Rhea Meat

Rhea Meat

Like ostriches and emus, their meat is officially classified as "Farmed Game". Rhea meat has the qualities of ostrich, with further advantages which I discuss below. It deserves a place alongside the better known meats - firstly for its beneficial qualities, and secondly because this bird can be farmed in an extensive and welfare-friendly way.  Rhea meat is so tender and low in fat that it is essential that cooking is done very swiftly such as by searing in a frying pan in hot (almost smoking) olive oil, giving hardly over a minute on each side.  More extended cooking merely renders it tough and unrewarding in tasting terms; it is entirely unsuitable for stewing.

Taste

Rhea meat is among the most tender you are likely to experience. It has a distinctive and pleasant taste which an old lady (not knowing what she had been given to eat) said was like something between beef and lamb. There may also be a hint of turkey. The texture, however, is not at all poultry-like, but similar to the most tender beef.

Nutritional Value

Rhea has a much lower fat content than beef; and its fat content is also lower than that of chicken and even ostrich.  The figures relating to rhea below were extracted from an analysis carried out at my request on a sample of my rhea meat in July 1995 by Mr Paul Lenartowicz, the then County Scientific Adviser and Public Analyst for the then Mid-Glamorgan County Council in the County Scientific Laboratory of the latter.  The rest of the analysis is given on the “Meat Analysis” page.

Meat              Fat (%)       Cholesterol (mg/100g)

Beef                16.3                         84

Chicken            3.6                         85

Ostrich              2.0                        58

Rhea                 1.1                          7.9

At only 7.9mg/100g, rhea has an unusually low cholesterol content. Most of the fat is in the form of mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acids, as is shown in the detailed analysis of rhea meat. In all the meats, the protein content was found to be around 20%.

Considering the many problems with beef (to mention only TB, BSE, eColi, Foot and Mouth, and now the fear that ruminant livestock keeping creates greenhouse gases on an immense scale), one should think that ultimately to replace it with rhea-keeping must be a winner!