Category: Eat Less Meat

Meatless Monday has come to Vancouver!

May 13th, 2013 · · Eat Less Meat One comment

For Immediate Release: May 13, 2013

Vancouver to Proclaim June 10, 2013 Meatless Monday

Vancouver is scheduled to become the first Canadian city to endorse Meatless Monday, the growing movement that encourages citizens to eat less meat for the environment and health.  Following a request from the Vancouver Food Policy Council, Mayor Gregor Robertson will sign a Proclamation declaring June 10, 2013 Meatless Monday.  On that day people will be urged to go meatless.

 

“It’s a great start, and an excellent way to bring attention to the environmental and other benefits of being more careful about our meat consumption, ” said Trish Kelly, co-chair of the Food Policy Council.  It’s all part of making our food systems sustainable, she said.

 

The initiative fits with Vancouver’s Greenest City Action Plan, according to the Proclamation, and with environmental goals laid out in the city’s recently-released Food Strategy.  That’s because scientific research increasingly demonstrates that large-scale intensive meat production uses disproportionate amounts of land, water, and feed, adds markedly to climate change, and is a factor in water pollution and food contamination, according to meatlessmonday.com.

 

“While livestock can be good for environments and meat can be good for health,” says Vancouver’s Proclamation, “excessive amounts can harm ecosystems.”

 

The Proclamation adds that programs and policies such as Meatless Monday have educated global citizens to moderate their intake of animal-source foods and choose meat, dairy and seafood that have been produced sustainably.

 

A wartime conservation strategy, Meatless Monday was revived a decade ago as a way of recommending that people cut back on meat for ecology, health, and animal welfare.  Meatless Monday has been endorsed by U.S. cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, DC, by hundreds of school districts and universities in the U.S., and by organizations and food professionals around the world, as listed on meatlessmonday.com.

Organizers of Meatless Monday in Vancouver say the event has widespread support, and will be celebrated with media and community events. Accomplished local chef Andrea Carlson will host a press conference at her recently-opened Main Street restaurant Burdock and Co. A facebook page has been created for the day so that individuals and groups can post how they plan to celebrate Meatless Monday, and find out how to take part.   https://www.facebook.com/events/266505080159862/

 

 

Contacts for interviews:  

Trish Kelly, co-chair, Vancouver Food Policy Council: trishkellyc@gmail.com; 604.879.1386;  Eleanor Boyle, Author: High Steaks: Why and How to Eat Less Meat: eleanorboyle@gmail.com; 604 – 230-2561;  Dave Steele, President, Earthsave Canada: dsteele@earthsave.ca. 604-454-1919

More background information:

vancouverfoodpolicycouncil.ca/meatless-mondays

https://www.facebook.com/events/266505080159862/

meatlessmonday.ca

meatlessmonday.com

 

 

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Let’s speak respectfully of all people, no matter what their food choices.

April 18th, 2013 · · Eat Less Meat, Eating for Ecosystems, Eating for Health 3 comments

A recent food article in my local newspaper repeated an annoying phrase.  Recovering vegetarian.  Not even in quotes, but stated as if it were fact.  The expression was used to describe a young woman who for years did not eat meat but who for various reasons has taken up the steak knife again.

It’s not the first time I’ve heard the expression ‘recovering vegetarian.’  I’m sorry to report I first heard it from food activists.  There are also websites written by people who use it to label themselves. Nevertheless, I’ve never liked the phrase and don’t like it now.

To say it is to suggest that vegetarians have a disorder, and that those who resume eating meat are on the road to becoming normal and healthy again. Or it suggests that vegetarianism is a fad followed by misguided individuals, some of whom thankfully see the light and go back to consuming animal products.

The phrase sounds clever.  But it’s a disrespectful dig at people who make the decision not to eat meat. That decision is courageous and difficult today when most menus and meals are centred on animal products, and when most of the people around us eat flesh food twice a day.  Check out the offerings at almost any restaurant, and you’ll see that avoiding chicken, pork and beef takes commitment. But vegetarians do it because they’ve decided to be kinder to animals, or to the planet, or to their health.  That’s because scientific evidence shows that eating conventional meat in the amounts we do today produces huge amounts of greenhouse gases, water pollution, and deforestation, as well as fueling avian flus, antibiotic resistance, and chronic disease. Whether or not you agree with vegetarians’ specific approach to the problems, their ideals are worthy of regard.

