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The Culture of Meat
Podcast: 'Deconstructing Dinner' launches Livestock Lost series with an inside look at factory slaughterhouses.
[Editor's note: This is a summary of a podcast you can download or listen to from this page.]
The Livestock Lost series will examine the business of meat, dairy and egg production in far more depth than has already been done here on the show. It will examine the known and unknown dangers of cheap factory meat -- a staple of most North Americans' diets -- and the challenges of finding alternative sources.
On this first show of the series, we hear from Toronto author Susan Bourette. After going undercover at the Maple Leaf Foods slaughterhouse and processing plant in Brandon, Manitoba, Susan became deeply disturbed at the state in which meat, animals and workers are degraded in this industry. The experience led her to embark on a journey to learn if meat still holds any cultural significance in North America, or if it has simply become an industrial commodity. She titled the product of her journey "carnivore chic" because, as Susan discovered, meat eating does continue to be a cultural experience in some areas of the continent, while in others, the practice is only just becoming "cool" again.
Food safety scares as well as animal welfare, human health and environmental concerns have no doubt given Canadians many reasons to rethink where our meat comes from. There's just one problem: meat that may be safer (that which is healthier, more humanely produced and has less of an overall ecological impact) is not always readily available. This is especially the case in British Columbia.
Prior to October 2007, it was legal for a British Columbian to show up at a farm and purchase meat from a farmer. That choice is no longer afforded to anyone because all meat sold in the province must now be processed at a federally or provincially licensed facility. Many areas of the province are without such a facility, and, as a result, farmers across the province have been closing up shop and/or considering an occupation change.
Meanwhile, the provincial government continues to promote local food!
Deconstructing Dinner first covered British Columbia's controversial new meat inspection regulations in May 2006. The topic was revisited in 2007, and will again be discussed in the Livestock Lost series.
Guests/voices
Susan Bourette, author, Carnivore Chic (Toronto, Ont.) -- Susan is an award-winning writer with a reputation for investigative journalism. Formerly a reporter for The Globe and Mail, she is now a freelance writer.
Corky Evans, MLA Nelson-Creston/NDP opposition critic for Agriculture and Lands, New Democratic Party of British Columbia (Winlaw, B.C.) -- Corky Evans was elected as the MLA for Nelson-Creston in 1991, and was re-elected in 1996. He was once again elected to represent his constituents on May 17, 2005. Corky has 10 years experience as an MLA, during which time he served in many cabinet portfolios, including minister of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries. He now serves as opposition critic for Agriculture and Lands.
Jenny MacLeod, secretary, District "A" Farmers' Institutes (Gabriola Island, B.C.) -- The District "A" Farmers' Institutes represents all farmers' institutes on Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands and Powell River.
Tony Toth, former CEO, B.C. Food Processors Association (BCFPA) (Vancouver, B.C.) -- The BCFPA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to representing all segments of the food, beverage and nutraceutical processing industry, and to co-ordinating common industry activities and resources under one umbrella. The organization was asked by the province to manage the implementation of the meat inspection regulation changes announced in 2004. In August 2007, Tony Toth was interviewed by Connie Watson on the CBC's The Current. Segments from this interview are featured.
Audio Clips
"Meats With Approval" (1946), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
- BC snuffs out AirCare test program
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- 'The Dictator'
- Death in Remand: Stacked Deck
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- From Financial Advisor to Occupier
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- 'Storage Wars'
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- ISS astronauts grab DragonX space capsule by the tail with Canada Arm
- Metro Vancouver gas prices peak at record levels
- Ottawa posts $9-billion deficit in March despite pledge to avoid spending spree
- BC phases out AirCare to focus on fighting bigger vehicle emissions
- Tsunami senors to be dropped into deep sea off of Vancouver Island
- Student groups file court challenge against Quebec protest law
- ...while on the streets, pirates and ninjas put aside mutual animosity to join student protests
26
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Fiat lux
3 years ago
As a small, organic beef
As a small, organic beef producer, I can assure anybody that healthy, organic beef can be produced and sold at much lower costs than the feedlot garbage people are being fed and poisoned with.
We're selling our 5-6 month old organic veal, the meat of calves that have never had any shots, and ate only their mothers' milk and grass, at $4.50/lb. by the half, while in the stores, we have seen organic meat sold at up to $20. Which is just another, cruel profiteering racket.
We have a fully inspected meat producing plant in the neighbourhood, but now prefer to use a European butcher, who cuts up the meat before freezing it, resulting in much cleaner and better tasting food.
It is perfectly legal for people to have their own animals processed in non-regulated facilities. Therefore, when a customer buys a calf, he can take it to anybody. Farmers should wake up to this simple fact.
It is quite obvious that the actions of the BC government have been ordered by big business, working on the total control of the markets through the destruction of the family farm and its replacement with the multinational agribiz mafia.
