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Feature Article January 29

Feature Article January 29, 2004

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What is a fellow to do?

I used to be a red meat guy; eating steak for Sunday breakfast was a family tradition in my early years, and the image of billowing smoke rising from a liberally butter-slathered frying pan in which the steak fried has lasted since then. The more smoke the better was my father's philosophy when he prepared the weekly treat. There were also roasts galore--beef, pork--and I even remember shopping for rump roast in a horsemeat store on Bank Street in Ottawa during the war. The government did not allow horsemeat to be knowingly sold in a regular butcher shop.

I ate meat liberally living on the farm. Old Bessie, after having passed her prime as a milker, joined a couple of porkers, and a flock of hens beyond the egg laying stage to be fall slaughtered and placed in a frozen food locker. During the following year pieces were brought back to the farm to be buried in the barn's oat bin cold storage until needed. There was no concern about the purity of the meat, as all the animals had been born and fed on the farm. Not so now, in this enlightened 21st century.

The publicity with accompanying TV images of the Mad Cow situation has turned my Significant Helpmate against beef. Details of animals being fed hormones, antibiotics and ground pieces of animal tissue are a turn-off. Their life is accelerated, exercise restrained and freedom curtailed, all for the sake of producing more beef faster. At least Old Bessie had a life; munching in the meadows, romping with a bull and raising a few calves. Only in her declining years was she sacrificed for our dinners, and we ate her without concern.

Sources of free-range chickens are drying up. Long, windowless barns hold stacked rows of cages in which the fowl are confined. The birds are fed a carefully balanced, chemical laden menu to produce as much white breast meat as possiblethat is our food preference. No insects in their diet, no wild seeds are ground in their gizzards; there is no flapping from dangers or excitement of chasing each other over handfuls of scattered oats. Shortly after birth, de-sexing quickly eliminates another distraction. In some places the men tending the flock have to shower and change clothes before entering the building in case they introduce foreign bacteria or virus. The process of protein production is hurried to meet the demands of the fast food outlets catering to our whims.

With the publicity of hog raising factory farms trying to get established locally, it is not necessary to detail that situation. There is an additional problem to misusing animals, and that is the disposition of hog waste, a particularly odorous and vile substance. Spraying it on the land in heavy concentrations changes it from plant nutrient to water table poison.

During the past several weeks there has been much publicity about the dangers in eating ocean-farmed salmon. Fish from both our coasts contain dangerous amounts of hormones and pesticides that producers have introduced into the food. The plea for us to eat more of the omega-3 fats that salmon provides is being drowned out by the cries of danger to our health.

What's a fellow to do? My SH is deftly steering me away from my old eating habits and I have to admit, with good cause. But I am not certain where she is leading me, as I watch her carefully wash foreign imported fruits and vegetables in a specially formulated soap and water to get rid of pesticides, chemicals and other surface contaminants. I muse about the insides of these luscious fruits that are flown in from around the world.

With the participation of the Government of Canada