Not Your Mother’s Skippy
Remember Skippy peanut butter? The company that produces Skippy used to sponsor the Dennis the Menace television show. Sandwiches made with Skippy and (usually) grape jelly were a staple of growing up. Skippy is still available here in this country - I have no idea how global they are. Greenpeace, however, wants people down under to put a different skippy altogether between two slices of bread. Who's up for a kangaroo sandwich?
The controversial call to cut down on beef and serve more of the national symbol on our dinner plates follows a report on curbing greenhouse gas emissions damaging the planet.
Greenpeace energy campaigner Mark Wakeham urged Aussies to substitute some red meat for roo to help reduce land clearing and the release of methane gas from flatulent cattle and sheep.
"It is one of the lifestyle changes we can make," Mr Wakeham said.
"Changing our meat consumption habits is a small way to make an impact."
The eat roo recommendation is contained in a report, Paths to a Low-Carbon Future, commissioned by Greenpeace and released today.
It also coincides with recent calls from climate change experts for people in rich countries to reduce red meat and switch to chicken and fish because land-clearing and burping and farting cattle and sheep were damaging the environment.
They said nearly a quarter of the planet's greenhouse gases came from agriculture, which releases the potent heat-trapping gas methane.
Report author Dr Mark Diesendorf said reducing beef consumption by 20 per cent and putting Skippy on the dinner plate instead would cut 15 megatonnes of greenhouses gases from the atmosphere by 2020.
“Kangaroos do not emit greenhouse gases. They are not hooved animals either so they don't damage the soil,'' Dr Diesendorf said.
Dr Diesendorf said he was aware of the controversy encouraging people to eat Australia's national emblem would create, but that kangaroo was very healthy and low in fat.
Throw another 'roo on the barbie. There is no word from California animal activists yet who managed to get a ban on kangaroo leather in that state.
The California Supreme Court has banned the sale of soccer cleats popularized by soccer star David Beckham and other goods made from kangaroo leather.
There is an effort to get that changed - I don't know where it stands at this point. But we may yet get to see Greenpeace activists and PETA people in a full-scale brawl over this. That would be amusing. Excuse me, I have to hop over to the grill and turn the ribs.
Animals, World news | Gaius Thursday, 11 October , 2007
By feeblemind, Thursday, 11 October , 2007 @ 11:45 am
Yep, I am old enought to remember Skippy sponsoring Dennis the Menace.
By mockinbird, Thursday, 11 October , 2007 @ 2:40 pm
I’d like to throw a Greenpeacer on the barbie.
By sam, Thursday, 11 October , 2007 @ 4:33 pm
Some articles I have read suggest that it eventually will be possible to grow meat from cloned cells, I suppose totally eliminating the farting beasts from the equation. Antidote for global warming, or first step toward Soylent Green? You decide.
In the meantime, I don’t plan on reducing my red meat intake. Beef - It’s what’s for supper.