Calves we can't sell privately, are going to the auction sales, where prices are fixed by a few multinationals, forcing ranchers, who are now receiving half of what they were getting 10 years ago, off their lands.
Then, as the animals are being loaded on the buyers' trucks, they're pumped full of antibiotics, growth hormones and steroids, then taken to feedlots, some of the worst environmental disaster areas, where they're fed with grains and more chemicals to put "marble" into their flesh, otherwise known as stinking tallow, the North American public has been brainwashed to eat.
There was an article in the Western Producer, some years ago, where they followed animals from one feedlot to another and the same pumping up procedure was repeated each time, until the animals received 5-6 times the "recommended dosages". Yet, the governments ignore all this.
Now, thanks to these criminal actions, and government corruption to bolster the profits of the corporate mafia, our schoolyards and streets look like herds of pigs, fattened for the markets.
The problem is that small producers are not donating enough to the Reform Party, now governing BC and Canada under various disguises, but the corporate mafia is very generous with its donations and so the family farm must go.
Ed Deak, Big Lake.
RickW
3 years ago
Stupidity!
City people are for the most part, completely (and willingly) ignorant of what it takes to get the food to their plates. Consequently, they are ready victims of any hucksters that come along. In this case the hucksters are their very own governments, obsessed as they are about corporate ownership of everything. And the reason for this obsession? Two things, by and large:
a) MPs and MLAs are looking after their own post-politics livliehoods, and corporation love to have ex-poiticos on their boards of directors, and/or as lobbyists;
b) Political parties find it much easier to solicit funds from centralized corporate structures than from thousands of independant individual entrepreneurs.
As for "government of, for, and by the people"? Well, I suppose that figures in somewhere...............
snert
3 years ago
Good call Rick W
Health standards just don't into food processing at all do they?
BC Mary
3 years ago
Oh dear ...
RickW ...
You mention "government of the people ..." etc. and, the inference, I think, is that we should be abiding by our traditions. Oh dear.
The quote figures in somewhere, all right.
The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln
-- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. ...
Sheesh.
RickW
3 years ago
snert
I suppose somewhere in a "runnerup" position after the politics, payola, and petty bureaucratic fiefdoms....
If health standards were parmount, we wouldn't have grain-fed beef at all.....
RickW
3 years ago
BC Mary
I suppose it actually IS a government of, for and by, the people. Trick here though is defining just who "people" are. The hoi polloi are definitely NOT people, for instance............
Fiat lux
3 years ago
I've seen so much brainwash,
I've seen so much brainwash, by all sides, in my life, that I've often wondered whether brainwashed humans are still people, or programmed machines ? The military for example, and I have see the worst of it ?
The problem is that being a non believer sceptic is a very lonely state and few can handle it.
I've also wondered for many years, who in hell has ever invented grain fed beef and got away with one of the stupidest actions to ruin good meat ? We can't eat that stinking crap any more.
Ed Deak.
snert
3 years ago
It ain't politicians.
It's lawyers and bureaucrats.
snert
3 years ago
Nothing wrong with grain fed beef.
If you eat it wisely.
And Ed, I've eaten lots of grass fed beef and find it rather bland.
ME2
3 years ago
Snert
Snert advises :
"Nothing wrong with grain fed beef. If you eat it wisely."
Well then, what's the recommended dose?
snert
3 years ago
Moderation
As with all things.
Fiat lux
3 years ago
Snert, anybody who
Snert, anybody who supports your theories would find anything unadulterated with crap also bland.
I've delivered several packages of organic veal to the Williams Lake Tribune, a Black organization paper, asking for their objective opinions and it was, in the paper, that they've never tasted better meat.
We also have visitors from all over the world and they all say the same.
Last year a friend brought up some very expensive steaks from a Langley supermarket and they all ended in the garbage.
This pumping meat up with tallow is an American invention and look at the people they elect and allow to lead them up the garden path. Could be the stinking tallow warping their brains ????
The feedlots where they commit these crimes against humanity are environmental disaster areas, against all reason and logic, at the same mental level of the Chicago School , neoclassical market economic theory that's killing the world.
Anybody who believes one, will believe the other.
Ed Deak.
snert
3 years ago
So what you're saying, Ed
Is that when you serve your meat there is no other preparation. No spices or seasoning, no marinate or other flavouring methods that people use to hide (adulterate) the true flavour of meat.
Most people wouldn't know a tasty piece of meat if it jumped up and bit them as it's usually so over prepared. IMHO
Once again, there is nothing wrong with beef that has been fed grain for a couple of months before slaughter. There is absolutely no reason to avoid it when eaten in moderation. It can even be classed as organic.
An interesting Wiki article here.
Fiat lux
3 years ago
Off to town and this blog
Off to town and this blog till tomorrow, but...
Beef are not grain eaters, they have to be forced to eat it. Neither are the shots and chemicals they're pumped up with to make them fat.
Look around the schoolyards and the streets, the disgusting spectacle of former humans fattened up like pigs with that tallow. The the governments and the medical profession are crying crocodile tears over diabetes and overweight people.
