangaroo meat. I have heard the claims before regarding pathogens and slaughter of kangaroos and I'm afraid I have never seen any evidence to support this. I have spoken with kangaroo producers and in the past with a journalist who reviewed the industry. My reasons for supporting this meat are as follows:

- from an animal welfare perspective I would far rather eat an animal that has lived it's natural native life in the wild, than feedlot domesticated animals that have far less natural environments and often completely unacceptable (eg pork industry). Kangaroo is truly free range.

True, kangaroos are free range, but so is lots of beef, poultry, lamb, fish, and pork. Its not all feedlot, and much of it is Certified Organic.

- the meat is as close to our hunter-gatherer ancestors meat as we can get here in Australia. The animals are active and consume their native diet. As a result the meat is incredibly lean but does has good levels of omega-3 fats.

So does lean free range, beef, lamb, pork, fish, and poultry!

- It's rich in iron and zinc, as well as other nutrients.

So is lean beef, lamb, pork, fish, and poultry!

- from an environmental perspective kangaroo is good in several ways. They produce little or no methane. Greenpeace recommend a shift away from methane producing animals such as beef. A shift to kangaroo would significantly reduce methane production in our country. They are also soft footed so suit our landscape causing far less erosion than cloven footed animals. They use less food and water, so are aptly suited to survive droughts. Since they also need to be culled I would far rather see the meat used than wasted. Several of our prominent environmentalists recommend using kangaroo for these reasons.

Wrong again. What difference does a little methane make to Climate Change when we are opening several times more coal mines in Australia than all the current mines put together! And it's not hard hoofed animals that cause erosion, its too many hard hoofed animals on too much marginal land. Kangaroos do not need to be culled, so what environmental expertise does she have to make this statement? She fails to name the "several prominent environmentalists" but she may mean some of those listed above. The Greenpeace statement claimed above, was made by a consultant who was sacked for making that statement, and Greenpeace has a strong policy against the commercial kangaroo kill.

- on the subject of pathogens that is simply not true. Meat has to conform to Australian standards before it is sold. Kangaroo just like any other meat is regularly tested and must comply. Pathogens are not present in the meat.

Wrong again! Pathogenic bacteria can be found in any contaminated meat, as are the parasites, salmonella, and several diseases, including toxoplasmosis, that are regularly found in kangaroo meat. When I showed an AQIS Director in Canberra, photos of contaminated kangaroo carcases in a processing plant she said "if people buy game meat they should expect that it will be contaminated". Even AQIS wouldn't agree it was safe to eat!

- with regard to slaughter, there is no easy way to justify the killing of an animal but I fail to see how killing animals in the wild for our meat consumption is worse than growing them specifically for our consumption and slaughtering in a slaughter house. I have been assured by kangaroo producers that this is done in as humane a way as possible. I too have heard the shock stories but I believe these to be in the minority and not what happens with the main reputable producers.

Wrong again! These instances are not "in the minority" and she doesn't explain away the terribly cruel treatment meted out to the joeys. In-pouch baby kangaroos (joeys) are wrenched from their dead mother's pouch, and decapitated or stomped on. Ex-pouch dependent joeys flee into the night when their mother is killed, an die later of exposure or predation.....or just plain loneliness and heartbreak without their Mum!

She finishes,

I'm sorry you have doubted my advice based on our differing views of kangaroo for human consumption, but I hope this email at least assures you that I always base my advice on knowledge and evidence. Nothing is rock solid in the world of farming and so of course if you have evidence to the contrary then forward this to me. I would always investigate where I can.

With sincere regards, Joanna"

Website, http://www.drjoanna.com.au

Email; jo@drjoanna.com.au

Dr Joanna McMillanRegistered Nutritionist & Accredited Practising Dietitianhttp://www.twitter.com/joannanutrition

http://www.facebook.com/drjoannamcmillan

So, if you would like to write to the Doctor, feel free to do so, her details are here, just cut and paste them into your browser.