The Rural Voice, 2002-08, Page 12CANADA
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8 THE RURAL VOICE
Jeffrey Carter
Value added, or value stolen?
Jeffrey
Carter is a
freelance
journalist
based in
Dresden,
Ontario.
Canada's agriculture minister.
Lyle Vanclief, says today's food
system is the safest that it's ever
been.
That's true in a sense. For the
majority of North Americans, there's
few foods you can shove in your
mouth that will have an immediate
negative impact — as the long as
they're handled and cooked properly.
There's another way of looking at
the issue, however. The media is full
of stories in recent months about the
propensity for North American's to
be overweight.
I think the predominant food
system is to blame.
At the farm gate, prices are low.
That leaves room for other players to
earn a profit as the food moves on up
the line to consumers. Vanclief might
call that value added. I call it value
stolen.
That's not the worst of it,
however. The caloric excess of fast
food and many of the highly
processed convenience foods is
simply not healthy.
Today's children, for the first time
in modern history, are expected to
have shorter lives than their parents.
According to the USDA, children in
the United States are consuming too
much fat, saturated fat, sodium and
not enough fibre and calcium. The
kind diet -related disease that
normally crops up when people reach
their 50s is expected to become a
concern for this generation when they
reach their 30s.
Weight Watcher International
publishes a variety of food guides to
healthy eating including an analysis
of offerings of the fast food chains.
Did you know that you can easily
exceed your daily caloric
requirements with a
single meal at most of these
establishments?
Here's an example from
McDonald's®. If you consume a Big
Mac®, large fries, and a vanilla shake
you've consumed more than enough
food to sustain a 175 pound person
with a moderately active lifestyle for
a day.
Burger King® isn't any further
ahead. If you woof down a Big
Fish®, king size fries, medium
vanilla drink, and Dutch apple pie,
and you've got more than what two
people weighing 150 pounds need for
a day.
There are of course low -calorie
choices at any of these restaurants
and none of the foods on the menus
are necessarily bad — when consumed
in moderation.
Let's be honest, though. The low -
calories choices are not the big sellers
and North Americans are not known
for their moderation.
Mr. Vanclief should think twice
before touting too loudly the apparent
safety of our food system. It's not
only moving farmers off the land. it's
killing us.0
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