10% eh - sounds like a fussy eater there. veb, how did you arrive at the 10% figure?

Kangaroo on the Coat of Arms ??? carnt see what that has to do with eating roo meat.
Australians have been eating roo for nearly 50,000 years now - to me that be fairly more significant then any frivilous coat of arms about a hundred years old.

Reports on grain fed to EU cattle dont mean much to me, I just open my eyes and look around Oz - looks to me that much of the cattle grazing country is best suited to cattle/roo grazing.

hey flying binghi

i see you didn't dispute the world food crisis was in part caused by meat eating.

so given a vegan diet's the best solution, when are you making the switch?

you can read about the 10% figure and other issues here:
http://www.awpc.org.au/newsite/archive/competition.html

got a better figure?

the point about the coat of arms - which i made before - is that the roo's a national symbol. would you rather shoot it inaccurately, let joeys get bashed in the head, turn it into boots and steak with a fair chance of parasites?

sure australians have been eating roo for a long time. but now there are lots of other options. when the computer came along, did you say 'Nope, not using that, we've never done that before!'

eu reports on grain fed to cattle don't mean much to you? wait a minute, didn't you start off posting about the *world* food crisis - not the australian, or polish food crisis, but the *world* crisis.

as to roos 'grazing' in arid land, this is their country so that's fine - as long as you don't eat them. here's another quote from steve irwin: “Treat wildlife with respect. Do not buy use or eat wildlife products”. certainly no veggo.

plants are generally more productive than cows. rather than graze cows on arid land, what if we planted arid land crops or developed arid land agriculture?

maybe only cattle people want to live on that land? some own large properties anyway and make good money exploiting cows.

on the other hand we could grow australian crops and have an australian industry rather than an imported one.

have a look at this article:
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/proceedings1996/v3-026.html

it says that 'Australian natural plant resources are distinguished from those of other lands not by their inate worth, but by the lack of effort devoted to domesticating and formalizing the harvesting of that resource as a renewable resource'.

hey, you could go into the desert and plant some crops!!

Veb, just wanted to thank you for your last couple of posts...they were 'spot on' and really made me think. Someone once said to me that Australia is the only country that actually kills and eats the animals on its coat of arms and that is a pretty sad truth. No matter what you think of nationalism or patriotism, some parochial things still exist (such as our legal system etc.) and the coat of arms is one of them!

Just as I was reading your post, I saw some Kangaroos go past my window. There was a big male roo and a couple of females and a tiny little joey. The joey must have got scared by something as it stopped dead in its tracks. This caused the male roo to come bounding back and nuzzle it, and then one of the females came back and did the same. The sight of these magnificent creatures in my back yard (and knowing they can feel safe here) brought tears to my eyes. Not even my dog goes near them, and I won't even let visitors outside to take photos when they are here. If the kangaroos 'come over', then the yard is theirs!
I can't even think about disturbing a roo, let alone killing one and eating it!

PS I had NO idea Australia and Australians were over 50,000 years old! Wow! Let's go rewrite the history books...Those convicts sure were a clever bunch, munching on kangaroo paws for the entire trip over!

Veb, I attempt to keep my posts fairly short and to the piont. I'm a simple person, I like to keep it simple.
Please note, My last post wasnt a closeing post - I didnt realise I needed to address every last detail.

For you Veb, I will attempt to comment on every question in your last post.

Q -"you didn't dispute the world food crisis was in part caused by meat eating"
A - I dont think it is - political incompetance and greed methinks be the problem.... plus the little detail of 6 BILLION people on the planet.

Q - "10% figure....got a better figure?"
A - No figures as such - I will wiegh things next time so I know.

Q - " the point about the coat of arms .."
A - I have answered this.

Q - " ...but now there are lots of other options. when the computer came along, did you say 'Nope, not using that, we've never done that before!"
A - I'm not sure of what you are saying here?   Are you saying your ideas are new?

Q - "eu reports on grain fed to cattle don't mean much to you"
A - perhaps I should of said my true thoughts - EU reports on most any thing dont mean much to me.

Q - "...rather than graze cows on arid land, what if we planted arid land crops or developed arid land agriculture?"
A - I agree that we need to develop better arid land farming practices - plus we can graze animals on the stuble etc.

Quote - "I had NO idea Australia and Australians were over 50,000 years old! Wow! Let's go rewrite the history books"

Kathy B, I made the assumption that as this forum is called 'Vegetarian and Vegan Society of QLD' that there would be an understanding of the background human history of Australia.
I did not see any reason to complicate my post any more than was needed.  

