Kangatarianism.

I learned a new word (and a new concept):

Kangatarianism is a recent practice of following a diet which excludes meat except kangaroo on environmental and ethical grounds. Several Australian newspapers wrote about the neologism "kangatarianism" in February 2010, describing eating a vegetarian diet with the addition of kangaroo meat as a choice with environmental benefits because indigenous wild kangaroos require no extra land or water for farming and produce little methane (a greenhouse gas), unlike cattle. Advocates of kangatarianism also choose it because Australian kangaroos live natural lives, eat organic food, and are killed "humanely". For similar reasons, Australians have discussed eating only the meat of Australian feral camels ("cameltarianism").

That's from the Wikipedia article, "Kangaroo Meat," which you either know or don't know why I'm reading. For those not yet up to speed: "Chef fired after serving kangaroo meat to Nebraska students" (Fox News):

On Oct. 10, a Potter-Dix Public Schools cafeteria served a chili including a mixture of beef and kangaroo meat, according to the release. Head Cook Kevin Frei told Superintendent Mike Williams that the kangaroo meat was added because “it is a very lean meat.”

While the superintendent stated that he does not believe that the kangaroo meat was unhealthy or dangerous because it met USDA standards for sale, the district vowed to not serve food of this nature again. “If a family wants to eat exotic foods, they can do so on their own time — not at school,” Williams said.... “It is without a doubt not a normal staple of our diet and will not, nor will any other non-staple foods, be a part of the potter-Dix meal program.... I apologize for the anxiety and any harm that this has caused individual students and /or families.”

I agree that parents should always know what animals the school is feeding to their kids, but I don't like the way the solution is always to fire the employee. Why didn't the head cook know how people in his town would react to serving "mystery meat" that turned out to be from an animal people in the area don't normally think about eating? Maybe he is too foolish and reckless for the job, but I feel for him.

What he did is not as bad as putting meat in a dish that people believe is vegetarian or presenting pork as beef or beef as pork. The cook had rational reasons for using kangaroo meat rather than other meats. Kangatarianism makes sense to some people. But if you're a cook in Nebraska — or an anything, anywhere — you can be too rational. You've got to have a feeling for how irrational people react to unusual things.

I have exactly one other association when it comes to kangaroo meat: It's what "This American Life"'s Ira Glass fed to his strange, dangerous dog:

[Our rescue pit bull Piney] needed a strict and disturbingly expensive diet of one protein and one starch for 8–10 months until he would become allergic to it. Then we’d have to switch to another protein-starch.

We’ve gone through a series of food combinations: there was pork and tapioca, then rabbit and sweet potatoes. We would go to the store once a week to pick up 6–8 rabbits and the guy at the store would say, “So, are you havin’ a party?” You don’t want to say, “No, I’m buying eighty dollars’ worth of rabbit for my dog.” You feel like an ass. And it’s weird to be feeding an animal that’s cuter than your pet to your pet. After that we went to bison, which I thought was extinct, and switched to kangaroo about six months ago. There’s a butcher out in Woodside, Queens, that you have to go to for kangaroo....