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Hey fellow Canadians:

This isn't a scare tactic; this is information for you to make your own judgement call.

I just finished watching the Nature of Things with David Suzuki. How many of you eat chicken? Pork? Jello? Candy that has gelatin in it? Do you feel it's safe? What about sausages? I thought chicken and pork were both safe - safer than beef; how wrong I was.

Well, sad to say, none of those things are safe. Why? Chickens are fed rendered cattle parts; ditto for pork. Gelatin is made from cow parts as well - the hoof (sp?) I think. Cow brain is used to bind sausage meat. What does this all come down too? The fact that only a small percentage of cattle are tested for BSE. I'm not trying to hurt anyone, but, when my own government doesn't have my health in mind, I have to speak out and let others know the facts!

Here is the real kicker. Martin, in his wisdom, or lack thereof, decided to give a billion dollars to the industry. 49 million went to rendering plants that are mostly American owned because that is what Mulroney agreed to with NAFTA. Most of the other billion went to other corporations - mainly corporations that produce growth hormones, etc. The farmers got very little of this money.

England went through this and survived. So did Japan. How did they do this? They spent the money and started testing every animal. That billion dollars would have tested all the cattle in this country for the next 6 - 10 years, and would have put us back in business for shipping cattle. Instead, corporations, mainly US ones, were the winners.

   

All very true, norad.

One of the best models to follow is that of Ireland. They banned rendered animals from all animal feed. They now test every animal. They did what had to be down and now their cattle industry is booming.

Canada should have a huge advantage here. We are this big nation with lots of room for raising our livestock free range. You know what cows ate when I was growing up? Grass in the summer and hay in the winter. We'd supplement the hay with chop...crushed grain. It never occurred to us to meat to herbivores.

Nobody got BSE.

If you really want an eye-opener go look at some of these huge hog operations they have now. Basically torture for the animals...their crammed in so close together in such unnatural conditions that you can't wear your street clothes inside the barns...you have to change first.

   

Well, I assume the hog operations are as bad as the chicken ones; I have seen those operations. I remember free range beef, pork and chickens. My grandfather owned black angus cattle, and they were free range - fed hay in the winter.

I'm not sure what kind of idiot thought of feeding meat to a herbivore!

The other thing that was brought up, Rev, was that 3 prominent scientists with Health Canada were fired because their interest was in public health, where it should be, and not corporate greed. One scientist worked for Health Canada for 35 years! They made a stand and were silenced by being let go - or so Health Canada thought. They all appeared on the Nature of Things - good for them!

The excuse from officials is they don't know what to do with the by-products. The other excuse was that incinerating them would cause more environment problems. England incinerates the parts and uses the burning method for generating energy. Seems more reasonable to do this instead of feeding herbivores meat!

   

Those scientists that got fired have been more than a bit of a thorn in the side of the government. They've been showing up on the call-in shows sometimes etc. They have also launched wrongful dismissal suits.

The whole problem is that the government let private industry get involved in regulating themselves. It doesn't work and we should have known that it doesn't work. Common sense tells you that you shouldn;t put the fox in charge of the hen house.

Our government system is the other problem. The only way you can get fired quickly from the federal government is to speak out against policy to the press. If you're one of those scientists and you go to your boss and he tells you to shut up, and that happens several times up and down the ladder and you know that there's a problem, what are you supposed to do? They did the right thing and got fired for it.

   

i don't understand why they have to feed animals, other animals. for the most part they are herbivores, they don't naturally eat meat. that also brings us to the simmilar problem of cattle being given anitbiotics, for whaterever reason, and now there are bacteria that is now resistant to antibiotics. it just seems by trying to do all of these artifical methods of increasing the weight of the animal is going to cause many more rproblems than money it save it them. which i guess has already happened the with mad cow problem.

   

It all started in the 1970s when they let Cargill into Canada, Sk1d. That was the beginning of the end. When Mulroney signed the original FTA it sealed the deal.

You see, farming used to be a way of life. You were never rich, but you generally had enough to get by comfortably. When you retired you kind of eased into it.

With the coming of Cargill farms started to get bigger. With the FTA it became agri-business instead of farming.

   

did you know that it takes more calories, eneergy, to grow food in north america, than the food grown produces. all the chemicals, genetically modifided crops, and the ones that grow for one seanson then destroy themselves, is the most inefficient way to produce food.

put the polant in the ground, give it some good soil, some water and let it grow. it won't look like the picture perfect produce you see on tv, but it will be cheaper to gorw and have more nutrients.

learned that in anthropology class a few years back.

   

Side Note: Chickens aren't herbavores. They will eat and thoroughly enjoy eating their own eggs, as well as meat (bugs and fish)

It;s not so much THAT they eat meat, it's what their fed. In North America if "food" is fit for human comsumption it is ILLEGAL to sell it as "Pet food" Retarded, I know. What constitutes "meat" in their diet is actually by products.

