<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?><oembed><version>1.0</version><provider_name>RENATURED</provider_name><provider_url>https://o-matic.com/blog</provider_url><author_name>Marina</author_name><author_url>https://o-matic.com/blog/blog/author/admin/</author_url><title>invasivores.</title><html>From the NY Times, Jan 2, 2011:
&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/weekinreview/02gorman.html?_r=1&amp;emc=eta1&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;A Diet for an Invaded Planet: Invasive Species&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;
There’s a new shift in the politics of food, not quite a movement yet,  more of an eco-culinary frisson. But it may have staying power; the  signs and portents are there. Vegans, freegans, locavores — meet the  invasivores.

Some divers in the Florida Keys &lt;a title=&quot;Times article.&quot; href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/science/23lionfish.html&quot;&gt;recently held a lionfish derby&lt;/a&gt;,  the idea being to kill and eat lionfish, an invasive species. Local  chefs cooperated by promoting the lionfish as a tasty entree. The idea  drew editorial support from Andrew Revkin &lt;a href=&quot;http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/new-weapon-against-invading-fish-the-pan/?ref=science&quot;&gt;in a post on The Times’s Dot Earth blog&lt;/a&gt; in which he also mentioned an attempt by some fisheries biologists to  rename the invading Asian carp “Kentucky tuna” to make it more appealing  to diners. And the Utne Reader recently ran &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.utne.com/Environment/Chicago-Chefs-Eating-Asian-Carp.aspx&quot;&gt;an article about Chicago chefs turning their attention to the same invasive fish&lt;/a&gt;.

The rumblings go further back, of course, as rumblings always do. The  idea of eating kudzu and the recipes for it have been around for  decades. More recently, at the beginning of 2009, a San Francisco  blogger on matters ecological, animal and political, &lt;a title=&quot;Tthe blog post.&quot; href=&quot;http://sfcompact.blogspot.com/2009/01/invasive-species-diet.html&quot;&gt;Rachel Kesel, posted a nicely turned argument&lt;/a&gt; for the “invasive species diet.”

Ms. Kesel, who grew up with a father who hunted deer, is now a  vegetarian, but she included animals as well as plants in her proposed  diet. She said in an interview that she was studying in London when she  wrote the post, which grew out of conversations about diet and ecology.  “If you really want to get down on conservation you should eat weeds,”  she decided. And so she blogged.

She now works for the parks department of San Francisco and said she did  indeed pursue the vegetable side of the diet she proposed. “I’m really  looking forward to some of our spring weeds here,” she said, notably &lt;a title=&quot;Picture of the plant.&quot; href=&quot;http://www.maltawildplants.com/CRUC/Brassica_rapa_subsp_sylvestris.php&quot;&gt;Brassica rapa&lt;/a&gt;, also known as field mustard or turnip mustard.

Ms. Kesel has a flair for the kind of rhetoric that any movement needs.  “I’m almost serious here,” she concluded her diet post. “Eat for the  environment. Eat locally. Eat wild meat. Eat for habitat. Eat invasive.”

Jackson Landers, unlike Ms. Kesel, is completely serious. As the &lt;a title=&quot;Mr. Landers’s blog.&quot; href=&quot;http://rule-303.blogspot.com/&quot;&gt;Locavore Hunter&lt;/a&gt;,  based in Virginia, he teaches urbanites how to hunt and butcher deer.  He has branched out from the locavore life to invasives... What if we developed a similar taste for  starlings?

I was pleased to see Canada geese and pigeons included in his list,  because in the Northeast, neophyte invasivores face some unappetizing  possibilities, like the zebra mussel (too little meat and too much  salmonella) and the unpleasant and unwanted freshwater algae, &lt;a title=&quot;Picture of the algae.&quot; href=&quot;http://www.ew.govt.nz/PageFiles/3681/didymo1.jpg&quot;&gt;Didymosphenia geminata&lt;/a&gt;, commonly called didymo, or, with absolutely no trace of affection, rock snot.

I don’t see the beginning of a menu there. But if we broaden the  definition of invasives to include the things that invade the average  suburbanite’s yard and golf course, a world of possibilities open up —  deer, raccoons, opossums, squirrels, skunks, rabbits and woodchucks.&lt;/blockquote&gt;</html><type>rich</type></oembed>