Ostrich

For the meat, poultry, eggs, and fish group, Preferably consume two servings a day of “Green-Green” foods. If unavailable, you can consume two servings a day of “Green” foods.

To be in conformity with the Savanna Model Use only omega-3-rich, free-range, organic hen’s eggs.

For the meat, poultry, eggs, and fish group Restrict total food group servings per session to one.

For the meat, poultry, eggs, and fish group, Restrict total food group servings per day to two.

. . . if you can get them, the exotic meats like venison, crocodile, ostrich, and caribou are good . . .

Creatures such as alligator, ostrich, emu, kangaroo, frogs' legs, and escargots (snails). All correspond very well to the kind of animal matter that our Pleistocene ancestors ate all the time. Other exotic foods are making their appearance, particularly bush tucker from Australia, which corresponds to the food traditionally eaten by the Australian Aboriginal.

Game birds like guinea fowl, francolin, and bustard are captured in cunning snares. Ostrich is hunted on occasion. As mentioned earlier, the San do not have much access to water, but when they get the chance, they spear fish, trap toads, and collect shellfish.

We saw how the San would catch various wild birds in traps and snares and even hunt the ostrich. Our lakeshore-inhabiting ancestors would have caught waterfowl too. Not surprisingly, fowl (by definition any wild bird) are relatively hard to catch and so they did not form a huge part of our ancestral diet. On the other hand, the USDA applies the term poultry to birds that are farmed.

The early civilizations carried on the old traditions of hunting, trapping, and snaring fowl. The ancient Egyptians caught and ate ostrich, bustard, crane, dove, pigeon, duck, quail, partridge, pheasant, and goose. Birds associated with the gods were taboo, notably the falcon, the ibis (a kind of heron), and the vulture. The Greeks and Romans did not eat much fowl, although at feasts peacock, thrushes, and ring-dove might be served. However, we must remember that the food of the ordinary citizen was extremely frugal; banquets and feasts were for the few, the wealthy gentry.

We are beginning to see some ranching of large flightless birds, notably ostrich and emu. The ostrich is the same species as the ostrich of our African homeland and hunted by the San; it can stand up to 8 feet high. The emu, from the savannas of Australia, is a slightly smaller bird, but still stands up to 6 feet high; it has flesh similar to the ostrich. Provided the farming of these creatures does not intensify (like it has for the chicken), their meat is in conformity with the Savanna Model.

The gathering of wild eggs today is greatly restricted by government regulation in most developed countries. However, the eggs of many species are available in small quantities as a by-product of the management of game birds. In this way, eggs from quail, pigeons, gulls, lapwings, plovers, pheasants, and ostriches are available to culinary enthusiasts.