LOL
Veb I started to read the link you posted until I got to the bit about roo's not competing with domestic stock, but persevered until I saw the bit about Steve Irwin saying we shouldn't use wildlife etc and as for the 10% garbage?????
Just because something is in print doesn't make it so and the stupidity espoused by this mob definitely isn't so, instead of reading fiction like this on a computor or going to the newsagent to buy your brain, go out and have a look in the real world.
Then you go on to post another link about
(domesticating and formalizing the harvesting of that resource as a renewable resource'. )
Mate get off the computor and have a look it's already happening but not in the EU way, this is Aust and we do it our way to suit our unique country.

Thread gone quite,so a bit of thread drift -

Looks like Ramsay is not all that popular with school principals.
A small article in todays QLD courier mail says a primary school head wants parents to stop their children watching Ramsays TV program (must be a vegan) Aparently the kids have started to swear a lot more since the program came on - senate inquiry coming up.

And I thought TV is not suposed to influence children........

Sorry to say my opinion of Ramsay escalated when I heard him swear at the 'dirty' French 'chef' in no uncertain terms a few weeks ago.

hi kathy - thanks!

hey flying binghi

FB: I don't think the world food crisis is partly caused by meat eating.
A: You didn't counter the points raised in the article.

FB: I haven't got a better figure that only 10% of roo can be turned into useful cuts - but i'll wiegh things next time.
A: As you say, you haven't got a better figure. Plus, remember that the article is speaking in terms of a commercial roo industry - not a guy who would happily eat a cockroach if he saw one running up his leg.

FB: I answered the point about the coat of arms.
A: Well, actually you said you can't see how that related to eating roo meat. If you'd rather roos get shot inaccurately, turned into shoes and joeys get bashed to death etc, come out and say it - then let's hope you never end up on the coat of arms.

FB: I'm not sure what you mean when you say 'Nope, not using that [computer], we've never done that before!'
A: Meaning - there's no reason to discount the idea of eating only plant food because it's a relatively new idea.

FB: 'perhaps I should of said my true thoughts - EU reports on most any thing dont mean much to me.'
A: Which begs the question, does anything outside your own opinion mean anything to you? Why don't they mean much to you? Can you disprove the points in the article?

FB: I agree that we need to develop better arid land farming practices - plus we can graze animals on the stuble etc.
A: We can, but why? If you produce enough food from plants, why do you then want to maintain animals as well? Plants stay in one place. They're fairly easy to collect. It's all extra work and care. Cows already outnumber people in Australia. And sheep trounce us!

I woulda thought a simple person would take a simple solution?

By the way, where does your name come from? Is is based on the Nyahbinghi?

hi indigenous

so i guess you're more of a wildlife expert than Steve Irwin? been out in the 'real world' more than he has?

if you think the article about competition 'definitely isn't so', where are your facts? as i said to flying binghi, remember the 10% relates to a commercial roo industry, not some fellas out in the bush.

i know the commercialisation of aussie plants has already begun, but we haven't been hearing about outback 'plant stations' much yet.

because the guy who wrote the article on plants uses words with more than two syllables, does that mean what he says doesn't relate to the real world?

Veb, I will methodicly go through all your Qs tonight when I have more time. In the meantime, have a read of this recent article in the Courier Mail

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23559603-5012449,00.html

Veb, I had a pick thru some of Jeremy Laurances articles and came to the conclusion he is just repeating info fed to him, e.g. - "Chickens comprise more than 90 per cent of the animals farmed for food in the UK", and "Atkins diet acts through cutting appetite by a third", and "Health risks of cannabis probably overstated"
I dont think his claims about beef production methods in England are all that relavent to Oz. I have simular views on the relavence of EU reports.

Re, what you say about kangaroos being a national symbol. This mystifies me - for nearly 50,000 years kangaroos were the national food dish. Who cares what some royalist wants to put on their coat of arms - I certainly dont.

The 10% of usable meat from roo carcase - I have no web reference apart from a picture (I can provide a link if required) From looking at the picture I think the useable roo meat to equal beef. The skin is usable and the non edible part of the carcase can be used as fertilizer.

Kangaroo parasites - aparently roo meat is cleaner then all other meats.

Hope this answers your questions veb.