In my work, I encourage people to eat sustainably and compassionately.  And one way they can do that is by consuming a lot less (and better) animal products.  I don’t recommend that people become completely vegetarian, because most people won’t and because avoiding meat altogether is not necessary for the environment or for health.  But those who decide to stop eating meat deserve our respect.  And we can show our respect by not using phrases like ‘recovering vegetarian,’ but rather by speaking kindly of others no matter what their food decisions.  That kind of compassion will probably help us make faster progress toward better food systems.  It’s also the right thing to do.

Let’s talk about a livestock drug called ractopamine.

January 31st, 2013 · · Eat Less Meat, Eating for Health No comments

Americans would consider themselves pretty stringent when it comes to health and safety, certainly compared with countries like China and Russia.  But on the subject of a livestock drug called ractopamine, those other countries are more health-conscious, or at least cautious, than the United States.  Today I see that Russia has decided to ban American meat that is likely to contain ractopamine, a drug widely used in some intensive livestock production in the U.S. and Canada.  http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/russia-to-ban-us-meat-imports-february-11.aspx?pageID=238&nID=40230&NewsCatID=345.  Russia is not the first country to warn U.S. meat producers that it doesn’t want this drug in its imported animal-source foods.

As I discuss in my book High Steaks: Why and How to Eat Less Meat, ractopamine hydrochloride is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency[i] for use in some food animals to promote weight gain, improve feed efficiency, and add extra lean muscle tissue. [ii]

But you can’t always mess with Mother Nature without side-effects, as outlined on government websites concerning ractopamine.  Cautions include that employees with cardiovascular disease should avoid exposure to this chemical; that people who are mixing and handling the medicated feed should use protective clothing, impervious gloves, and a dust mask; and that operators should wash thoroughly with soap and water after handling.[iv]  The government site adds that pigs fed this drug “may be at increased risk for exhibiting the fatigued or downer pig syndrome.”[v]  There was a particularly arresting caution on the government website, which has since been removed, stating that “turkeys fed ractopamine hydrochloride may experience alteration in behaviour, hyperexcitability, hyperactivity, musculoskeletal or cutaneous injury and increased mortality.”[vi] And this drug has been going into our meat.

When I studied undergraduate psychopharmacology at the University of Chicago, the professor said something I would never forget.  “All drugs are dirty,” he declared one day from the front of the classroom.  No chemical medication has ever been invented, he explained, and nor would it ever, that provides solely the benefit we seek.[vii]  That’s true whether the drug claims to promote weight loss, improve mood, ease headaches, or make animals lean.  Every drug has multiple effects aside from those we wish, and the ‘side effects’ are often undesirable.  My professor’s memorable piece of wisdom is one reason I avoid unnecessary medications, and one reason for us to reconsider putting chemicals into meat animals, and into our food at all.

There’s a solution to the problem of drugs in livestock.  We can stop expecting cheap meat at every meal.  We can eat less meat, find sustainable sources and be willing to pay more for it, and urge our governments to require livestock production to be natural, clean, and kind.  See the animated trailer for my book at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP0pYiCtL5w.


[i] CFIA: http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/anima/feebet/mib/drguse1e.shtml; FDA: http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/animaldrugsatfda/

[ii] Food and Drug Administration document on PAYLEAN 9 and PAYLEAN 45  (Ractopamine Hydrochloride) Type A Medicated Article for Finishing Swine April 25, 2006

[iv] CFIA 2010.  Canadian Food Inspection Agency.  Ractopamine Hydrochloride – MIB #82.  www.inspection.gc.ca/english/anima/feebet/mib   Modified:  2010-07-13. P. 7.

[v] Ractopamine hydrochloride – MIB #82. Canadian Food Inspection Agency.  www.inspection.gc.ca.  2011.

[vi] CFIA 2010.  Canadian Food Inspection Agency.  Ractopamine Hydrochloride – MIB #82.  www.inspection.gc.ca/english/anima/feebet/mib   Modified:  2010-07-13. P. 7.

[vii] For this wisdom I pay tribute to the memory of Professor Lewis Seiden, noted scientist, author, and teacher at the University of Chicago.

