I once interviewed the late R.M. Williams about his time in the Flinders Ranges during the Depression. RM, his wife and young son lived under canvas in the Flinders for several years while he worked as a bore sinker. When they could get it, they lived on rabbit, wallaby and goat, all of it lean meat.

RM recalled that his family's desperation for fat was so dire, they would go and ask for spare sheep fat from station homesteads.

"You can't live without fat," he said.

Along with sweetness, humanity has always craved fat. It's the secret ingredient of Maccas and KFC, and it drives the beef feedlot industry.

Yes, the "low fat" food industry is huge. So is our population, and it's getting huger. The craving for fat, it seems, is stronger than our desire to eat low-fat products.

Eating more roo meat is a worthy objective, but roo farming can't replace domestic livestock.

Livestock are the product of thousands of years of careful breeding to suit our fat-hungry tastebuds.

With kangaroo, we in one bound go back to eating wild pig, or the scrawny wild chickens I've seen scratching under the rhododendrons of the Himalayas.

For some Middle Europeans, who like their game, this might be a good thing.

The rest of us want fat—and not be reminded too strongly of the animal we're eating.

I enjoy the occasional feed of roo, although some have been a bit gamey for my pampered taste. But roo is now on the shelves of our local supermarket and I find, like most of my fellow shoppers, that I'm passing the dark, stringy, lean meat in favour of something that is none of these things.

If we’re serious about roo farming, we'll need to start with a breeding program and kangaroo EBVs for marbling and tenderness.

The original product is a miracle of nature's engineering, and superbly adapted to this continent.

But for extended shelf space in the supermarket, it needs work.