Veb
I suppose I should have elaborated a bit more but I thought my previous comments were fairly obvious to anyone with an open mind.
Steve Irwin ran a ZOO he uses animals and from the view points of most on here he abused animals, he was concerned about conservation but I believe he was wrong about the roos.
I am not a wildlife expert and in time spent yes I probably have spent more time in the bush than him (and still am) but that doesn't make either an expert??? he was bound to come to grief eventually.
As for facts about competition, do yourself a favour before promoting dishonesty like this and check out a paddock with clover, wheat, lucerne etc in country where roo's are plentiful and not culled and instead of gulping down figures provided use your grey matter and think about it, 10% of a 40kg roo is about right for the backstraps which is the most expensive cut (medallions) do you really think they throw the rest away?
I would have thought since we were talking about roo's that the connection would have dawned about farming roo's which Commercial harvesting is by far the most efficient and humane form for the roos and the environment, farming native plants is still in it's infancy and doubt it will ever be large scale although large scale plantings of saltbush does occur for fodder and native trees are now being planted.
Mate you don't have to know how to read two syllables or set up a computor program to understand commonsense and logic.

I intend to answer you fb and i, hopefully within the next week, just haven't had time.

Hi Flying Binghi

That Courier Mail article's pretty interesting, although i'm not sure what it proves.

It's written by a meat eating food writer about a butcher's son who has no qualms about eating his 'beloved rodents'.

Would you eat your wife because you love her so much?

It's that common sense Indigenous talks about - if you love something, you don't then go and eat it.

The other thing Des Houghton says is this: 'He would like us to farm kangaroos and get rid of sheep altogether... The idea is not as crazy as it sounds.'

Well, unless you want to keep eating meat and radically pump up the number of kangaroos it is. First, Australians seem to have a love affair with sheep. They outnumber us in droves and there are more than kangaroos and cows put together (over 100 million).

According to the Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia we have 48 species of kangaroo. Only 5 can be killed commercially.

In an Environment Australia study by Grigg and Pople (Commercial Harvesting of Kangaroos in Australia, 1999), they say that " ...approximately 55,000 tonnes of kangaroo meat (excluding wallaby) would have been available if the 1993 quota had been taken fully. In the same year, about 2.8 million tonnes of beef, veal, mutton, lamb and pork were used in Australia. Similar results would be obtained for comparisons made in years since then. That is to say, even if all of the kangaroos shot under the commercial quotas each year were used for human consumption, this would be an almost insignificant fraction of Australia's annual red meat production, less that 2%."

Where does your name come from?

FB, you still haven't countered any of the points in the JL article!

Why are you bringing other articles into it? I thought you said you were a simple man?

Even then, you make no attempt to say where these comments JL supposedly made came from, what context they were in - nada! You might as well just be making it up.

As for the relevance of the production methods and validity of EU reports, this came up before and i answered it - see my post of 3/5.

Same with the coat of arms deal. You're repeating yourself. It's not that a royalist put the roo on a coat of arms, but the symbolic value the kangaroo has - as represented by the coat of arms.

What we did 50,000 years ago isn't necessarily relevant today. We didn't drive cars 50,000 years ago either - are you still walking everywhere?

But the coat of arms is more blurry topic, so we can drop that.

Sure, post your link to the pic of a roo carcass - i'm really interested.

Purely on a 'first impression' basis, what's your reasoning for thinking roo meat is cleaner than the rest? We're talking about wild roos, not kept or killed in controlled conditions. Wouldn't it seem reasonable that they'd be more likely to have parasites?

But let's move past first impressions. You say 'apparently roo meat is cleaner'. Apparently? Apparently according to who? Some guy you met 5 years ago in the street?

Hey Indigenous

Sure Steve Irwin exploited animals. But so do you - by eating them, wearing them and so on. As you suggested, he also tried to work for them - not sure about you. You can tell us about that.

Yet despite the fact he ran zoos and ate meat, despite that, he asked us not to eat kangaroo. Not some braided hair, sandal wearing vegetarian (nothing wrong with em!), but a meat eater!

You're right, just living in the bush doesn't make you a wildlife expert. Maybe Steve Irwin would have balked at the term too, so let me just put it this way - do you think your knowledge of wildlife matched his?

I'm not promoting any dishonesty with the 10% figure. I didn't make it up.

If you have a better figure, just tell me. I'm not writing off what you say, but you're one person - well, 2 with FB. What's your figure? Whatever it is, why should i believe that over the 10% figure?

Again, keeping in mind that 10% is for a commercial roo industry - the 'useful cuts', 'prime cut meat'.

Since i don't eat meat, haven't gone into the bush and shot and cut up roos then weighed the meat, i'm relying on what i read.

How many times have you caught and eaten roo? Have you weighed the meat each time?

You're right, you don't have to know how to read two syllables or set up a computer program to understand commonsense and logic. I never disagreed with that.

What i did say, though, is that just because you *can* read two syllables or write a computer program doesn't mean your sense of commonsense and logic suddenly evaporates.

When it comes to logic, why would you deliberately kill something when you can live off plants?

Because you 'like' the taste?