When my sister and I get together, silence can only mean one thing - food. We sit cross legged on my couch, slurping spaghetti noisily, drinking wine a little too quickly and breaking off ragged pieces of slightly blackened garlic bread. "Is this mum’s spag bol recipe? It tastes amazing, so much richer," my sister asks with her mouth slightly full, wiping bolognaise off her chin. "Sure," I reply, "I’ve just used kangaroo mince instead of beef."

Her fork momentarily pauses in mid-air before clattering noisily to the side of my blue and white pasta bowls. She glares at me, bottom lip out. Apparently, by dishing up our national emblem, I’ve deceived her. No amount of coaxing can persuade her to take another mouthful. "I just can’t stop thinking about their little furry faces," she sulks for a second before turning her attention towards dessert.

My sister is yet another victim of ‘Skippy syndrome’, a plague upon the kangaroo industry despite its potential to be enormously beneficial to both the environment and the consumer.

Unlike sheep and cattle, kangaroos are soft footed, produce no methane and require minimal water. Kangaroos are supposedly so environmentally friendly that the latest Garnaut report has suggested cutting 34 million sheep and seven million cattle and replacing them with kangaroos to cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce erosion.

Kangaroo meat is also 98 per cent fat free, high in iron and protein, low in saturated and trans fat and is approved by the National Heart Foundation of Australia. It is much cheaper than other red meats and most supermarkets sell kangaroo mince, fillets, steaks, roasts or even ‘kanga bangas’ that can be easily substituted into all family dinners.

After hearing all this, I made the switch. Initially it was to appease my environmental conscience without sacrificing my love for a rare steak with mushroom sauce, but then I began to relish the thought that the roo I was chucking on the barbie was actually helping lower my cholesterol as well. I reckoned that even those who weren’t environmentally inclined should be hopping on this bandwagon just for the benefits to the waistline and the hip pocket.

But is roo too good to be true? Is there really such a thing as green meat? Can kangaroos adapt if their status changes from wildlife to resource? Is culling kangaroos any crueler than the way sheep and cattle are slaughtered in domestic abattoirs? Can the consumer mindset change enough to allow the kangaroo market to expand and fill the cloven hooved holes that would be left by lamb and beef? And if so, will farmers be able to live off it?

Cattle and sheep have been domesticated for agricultural use for over 2000 years. Kangaroos are still a wild animal. Jared Diamond, evolutionary biologist, states that for a species to be domesticated it must be able to adapt to a flexible diet, have a reasonably fast growth rate, have the ability to be bred in captivity, possess a pleasant disposition, have a temperament which makes it unlikely to panic and be able to recognize humans as the ‘pack leaders’. With the exception of being able to be bred in captivity, and debatably possessing a pleasant disposition, kangaroos fail this checklist dismally.

Peter Preuss, former president of the Australian Wildlife Protection Council, also worries that any attempt to domesticate kangaroos will lead to huge health problems for the animal. "Post capture Myopathy is a common condition affecting kangaroos following a chase or handling. Having an extremely low stress threshold, kangaroos easily experience an ‘adrenalin rush’ capable of killing the animal shortly after stress," he says. Because of these low stress levels, the handling, herding and transporting associated with conventional farming could never be used with kangaroos without putting the animals at substantial risk.

Harvesters shoot the biggest kangaroos they see. The Council has concerns that this harvesting of alpha males may be disadvantaging kangaroos genetically. Continual shootings over the years have harvested all the larger, mature kangaroos to the extent that the average age for a red kangaroo is only two years old.

The Council is also critical of the way in which kangaroos are harvested. Culling is carried out by trained professionals who shoot kangaroos in the head. Only five of the 63 species of macropods are harvested in Australia. These five species are regarded as pests and require population control to avoid competition for food and water that could lead to large animal welfare concerns.

The kangaroo industry is highly regulated and monitored by several government bodies. Each state operates under a Kangaroo Management Plan controlled by the conservation authorities and overseen by the Federal authority. Annual quotas are set according to population size and all harvesters are subject to monthly reports detailing every kill and subsequent selling. Shooters try to avoid females and joeys. A head shot however, is not always possible. The accuracy of commercial shooters is estimated to be around 96 per cent.

