Flightless Birds Land on Menus of Homeless Shelters

Until now, emu meat has been something of a delicacy, found only on upscale menus.

Soon, it will turn into meatloaf for hundreds of homeless people in Ventura County.

Two hundred pounds of the world’s second-largest bird are to be delivered today to three charities for the homeless. The donation stems from a national effort coordinated by Deborah Torbert, an Oxnard emu-industry promoter.

“What group deserves nutritious, affordable food more than the homeless?” she asked.

Cuts of Dromaius novauhollandiae are available locally at a handful of fine restaurants, but it’s hardly standard fare at soup kitchens.

That’s a pity, emu people say. They rhapsodize over the meat’s high iron content, low fat (one-fifth that of beef) and a cholesterol level that makes a baked-chicken special look like death with peas. They say it tastes like tri-tip.

In Ventura County, the frozen emu is destined for the Ventura County Rescue Mission in Oxnard, the Samaritan Center in Simi Valley and Ventura’s Family to Family. It probably will be served sometime in January, said Dan Williams, an official with Ventura County Food Share, which is helping with the distribution.

“The charities all loved the idea,” he said, although they didn’t have time to pull off the Christmas Day emu feast proposed by the growers.

The meat will be trucked from Santa Margarita by Simon Caleb, a rancher who raises about 800 birds there.

It was Caleb who conceived of the national emu giveaway, which is to provide at least 5 1/2 tons of the ungainly Australian bird to homeless people in eight states. At $3.50 a pound for ground emu, the meat’s street value is about $38,500, according to Torbert.

“The birds have multiplied, so that prices are coming down,” she said. “Emu is becoming affordable for everybody.”

Torbert dismisses criticism that emu-breeding--once a hot investment--has faded. In recent years, profits have dropped so precipitously that some breeders have resorted to killing their flocks rather than paying for their feed. A pair of Texas brothers actually bludgeoned to death 22 emus before police stopped them.

Still, Torbert refuses to see the market as dead.

“Tell that to the turkey industry, which took more than a generation before it was widely accepted on the average dinner table,” she countered.

This isn’t the first time emu ranchers have given away the product.

Last July, jail cooks in Phoenix were experimenting with dishes such as ostrich casserole. An Arizona couple had donated 40 ostriches and emu in an effort to reduce their inventory.

“I almost hate giving inmates such a fine-quality meat product, but at least it’s free,” Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio told reporters at the time.