W
Wild game is the ultimate, free-
range, environmentally friendly,
sustainable meat source available.
The animals’ active lifestyle paired
with a natural diet results in leaner
meat and nutritionally desirable
attributes. For over 60,000 years
Australia’s Indigenous population
has dined on wild-harvested animals
by hunting them in their natural
habitat. However, for the majority
of Australians, kangaroo, emu,
goanna, crocodile and bush turkey
remain a rarity on dinner plates.
A 2012–2013 Australian Health
Survey states that, as a nation, we
eat just 0.4 grams of game meat per
day, compared with 46.2 grams of
chicken and 40 grams of beef.
Those figures might change now
that a growing number of chefs are
adding wild-harvested dishes to their
menus, supermarkets are stocking
meats that were once primarily
marketed as pet food, and gourmet
stores are expanding their ranges to
include ‘exotic’ game meats. ‘Wild
game’ are defined as mammals, birds
and reptiles that roam the land and
are hunted in nature while ‘game’
is described as animals that were
originally wild but are now farmed,
such as deer.
Grain- or corn-fed domesticated
animals such as cattle and sheep are
known to be marbled with fat, while
kangaroo, wallaby and emu – that live
on a diet of grass, leaves and plants- exhibit virtually no muscle fat, and
therefore have a lower omega-6 fatty
acid content. Omega-6 is known to
cause inf lammation in our bodies and is
responsible for contributing to a range of
diseases including cancer and diabetes;
omega-3 counteracts its effects.
Nutritionist Aimee Sargent says,
“Both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty
acids are essential in our diet as our
bodies cannot produce them, but we
want them to be quite balanced.”
Kangaroo meat, which has been
certified fit for human consumption
since 1993, is possibly the healthiest