How do Koala's taste?

[Padeye]

@DrMatrix

Does beef taste like grass to you?

Feed type doesn’t have a big impact on meat taste if any aside from maybe more marbling on one feed than another.

Feed impact on milk is dramatic. Cows that graze have very different tasting milk than those given grain based feed in a dairy. If a cow eats wild onions… <shudder>

[mangeorge]

@DrMatrix

Does beef taste like grass to you?

Beef tastes like the mash (corn) stuff its fattened on to me. Especially the fatty, best tasting parts.
Fresh alfalfa flavors milk.
Prime rib. Mmmm.
Peace,
mangeorge

[SCSimmons]

“Did you know that the zoo can ban you for life if they catch you using a hibachi?”
(PHB from Dilbert)

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

@DrMatrix

Does beef taste like grass to you?

Noooooo… :rolleyes:

But it’s a logical assumption.

1. The flavor of animals’ meat is affected by their diet. Waterfowl like mergansers that eat fish are notoriously fishy, but canvasbacks, that eat plant matter, aren’t. Farm-raised rabbits, deer, and alligators that are fed on carefully balanced “bland” diets have much milder flavors than wild rabbits, deer, and gators. In France they have a special kind of lamb that’s raised on salt meadows.

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OA/pubs/farmgame.htm

Because their diets and activity levels are not the same as that of domestic animals and poultry, the meat of farm-raised game animals has a different flavor – stronger than domesticated species and milder than wild game. The factors that determine the meat’s quality include the age of the animal (younger animals are more tender), the animal’s diet, and the time of year the animal was harvested.[bolding mine]

2. Cows eat different things besides just “grass”. They get things like corn (both the grain and the chopped green part as silage), cottonseed cake, ammoniated wheat straw, wheat middlings, alfalfa, oat hay… Thus, the proportion in their diet of strong-smelling foods is relatively small, and if they do get hold of something rank to eat, it’s lost in the volume of “other foods”. Koalas, however, eat nothing but eucalyptus, therefore it’s logical to presume that the flavor of that one thing they eat would come through in their meat more strongly than if it were an occasional meal, especially since that one thing is itself quite aromatic.

However, it’s possible to change the flavor of beef by feeding the cows something different, like a food additive.

http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/research/1999rr/12.htm

Sensory Panel. During sensory evaluation of steaks, no significant differences in juiciness, cooked beef fat, overall tenderness, connective tissue, or off flavors were detected between treatment groups. However, the steaks from steers supplemented with AGRADO had reduced flavor intensities. This reduction in flavor intensity, even though both treatments were classified as “slightly intense”, supports the TBARS difference noted by Krumsiek and Owens (1998) and earlier with ground beef, indicating that steaks from cattle fed AGRADO had a reduced rate of oxidative rancidity during display.

3. Cows, being four-stomached ruminants, may be presumed to digest and metabolize their food differently from koalas, who are single-stomached, and have unique digestive tracts.

http://www.bio.davidson.edu/Courses/anphys/2000/CrawfordC/digestion.htm

The ability of koalas to utilize Eucalyptus foliage as a sole source of nutrition makes them unique and amazing creatures. To cope with this unpromising and inhospitable diet, different aspects of the koala’s morphology and physiology have become highly specializd. The digestive system of the koala is no exception. After food is broken down in the mouth, it enters the koala’s highly specialized digestive system. The koala’s low metabolism allows solutes and fine particles to remain in the gut for extended periods of time. A majority of the digestive process occurs in the koala’s highly developed caecum, where fermentation and microbial breakdown supply the koala with a sufficient amount of energy to meet its reduced metabolic requirements (Ullrey et al., 1981). So, by combining reduced metabolic requirements with a slow metabolism and highly specialized morphological and physiological features, the koala has adapted to utilize Eucalyptus as a sole source of nutrition.

[Rick]

@astro

Per this article there are thousands of kolas that need to be culled to prevent an ecological disaster. So I was wondering if a farmer has a pile of koalas that need winnowing, just what does a drop bear taste like? Anyone know?

Kinda like a cross between spotted owl and bald eagle I hear.