Mithun meat set to go mainstream, may be newest addition to your menu

The animal found largely in NE-India is known for its low-fat, highly nutritious meat

Pork is passé. Mithun is now likely to be the newest addition to your meat menu.

In a first, and with effect from September 1, the mithun (Bos frontalis) bovine that is found mostly in the Northeast has been classified as a food animal by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India.
 

Experts said that the classification of Mithun as “food animal” would open doors for the exports of its meat, allow its commercial sale and distribution outside the main producing areas, and also allow farmers to benefit from large-scale rearing.
 

Mithun could also be promoted as a low-fat, organic alternative to buffalo meat. India is the world’s largest exporter of buffalo meat. Around Rs 26,000 crore worth of buffalo meat is shipped out of India annually.
 

Mithun is a semi-domesticated bovine species that is ubiquitous in a few Northeastern states and plays an important role in socioeconomic and cultural fabric of the tribal population.
 

It is the state animal of Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland and is primarily reared for meat in community farms. Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram account for almost 98 per cent of the global mithun production.
 

Mithun meat has a fat content of 0.4-4 per cent while traditional buffalo meat has a fat content of 10-12 per cent.
 

“Mithun meat has a good nutritive value with high protein content, amino acids, water-soluble vitamins, minerals and low-fat content regardless of age and gender. Moreover, it echoes the principle of ‘vocal for local’,” Abhijit Mitra, Union animal husbandry commissioner and a former director of the ICAR-National Research Centre on Mithun, told Business Standard.
 

Experts pointed out that mithun is fully organic, as it does not feed on anything that is consumed by humans.
 

India has a mithun population of around 390,000, according to the 2019 livestock census. Their numbers have seen 30 per cent growth over the previous census done in 2012.
 

Reports show that under a semi-intensive system, the body weight of an adult mithun (aged 4-5 years) could be anywhere between 400 and 500 kilograms.
 

Its meat is also considered superior to that of other cattle because apart from low fat, it also contains (14-19 per cent) proteins and low carbohydrate percentage (0.06-4.97).
 

The government is also looking at framing bankable schemes for mithun farmers and bringing it under the cattle insurance net.