The beef industry however, takes a different approach when slaughtering cattle. After ensuring the animal is secured in a ‘knocking box’ with its head restrained, ‘percussive stunning’ is used. This process, according to a report on ‘stunning of cattle’ by Food Science Australia, involves "the impaction of the heavy mushroom head of a non-penetrating stunner against the frontal bone of cattle causes a large concussive force to be delivered to the skull. This leads to a downward acceleration of the brain which is probably the main factor for producing unconsciousness’’.

Damien Whittock, the media affairs manager of the Meat and Livestock Association Australia, states that the industry standard is that 95 per cent of stuns should work first time. Considering the ratio of kangaroos to cattle killed in Australia, that’s over 300 000 more cows than kangaroos that aren’t being humanely slaughtered. Ultimately the cows have more to worry about.

In fact, a statement from the RSPCA suggests that "if achieved correctly, kangaroo culling is considered one of the most humane forms of animal slaughter. An animal killed instantly within its environment is under less stress than domestic stock that have been herded, penned and transported".

The RSPCA recognises the need for culling to take place in certain situations, but has concerns that the kangaroo industry is setting quotas with commercial gain in mind, not animal welfare and environmental concerns. Dr. Bidda Jones, chief scientist from RSPCA Australia states that "RSPCA Australia is opposed to the farming of non-domesticated species unless the associated welfare problems can be overcome". She said that even if kangaroos did have the potential to be domesticated, it could take hundreds of years until they were ready to be commercially farmed. The only option the RSPCA would accept is to farm the species in a way that retains its wild existence, like farmed salmon. This is kind of what the kangaroo industry is doing now, but this status could not continue if demands increased.

Farmers too have their doubts; can they make a living off kangaroos? Kangaroos produce two products, meat and skin. Unlike cattle and sheep that produce milk and wool as well as meat, the kangaroo is only worth something to the farmer if it’s dead. In the book Kangaroos; Myths and Realities, Geoff Russell estimates that given size, growth, population and reproductive rates, there is only about 240 grams of meat fit for human consumption per kangaroo.

For such a small amount of produce would it really be worth all the extra investments? For those not agriculturally inclined, a fence capable of holding a kangaroo would cost about $15 a metre. Also one cow, in grazing terms, is equivalent to about ten kangaroos. While the extra stock might initially be appealing, what do you think would be easier to look after? One contented, domesticated cow or ten wild, fast- moving, high-jumping, readily-stressed kangaroos? Forking out for additional labour is a must.

Also, if a farmer is going to start investing money into farming kangaroos, in order for he or she to see a return on their investment, the price of kangaroo meat will need to rise. Consumers are already reluctant to purchase the meat now even though it’s much cheaper than other red meats. You don’t need to be an economist to see that it won’t work.

Russell notes that the production potential of kangaroo meat is about 57 000 tonnes per year. Cattle can produce 1 700 000 tonnes of beef a year. There aren’t enough kangaroos in Australia to produce that amount of meat. Where it takes 12 years for a kangaroo to be of a size where it can produce 10 kilograms of meat, a lamb at three to six months of age can already produce double that amount. The growth and reproductive rates of kangaroos are simply too slow to compete with lamb or beef production.

Even if kangaroo production was capable of increasing, the market just isn’t there. A summary report on ‘Improving Consumer Perceptions of Kangaroo Products’ conducted by the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation found that of the 51 per cent of respondents who had ever tried kangaroo meat, only seven per cent ate kangaroo at home, and then it was only consumed an average 2.72 times per year. The corporation found the main reasons for not eating kangaroo were "a lack of awareness and interest in using the product".

As always, the consumer will have the last say. They want to stick with what’s familiar and that is lamb, beef, chicken and pork. Most kangaroo meat is made into pet food. Why invest in farming when nobody wants to buy the produce anyway? The consumer and the kangaroo have something in common here which will ultimately be the death of any large scale kangaroo enterprises; neither will change.

Dr. Jones can understand the green argument underlying Professor Garnaut’s comments but believes that "the easier option is simply eating less meat. This could also have the upside of allowing current farming practices to de-intensify thus creating benefits for animal welfare and the environment," she said.

Next time my sister comes over my spaghetti recipe will have changed again. Next time there will be a major omission- meat, of any species. She’ll probably find this even more offensive. Note to self: double up on the desserts.