Pigs eat meat also....again it's the type of meat/byproducts their fed that causes the problems.

Cows should NEVER eat meat. They have 4 stomaches for a reason...Course there not really stomachs, but you get the idea.

People are not meant to eat as much meat as we do. We are omnivores. We should eat more veggies then meat. Meat should be a treat of sorts. But humans are notoriously famous for taking the path of least resistance and for seeking instant gratification.

Too bad....it's going to lead to our demise

   

They'll also eat each other...if one is sick or injured it will be cannibalized. Actually, if you apend a lot of time around chickens it becomes pretty damned easy to wield the axe.

   

I edited the shit out of this post...

My whole point really is the feeding practices. Petty to mention herbivore, omnivore, or carnivore when considering the consequences of feeding these creatures things THAT they don't eat in the wild. Have you seen a bunch of chickens eating a dead cow? What about pigs? I haven't, and I'm sure that they don't.

Chickens eating each other, I can see that happening with no consequence. Chickens eating their eggs, I can see that happening, again, with no consequence. Chickens eating bugs, again, I can see that happening with no consequence. I think you get my drift. Picking one silly thing I mentioned, herbivore, is really silly, maybe even childish, considering my original post was a wealth of information for you to make a more healthy choice when you go to the grocery store.

Oh, another bit of information for you, which is off topic, but along the same line: Tartrazine. It's a coal tar derivative; yep, you may be eating industrial waste! Found in pickles, ice creams, cheddars, pops, anything with a orange/yellow colour to it. And, our lovely government being the no nuts guys that they are, don't even have a law in place stating that manufacturers must put what is in some of the ingredients listed; namely, colour. I will mention the brand here. If the mod feels that it must be deleted, so be it.

Mountain Dew use to have (contains tartrazine) beside the colour ingredient; this was late last year, or early this year...can't really recall the timeline. Anyway, now on the ingredients listed, it's just colour. As mentioned above, since there is no law stating manufacturers must list what's in the ingredients, I can guarantee you that the colour in Mountain Dew still has tartrazine in it.

   

No, but I have seen them pecking away at a dead horse. Not sure if they after the horse or the maggots, but whatever. That was actually at the place where we get our chickens from...it's one of the realities of free-range chickens. I never told Mrs. Rev, does that make me a bad person?

The thing is that chickens have evolved to eat like that. They are omnivorous.

Cows aren't. Cows are designed to eat grass and grain. Feeding them meat, especially other ungulates, is the equivalent of introducing small-pox infested Europeans to American natives.

   

Really? Mmmm...probably the maggots, Rev, but you never know. Interesting...I wish I lived on a farm again just to see if, by chance, they would be pecking at the meat or the maggots.



LOL No, I don't think it makes you a bad person, Rev. One needs to keep secrets at times.



I understand that cows aren't designed for it...don't they have the four stomachs to aid in the digestion of just the grass that they eat? If that's the case, I would think that a cow eating meat would be pretty much impossible to digest. Does that sound right?

Mmmm...from FDA
The exact cause of BSE is not known but it is generally accepted by the scientific community that the likely cause is infectious forms of a type of protein, prions, normally found in animals cause BSE. In cattle with BSE, these abnormal prions initially occur in the small intestines and tonsils, and are found in central nervous tissues, such as the brain and spinal cord, and other tissues of infected animals experiencing later stages of the disease.

Seems the scientists are not looking at the proper venues? Cows eating their own...BSE...small intestines...interesting. I need to do some searching for a bit....

   

I've spent enough time around chickens that I really didn't want to know. It's the side of "free range" that nobody ever talks about though.



It's rendered fine enough and mixed with grain though, so they can digest it. Unfortunately their systems are not evolved to deal with the pathogens in the meat, so disease is passed on. Putting them on a diet of antibiotics (whole other nuther problem) takes care of most disease caused by those pathogens.

Then along comes BSE...prions. Whoops, antibiotics don't help with those. Of course we've known about the effects of these prions for years...scrapie in sheep is nothing new. We also knew, from tribes that practice cannibalism, about the effects these things can have on humans. The evidence was all there. So we fed sheep and cattle to cows and thought nothing would happen? What kind of disconnect does it take to do that?

   

Childish? who's post are you refering to?



So because you haven't seen a chicken eat meat or a pig that means it doesn't happen? Pigs eat meat. Ask any farmer. Chickens eat meat. Again ask any farmer.

   

Yes, that's initially what I meant, Rev, the whole digestive system...didn't mean to throw a wrench in there by just mentioning the stomachs.



What the hell? So, the scientists are paid to keep their mouths shut! Jesus H. That's just insane, Rev...insane. Not you...the scientists that say they don't know what causes it.

I'll send you a PM Rev...I have a story when we had chickens, but not appropriate to mention on the board here....

   

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