Meat consumption usually means beef, pork, or chicken. Mutton and venison are common also. My favorite Indian restaurant avoids both beef and pork for religious reasons, but sometimes offers goat as an alternative to chicken. In the past few years, rising food prices and concerns about the environment are leading people to try new and different sources of meat. Here are five you may have never thought about.
1. Raccoon
Raccoon meat is cheap if you know of a local trapper. In Kansas City, raccoons go for $3-7 dollars each, and a whole animal will feed five adults. Preparing raccoon meat isn’t easy or quick. Frozen meat must be thawed, then parboiled, then stewed. The cooking time is measured in hours, but those who have tried it love the taste. That is, if you can get past thinking of raccoons as vermin, roadkill, or cute little masked bandits. You’ll find one reminder: trappers remove the head and three paws, but leave one paw behind to prove the animal is not a dog or cat. Image by Flickr user Michael Scheltgen.
2. Camel
Camel meat is quite common in the Middle East, and is reportedly quite tasty. Australians are now encouraged to try camel meat as the continent’s million-plus wild camel population is growing out of control. Camels are destroying the delicate ecosystem of the desert, and they burp huge amounts of greenhouse gasses into the air. You can find camel recipes if you look, but beware that some recipes are more serious than others. Image by Flickr user lemoncat1.
3. Squirrel
Eating squirrel is nothing new in America. Just a few years ago, advice came from the University of Kentucky that people should not eat squirrel brains because they may contain a variant of Mad Cow Disease. The rest of the squirrel is fine, if a little stringy. Now squirrel meat is being promoted in Britain due to an overpopulation of gray squirrels. The American invaders are edging out the native red squirrels. Brits who resisted squirrel meat for centuries are now patting themselves on the back as they eat gray squirrel and do their part for the balance of nature. You’ll find plenty of recipes for squirrel online. Image by Flickr user Darragh Sherwin.
4. Yattle
Yattle is the name given to a crossbreed of yaks and cattle. Yak meat has less fat than beef, because yak fat is near the skin, where it helps keep the cold-climate animal warm, whereas beef cattle distribute their fat throughout the meat. First-generation yattle are the result of mating between a yak and a cow or bull. Male yattle are sterile, but females can breed with bulls, resulting in a 25% yak ancestry for second-generation yattle. Yaks, and yattle, consume less food than cattle, and produce valuable fiber to make sweaters. Yattle meat is supposedly indistinguishable from yak meat.
5. Kangaroo
Kangaroos are both plentiful and meaty, with a low percentage of fat compared to beef. They are also less damaging to the environment than cattle. However, kangaroo meat is slow to catch on in Australia. After all, most nations don’t eat their national symbol! Some European countries consume more kangaroo meat per capita than Australia, possibly because of Mad Cow Disease fears. Environmental groups encourage people to eat kangaroo because the animals do not burp or fart and therefore do not add greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere -strangely the opposite reason people are encouraged to eat camel meat. Kangaroo meat is used in sausages, stews, steaks, burgers, and sandwiches. If you have some kangaroo meat, you may want to try out some recipes from the Kangaroo Industry Association. Image by Flickr user pierre pouliquin.
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Guinea pig is eaten by some people (I think mainly poor people) in Peru and possibly other parts of South America.
posted by Diana on 2-19-2009 at 8:33 am
I had some kangaroo in Australia. I hated it. Not sure if it was actually because of the taste or because I couldn’t get past the fact that it was actually kangaroo.
posted by Ryan on 2-19-2009 at 8:50 am
If you want to save money and you’re concerned about the environment, eat a whole foods, plant-based diet. Beans are cheap and “sustainible” animal agriculture will not meet the world’s demands for meat, so stop demanding it! you can’t be an environmentalist if you consume meat.
posted by Lola on 2-19-2009 at 9:13 am
we wouldn’t want the camels to destroy the desSert ecosystem now!
posted by mexicalidude on 2-19-2009 at 9:33 am
we wouldn’t want the camels to disrupt the precious desSert ecosystem!
posted by mexicalidude on 2-19-2009 at 9:34 am
I would definitely kill and eat me some camel if it were destroying my dessert.
posted by jeff on 2-19-2009 at 9:57 am
I had kangaroo in Australia and loved it! Granted, it was cooked over open flame while camping and we had been hiking all day so we were famished…but I thought it tasted great! Very “game-y” and good.
