A down-to-earth politician talks food, family, community
December 7, 2009 by CVNews
Filed under BC government, Community, Feature stories, Food
Steve Thomson, MLA for Kelowna-Mission and currently BC Minister of Agriculture
This holiday season, enjoy B.C.’s abundance.
By Steve Thomson,
Minister of Agriculture and Lands.
I always feel very fortunate to live in a spectacular place like British Columbia. The sheer geographic diversity of our province translates into a wide variety of agricultural products, such as fresh produce, tasty seafood, poultry and meat, artisan cheeses and world-class wines.
This holiday season, I want to remind people that our agricultural sector can provide just about everything for holiday entertaining. Local nurseries can provide a fragrant pine for the living room, local producers can provide the turkey (Get your orders in now!), local artisans can provide a wreath for your door, and local processors make hundreds of products, including delicious jams and hot sauces for gift baskets or stocking stuffers. Let your imagination go and keep your eye out for unique items that are made right here in our beautiful province.
Buying local often means you get to meet the hard-working and dedicated people who produced your holiday purchase. The people who make up our agriculture sector deserve a big thank-you from all of us. B.C. producers are leaders in environmental stewardship, and take pride in making B.C. products. They are business people who constantly adapt to a changing marketplace, and produce value-added foods and goods that reflect a spirit of innovation.
Ninety-eight per cent of farms in B.C. are family-run. Growing up in a farm family myself, I know exactly how important it is to make a connection between producer and customer, rural and urban, particularly for our children and grandchildren.
We all know that the holidays are about family and community. Each year we promise ourselves that we’ll make it more about togetherness and less about buying, but buying local is a purchase we can feel good about. It’s an investment in the community, the local economy and the health of our families. No matter how you celebrate the most wonderful time of year, you’ll be eating, so make sure you enjoy the abundance our province offers. Look around for the Best of B.C. – I promise you won’t have to look far, because the best things are often close to home.
Happy holidays and best wishes for the New Year.
Victoria
December 7, 2009
How come you dont mention grass fed beef producers.Did you know grass fed beef is red meat that is good for you it is full of omega 3s low in fat low in calories rich in vitamins e vit b beta keratin . We could solve the obesity problems we are now having .Grass fed beef has 40 % less calories in a year just by switching to grass fed beef the average person would lose 17000 calories that is 7 lbs a year you wouldnt have to change your lifestyle .I cant understand why we have to eat grain fed beef that is transported from alberta saskatchewan or manitoba feed lots .These feed lots are disgusting where just for cattle to live they have to get low doses of antibiotics which goes into are water and causes where they thrive into drug resistant bacteria.Grain fed beef loses most of it nutrients
the government doesnt care about small fammily ranches and health they would rather support big union busting firms like cargill maple leaf and schnieders .These are disgusting companys that say canadians are to lazy to work in these plants and hire foreign workers .No wonder why there is listerios and e coli outbreaks.
If you want to make a difference for positive change support local grass fed cattle producers that is most of bc producers but please hurray are industry is in trouble and needs you to go out and buy from these fammily ranches .Why doesnt government care
Terry, you answered your own question. The government indeed, would rather support the big “union-busting companies for the simple reason that we don’t live in a democratic country, we live in a fascist country, the definition being “rule by both government and corporation”, as do most, if not all of the countries in the western world. The corporations have the governments in their back pockets and that is just how it is.
You are absolutely right in saying that grass-fed beef is better than grain-fed, but consumers are overwhelmed with advertising campaigns that cost billions of dollars each year — claims are made and the confused consumer is just a poor sucker who’s trying to do the best he/she can for the family.
What about the “I Love Alberta Beef” bumper stickers you see everywhere? Don’t think for a minute that these mega-corporations made up that slogan for the fun of it. It has been a very clever and very successful campaign to promote the beef produced on these disgraceful feed lots in Alberta. And I am not pointing the finger just at Alberta — it’s everywhere!
I remember when the push was on to get consumers to buy grain-fed beef. It was a concerted effort to convince people that grain-fed was superior. The texture, the even marbling of the meat was stressed and the buyer bought the whole lie, hook, line and sinker. I know that my own mother did! All of a sudden, grass-fed cattle were not good enough for us and we, the consumer herd, couldn’t get to the supermarket fast enough. We were proud to eat grain-fed beef. It was a sort of status symbol. Chalk up one for the corporations who had bought up thousands of small farms where the beef was produced the old-fashioned way – nature’s way.
As far as I know at this point, there is only one way to tell our government and the beef industry that we don’t like what they do and aren’t going to stand for it any longer, and that is to “Just Say No!” as the saying goes. It is a brilliant idea and probably the only one that would work since the bottom line is the only thing these people seem to understand..
So, Terry, how badly do you want to do something to stop the lies, the deceit, the downright cruelty to the cattle and the dangers to the health of your family? How much do we, every one of us want to see changes? It sounds good to complain but if complaining were the answer, we wouldn’t be still eating grain-fed beef produced on feed lots, would we?
So, as I see it, the only thing people can do is stop eating this kind of beef. It’s not good for your health, it’s deadly on the environment, it takes 16 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of beef (grain that would feed a few starving people) and why are we still eating it? Are we too lazy? Probably. Are we just plain ignorant of the facts? No longer a valid excuse since we have almost unlimited information via the Internet. Too overwhelmed by all the conflicting information to be able to make up our minds? Could be. But that is really no excuse either and, in the end, this is exactly what the advertisers want.
Now, here’s a novel idea — become a vegetarian! You will feel better, you won’t have so many trips to the doctor for everything that comes around the neighborhood, you won’t have to rely on pharmaceuticals so much, and, hey — you might even get to like it!