There shouldn't be any fat coming outr of beef when it is cooked. Some of this supermarket junk fills a cup from a couple of steaks.
What people can enjoy in that crap is a mystery and the result of generation of brainwash.
Ed Deak.
snert
3 years ago
Ed Deak
What part of moderation are you having difficulty with? Your shotgun approach to multiple issues involved in meat production borders on ludicrous.
You can't produce beef without fat unless you harass the hell out of your cows. A grass fed cow just has a different colour fat and maybe not quite so much depending on the food content of the grass it eats.
The degree of fat content for grain finished cattle can be controlled as well. It would have to be market driven though.
BTW You mentioned veal a while back. Do you still raise it and by what method?
RickW
3 years ago
Wow, snert! You're doing it again!
(But I can't say what it is you're doing because I was "edited" last time.........)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/05/010511074623.htm
http://www.organicgrassfedbeefinfo.com/safety-of-grass-fed-beef.html
snert
3 years ago
Wow Rick W
Good info if it consisted of a bit more detail and a bit less bias. I do like the bit about the our E. Coli is better than your E. Coli though. Followed up with that below.
"Regardless of whether you have natural and delicious grass fed beef or ordinary super market beef sausage to cook, remember these tips:"
Note how the discussion has now gotten away from the red herring of blame it on the politicians. Seems that was your line of thinking as well as Ed's.
Moderation, Rick, moderation.
RickW
3 years ago
and a bit less bias
Can you show me where your completely objective info comes from, snert?
As for your e.coli vs. my e.coli:
http://www.hsus.org/wildlife/issues_facing_wildlife/zoos/health_dangers_at_petting_zoos_and_fairs.html
realisticman
3 years ago
This is also an Environment Story
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/mg19526134.500-meat-is-murder-on-the-environment.html
Organic beef generally excepted.
Fiat lux
3 years ago
snert.....Our calves are
snert.....Our calves are butchered at about 5-6 months, have no shots and eat nothing but their mothers' milk and grass.
They have the tenderest and tastiest meat anybody could wish for.
As far the cows are concerned, when we have to butcher one, also free of any shots and grains for about the 10 years of their lives, they go into the finest ground beef, people love it as it also has no fat to speak of.
I wish I could send you a few packages of real meat you and millions of others may never have tasted.
The Brits love their beef and even when I was working in England on a corporate farm, Chivers, from 1948 to 55, at that time our cattle, Angus and shorthorn, never had any grain. I don't know about it now.
Ed Deak.
RickW
3 years ago
Not to Mention.....
....an average of 7 pounds of grain to raise a single pound of beef, and anywhere from 2,500 to as much as 6,000 gallons of water for each pound of beef:
http://www.jhu.edu/jhumag/0603web/letters.html#beef
http://www.earthsave.org/environment/water.htm
snert
3 years ago
Yardsticks
Interesting variation in this article.
http://www.earthsave.org/environment/water.htm
"The livestock industry took great offense at this. Schulbach told me that they “turned a scientific project into political football.” Subsequently, at the behest of the cattlemen, Jim Oltjen and colleagues in the Department of Animal Science at U.C. Davis came out with a very different calculation, asserting the requirements for a pound of beef to be 441 gallons of water. Jim Oltjen’s work, along with similar work by Gerald Ward (Department of Animal Science, Colorado State University) forms the basis for the figures that the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association have used ever since to rebut the arguments of environmentalists who point to the enormous waste of water involved in modern beef production. (How identified Jim Oltjen is with the industry can be glimpsed from his official portrait at the University of California, where he wears a cowboy hat.)"
I suspect the truth lies somewhere in the middle and that the same yardstick is probably not being applied equally whenever comparisons are made.
snert
3 years ago
Meat
Thanks for the offer of the meat, Ed. It would be really hard to surpass the best hamburger meat ever. I had occasion to stay in a cabin, for a couple of months, that had no electricity or running water. I bought some meat that was more than enough for one meal. Having no place to keep it but a cooler over top a running stream the meat got a little ripe for the next meal. I cooked it really really really really well and the flavour was magnificent.
Ageing provides a lot of flavour to beef.
RickW
3 years ago
441 gallons of water
Don't forget to throw in the amount of water it takes to grow the unnecessary grain fed to the cattle..............
http://www.moneyweek.com/file/12513/how-to-profit-from-the-worlds-water-crisis.html
That’s because it takes between 2,000 and 5,000 litres of water to grow one kilogram of rice, 11,000 litres to grow the feed for enough cow for a quarter-pound hamburger, 50 cups of water for a teaspoon of sugar and 140 litres of water to produce just one cup of coffee.
snert
3 years ago
About that yardstick.
It ain't being used.
RickW
3 years ago
Snert, if we're talking about what is..........
.....rather than what should be, then there is no point to this whole forum, is there?
So, with that in mind, why are you posting here?