posted by Jenny on 2-19-2009 at 9:57 am
Although Bison is widely available in grocery stores (stores around Long Island sell it, but stock it only in small quantities), I have also seen Ostrich meat available in restaurants. And that doesn’t include the more rare animal meats offered up in those Portuguese and Brazilian barbeque restaurants…
posted by jeff on 2-19-2009 at 10:04 am
Eat mo’ possum!
posted by DUKE on 2-19-2009 at 10:45 am
Meat is the muscle and fat from a once living animal. If we had to kill it ourselves there would be a lot more vegetarians out there. And I second the comment about the environment – meat production is very wasteful compared to non meat equivalents.
posted by Robert on 2-19-2009 at 11:14 am
That Kangaroo is kind of sexy.
posted by Rissa on 2-19-2009 at 11:26 am
Yes, like Diana posted first, Guinea Pigs (called Cuy when they’re used as meat, like Cow is Beef and Pigs are Pork) is a nutritious and I hear delicious (kinda tastes like chicken). It’s easy to raise and doesn’t take up a lot of space to graze. You can raise Cuy right in your house or yard.
The main reason I don’t see more folks in America eating Cuy anytime soon is that it’s kind of identified with household pets so a lot of people are uncomfortable with the idea of eating an animal we traditionally in this country have used as a companion animal rather than a foodsource.
I think the meat change that’s most likely to happen the soonest is the return to smaller production, more folks even urban and suburban dwellers doing it for themselves and their neighbors. Things that don’t take a lot of grazing room like chickens and rabbits can be produced without a ton of effort or a ton of space. Keeping a chicken or a rabbit isn’t much harder than keeping a cat or dog.
And if you raise your own, you know how it was fed and how it was treated and that it’s safe and healthy.
It think in addition to the food security and independence elements of growing your own right at home, people are growing more and more interested in being connected with their food sources. People are reading labels. We’re looking for things that are hormone free and anti-biotic free and cage free and organic and free range and such. Cutting out the grocery store is the next logical step I see for a lot of folks.
posted by Melissa on 2-19-2009 at 11:31 am
Once when I got hold of some kangaroo meat, my friend cooked it for us. She made it with a nice sauce with a flour-and-water base, seasoned with a little bit of a pungent herb I had growing in the backyard. We named the dish the Rue Roux ‘Roo.
(Yes, we actually went that far for the sake of the pun.)
posted by VM on 2-19-2009 at 11:46 am
Read a story in the local paper recently about how delicious alligator gar is. Eww. Have had rattlesnake. Yum! Too bad emu fizzled out. That birdmeat looked like steak, and tasted like dinosaur! (Yesss, I’m from the South)
posted by PT on 2-19-2009 at 12:00 pm
We had a wild game cook-off here at work this past Friday. Different versions of venison, wild turkey, wild hog, dove & caribou were available but the ‘scary’ one was ‘coon. I thought the ‘coon tasted like pot roast which I’m not a fan of anyway.
posted by TC on 2-19-2009 at 12:02 pm
I’ve butchered and eaten deer (delish) but had a two second Bambi moment before stabbing away. No way I could eat raccoon though… I’d be forever thinking of Sterling North’s Rascal… it’s those little hands…
recaptcha: house Alaska
as in, I can see Russia from my?
posted by Marion on 2-19-2009 at 12:12 pm
i love animals. they look cute on sandwiches!
posted by kat on 2-19-2009 at 12:49 pm
Raccoon, Possum, squirrel and deer are all good eats if cooked properly. As to the environmental impact raising beef is the worst by far, they produce a lot of methane. If you want to be a vegetarian that is fine, but I believe you can be an environmentalist and eat meat also. I think it odd the only population control most environmentalist want is of the human species.
posted by Kev in GA on 2-19-2009 at 12:49 pm
“I can’t believe it’s not yak!”
posted by anomdebus on 2-19-2009 at 12:49 pm
That camel looks like a freakin’ pimp.
posted by Mary on 2-19-2009 at 12:52 pm
I find the comments regarding meat and environmentalism commical considering the context.
Are you as worried about the carbon footprint of your information as you are of your sources of protein? Take into account all the “costs” associated with keeping this site active and accessible and I’d bet modest meat consumption would be about as the same.
Please avoid blurring the line between your love of furry things and your concerns about environmental damage. You are doing a disservice to both.
