Kangaroo Stoo

Woops. The recipe said it would serve four so I doubled it. Dana and I have a lot of plans this week, so I figured it would make a good lunch. Looks like we'll be lunching on this for a couple of weeks! 12 red potatoes, 4 large carrots, 4 celery stalks, a quarter of a pumpkin, a big bag of mushrooms, a big bag of green beans, a big can of red kidney beans, four onions, a head of garlic, a big can of crushed tomatoes, a regular size can of diced tomatoes, a litre of tomato juice, a bunch of beef stock and 2 kilos kangaroo meat = enough to feed a homeless shelter.


And yes, I eat kangaroo all the time. In fact, there's some leftover kangaroo bolognese as well as kangaroo meatballs in my freezer right now. My favourite meal at the moment is a roo-ball hero. Many white Australians refuse to eat kangaroos because they're cute and on the coat of arms, but Australians have been eating roos for thousands of years... that, and the fact that it's tasty, make it a staple of my diet. I know there is a tremendous difference between my buying roo meat at Coles to make a stew and the traditional method of cooking an entire roo by burying it on hot coals. Still, there are many reasons to eat kangaroo:

• Healthy: very low in fat, very high in iron
  
• Economical: less than half the price of beef
  
• Availability: kangaroos are culled because of their high population
  
• Environmentally Friendly: cattle and other hooved animals (not native to the continent) destroy native vegetation in Australia
  

I eat kangaroo stew, so should you too?