AR-News: (CA) Before you sink your teeth into that burger ...

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

By DAVID BOYD
Thursday, April 8, 2004 - Page A19 

 



 
Columnists 
Lysiane Gagnon  









These appear to be tough times for meat-eaters in Canada: ostracized by 
popular movies like Babe, Chicken Run, and The Meatrix (a cult Internet hit); 
lambasted in the bestselling book Fast Food Nation; fearful of mad-cow disease, 
avian flu and PCBs in farmed salmon.
Yet meat continues to be a fixture at almost every meal in Canada. Individual 
Canadians eat about 100 kilograms of meat a year, twice as much as the global 
average. That works out to 275 grams a day (equal to three good-sized burger 
patties), three times higher than the level recommended by the World Cancer 
Research Fund.
>From a health perspective, eating meat is associated with health problems 
that are widespread in Canada: heart disease, stroke, obesity, cancer and 
diabetes. Nutritionists and mothers are right: We should eat more vegetables, fruits 
and legumes. An added benefit of eating less meat would be less strain on our 
medical system.
In recent decades, small-scale farm operations have given way to industrial 
livestock operations, also known as factory farms. In Canada between 1961 and 
1996, the average number of animals per farm rose dramatically: cows, 147 per 
cent; chickens, 1,610 per cent; and hogs, a mind-boggling 2,451 per cent.




full story:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040408/COBOYD
08/TPComment/TopStories 
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