I will now proceed to enjoy my turkey sandwich and the fine content provided by Mental_floss!
posted by brick_city_man on 2-19-2009 at 12:52 pm
I third the comment about Vegetarianism being the best for the environment.
A great quote:
“Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”
-Albert Einstein
posted by Nerak on 2-19-2009 at 12:54 pm
I’ve eaten alligator tail fried. It’s white meat, and tastes a lot like chicken except more chewy.
posted by Nicole on 2-19-2009 at 12:55 pm
I third the guinea pig suggestion. We currently have four (pet) gp’s. I was talking to my husband last night, and we agreed that if the economic SHTF, and we didn’t have other sources of food, I’d totally butcher and eat them.
I also said that if such an event occured and we buy our land that we’re thinking of buying, I’d buy a breeding pair for food. They are easy to take care of and you don’t have to worry about storing unused meat (like you would with cattle) because each guinea pig is perfect for a person or two. They are also fast breeders and clean animals.
posted by Roxie on 2-19-2009 at 1:01 pm
I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador for 2 years. Eating Cuy (Guinea Pig)is very common in the Andes mountains and usually reserved for special occasions. I have had more than my share of cuy cause ever time I visited a family they would want to cook me up one. Ate donkey too. It is a cure for the cough they say.
posted by David on 2-19-2009 at 1:46 pm
Did anyone else notice the look on the Kangaroo’s face? And how about that pose, eh? If I could put a caption underneith, it would say “How YOU doin’?”
posted by Ophelia on 2-19-2009 at 1:51 pm
Mmmmm….meat! Yummy. I’d give these things a try, for sure. How far are some of these countries going to promote these meats? Like, could I go to a grocery store in England and buy some squirrel? Or are these recommendations targeted more toward hunters?
I will continue to demand meat, criticisms of the self-righteous aside. If you choose to live off beans, I certainly have no problem with that, but to paint meat eaters as evil people who hate the earth is ignorant. Some of the most passionate conservationists I know are hunters. Often, they care very much about the environment, and would likely take exception to your argument.
If we all had to kill our own meat, there might be more vegetarians…or people might just get over it, as they have for ages before us.
posted by kate on 2-19-2009 at 2:21 pm
Oh, and VM….the Rue Roux ‘Roo is awesome! Nice work.
posted by kate on 2-19-2009 at 2:23 pm
Eating meat is what allowed proto humans to survive in a hostile enviroment. With the concentrated protien available we were able to group together in small bands and develope language. It was the necessity to hunt in groups that made language an eveloutionary selector.
KAB
posted by KAB on 2-19-2009 at 2:27 pm
I’m from the South, so eating raccoon, squirrel, and opossum meat isn’t that exotic to me. Sorry to perpetuate a stereotype….
posted by tiacheryl on 2-19-2009 at 2:34 pm
@kate
I’m not self-righteous. I just have my own beliefs – like you. And I feel I have the right to express them as does anyone else. Yes, I believe that, in general, growing food is less damaging to the environment than raising animals for food. That’s just my opinion.
But I don’t hate peole that eat meat or call them “evil”. After all, my husband, parents, brother, and numerous others in my life choose to eat meat. I Non-meat eaters are a minority. I think that’s why many of us speak out, since are numbers are so few. And we are often stereo-typed and ridiculed. We are not all the same, nor do all of us have the same personal beliefs and reasons for eliminating meat in our diet. It’s easy to criticize what you don’t understand.
posted by Nerak on 2-19-2009 at 3:08 pm
@Nerak
My comments weren’t really directed at you. When I started composing my post (a lengthy process when multi-tasking) you hadn’t posted yet. Then, when I did post, you were the most recent anti-meat post, so it probably seemed like a response to you. My comments were actually more directed toward Lola, who declared that meat eating and environmentalism were incompatible, and the hunting comment was in reply to a remark by Robert.
I also don’t really care if people eat meat or don’t eat meat. Crunch away on your celery, by all means. To each his or her own. I just get annoyed when vegetarians go on a self-righteous kick (which many of them do) or flip out over the smell of bacon or something. Obviously, if your husband and family eat meat, you probably do not have this problem. But many vegetarians do–and their cause would probably be better understood and respected if they did not act this way.
posted by kate on 2-19-2009 at 3:29 pm
Actually I thought the environmental comments were actually well within context. The first thing I thought when I clicked on the link was “Yay maybe they are spreading the word about seitan or tempeh or some other great meat alternatives!” Seriously. Yeah I don’t eat meat, but as such my first thought. Also, I think it’s funny how meat eaters are always really outspoken about how they love meat but when a veggie chimes in, they are “pushing their beliefs on people.” Come on now, fair is fair, right? This is such a touchy issue, and quite unfortunatly so. I don’t want to pass my beliefs off on anyone, but the environmental impact of eating meat isn’t just opinion, it’s fact. Of course veg’s are going to announce it to the world in hopes that someone might listen.