Citizens of India are eating more and more meat.

January 2nd, 2013 · · Eat Less Meat No comments

 

India used to be a country of vegetarians.  And there still are many millions there who eat no meat. But India is showing a significant trend to more meat-eating, per-capita, as documented in a fascinating recent article in DW, a German media group. http://www.dw.de/vegetarians-developing-a-taste-for-meat/a-16490496. Indians are drinking more dairy products and eating more highly-processed and ‘junk’ foods than they historically did. And that’s a threat to the environment and health, just as high levels of meat consumption are dangerous here in North America, as documented in my book High Steaks: Why and How to Eat Less Meat.

Among reasons for the trend in India, meat is becoming a status symbol there, as in other developing and emerging economies. And the Hindu religious strictures against meat-eating don’t seem to hold the power over younger generations that they did. But another factor is food-industry advertising. Transnational food processing corporations see enormous potential markets internationally for their animal products and processed foods.  Big fast-food chains are figuring out how to crack the Indian market.  McDonald’s, says the DW article,”which has been present in India since 1996, doesn’t serve beef burgers there. Instead, it offers the so-called “Chicken Maharajah Burger,” which, according to the adverts, will make anyone eating it feel like a maharajah. Clever marketing using Bollywood and cricket stars is presumably one of the reasons why more and more people all over India are eating meat and fast-food.”

From environmental and health perspectives, there’s nothing wrong with small-to-moderate intake of animal products. But as we’ve seen in the West over the past century, allowing food corporations to convince people they need lots of calories and lots of fat ends up compromising our health and our environments. Perhaps concerned citizens all over the world should take food advertising with a grain of salt.

 

 

 

Let’s explode a few myths about GMOs.

December 30th, 2012 · · Eat Less Meat No comments

Just finished watching an abridged version of the movie Genetic Roulette, in which consumer advocate Jeffrey M. Smith and scientific experts lay out reasons to refuse genetic engineering or genetically modified organisms (GMOs).   Even if you just watch a bite-sized portion of the film, you’ll appreciate the courageous work of these individuals and organizations that dare to oppose the powers-that-be on this crucial environmental issue.  They demonstrate the fallacies of commonly-held beliefs about GMOs, and show that GMOs do not increase yields in the long-term, have not increased U.S. agricultural exports, and have not even lowered the need for farm pesticides.

Genetic Roulette strongly recommends that we buy food labeled ‘organic’ or ‘non-GMO verified.’ (http://geneticroulettemovie.com/) (http://www.responsibletechnology.org)

The movie adds to the growing body of powerful evidence against genetic engineering of our food. Also recently published in the UK was the excellent booklet ‘GMO Myths and Truths,’ (earthopensource.org) written by three European authors with solid credentials on the topic.  Search it, and you’ll find a downloadable pdf.  It’s easy-to-read, laid out in short chapters addressing the many biotech-PR-driven myths concerning GE/GMO foods. Here are a few of the telling points from GMO Myths and Truths:

(1) Myth: Genetic engineering is just an extension of natural breeding. Truth: Genetic engineering is very different from natural breeding and poses special risks.

(2) Myth: Genetic engineering is precise and the results are predictable. Truth: Genetic engineering is crude and imprecise, and the results are unpredictable.

(3) Myth: GM foods are strictly regulated for safety. Truth: GM food regulation in most countries varies from non-existent to weak.

(4) Myth: GM foods are safe to eat. Truth: Studies show that GM foods can be toxic or allergenic.

(5) Myth: Genetic engineering will deliver more nutritious crops. Truth: No GM crop that is more nutritious than its non-GM counterpart has been commercialised and some GMOs are less nutritious.

(6) Myth: GM crops help biodiversity. Truth: The herbicides used with GM crops harm biodiversity.

(7) Myth: GM crops bring economic benefits to farmers. Truth: Economic impacts of GM crops on farmers are variable.

(8) Myth: GM crops are needed to feed the world’s growing population. Truth: GM crops are irrelevant to feeding the world.

(9) Myth: GM crops are vital to achieve food security. Truth: Agroecological farming is the key to food security.

- GMO Myths and Truths, 2012, by Michael Antoniou, Claire Robinson, and John Fagan. Published June 2012 by Earth Open Source, London, UK.