I am really saddened that there is so much immaturity in conversations about meat-eating vs. non-meat eating. I know people will make sarcastic comments about this, after all, it is the internet. But, I think after all is said and done vegans and vegetarians would really just have so much less “hostility” if omni’s didn’t respond to the information with things such as; “plants have feelings too” or other such nonsense.
I appreciate silliness as much as the next person, but talking about how amazing the double bacon cheeseburger you just ate (or whatever) doesn’t really add anything to the debate. Veg’s are used to being treated like they are tree-hugging lunatics, and they have heard it all before.
posted by Liz on 2-19-2009 at 7:02 pm
Reality check: Isn’t every meat an alternative meat, including vegans and meat-lovers alike? And vegans aren’t as eco-friendly and Earth-loving as they profess. A lot of natural wildlife habitats are destroyed to grow soybeans for their tofu alternatives, as well as all the extra produce they require.
We could also solve a lot world hunger issues if we didn’t have so many Disney hangups about what meat is or isn’t “socially edible”. Every meat is edible if you can catch it and kill it. Many cultures eat bugs, rats, snakes, monkeys, and all other kinds of “alternative” meats. Same applies to fruits and vegetables.
Farm both, and eat both in moderation is best, imho. And the most eco-friendly protein, meat-alternative solution, even more so than the sacred tofu, is to eat roaches. But nobody seems seriously interested.
posted by iRonnie on 2-19-2009 at 8:11 pm
When I read “five alternative meats” I was expecting an article about tofu, tempeh, seitan, etc. Or at least meat grown in a laboratory. But what the heck is this about? Pretty sure squirrels have been around for a while, and they’ve been consumed as meat by animals for just as long. Yattle makes sense though I guess.. but what’s the point?
posted by KC on 2-19-2009 at 8:30 pm
Are vegetarians an alternate meat?
posted by Rocco on 2-19-2009 at 8:50 pm
Save the plants, eat rocks!!
The argument that fewer people would eat meat if they were required to butcher it themselves is pretty well refuted by the past few millennia of human history.
Would converting to a vegetarian lifestyle reduce our carbon footprint? Sure. Is it even a remote possibility even in a time where green is the new black? No.
posted by Charles on 2-19-2009 at 9:49 pm
No one’s mentioned bush rat, a delicacy here in Cote d’Ivoire. Just grill it on a stick!
posted by amanda on 2-20-2009 at 6:15 am
The only “exotic” meat I was impressed with was a shark steak. It had the fibrous look and mouth-feel of beef steak but tasted like a very light tuna, but with out a “fishy” taste, if that makes sense. Even though I enjoyed eating venison, the smell of it before it was cooked was repulsive. I still can’t figure out why that is.Also I was surprised to see hat small “tubes” of ground bison are in my local supermarket, I have to try some.
posted by Brian on 2-20-2009 at 7:51 am
Yattle sounds delicious! But I don’t think I could ever bring myself to eat raccoon. Ever.
♥ xtine
posted by Christine on 2-20-2009 at 8:16 am
My God! Must we eat everything that moves?
posted by Christine A Jubic on 2-20-2009 at 11:53 am
iRonnie, thank you!!!
Finally someone posts the correct argument as to why vegans and vegetarians have just as big an environmental impact as us omnivores have. In order to have enough tofu and beans and soy and vegetarian cash crop items to feed the human population half of the remaining forests and wilderness areas would have to be cut away and planted!!! Now THAT’S a great idea. Gawd save the members of PETA who, on the one hand protest that fish have feelings, while on the other hand drive around in SUV’S wearing leather shoes and belts and handbags. Hypocrites. Can’t stand teh enviro-elitist attitude of SOME vegan/vegetarians.
As for the kangaroo in the lat picture? Where does that guy work out!!??? Look at the arms and chest on that thing!!! Should stay off the roids …
posted by Chris on 2-20-2009 at 3:27 pm