With the sad news this week of the beginning of the seal hunt in Canada, I thought I would share two articles bringing better news from papers in Canada. Yesterday's Star included a piece on the push to create demand for eggs that do not come from battery caged hens, and Quebec's Sherbrooke Record today has an article on a vegan Ironman triathelete. I hope Canadians are writing to their papers about the seal hunt (though international outcry is useful it cuts both ways -- the US has plenty of its own awful practices to protest). The articles below, however, present opportunities for happier supportive letters.
The Star takes letters at lettertoed@thestar.ca
The Sherbrooke Record takes letters at http://tinyurl.com/3y99wu
Here are the articles:
PUSH FOR HUMANE CONDITIONS
TheStar.com - Life - Ethical omelettes
Ethical omelettes
Apr 03, 2007 04:30 AM
stuart laidlaw
faith and ethics
http://www.thestar.com/article/198660
Undercover film footage taken by the Canadian Coalition for Farm Animals shows laying hens with feathers rubbed off from constant rubbing against their cages.
A coalition that wants to get laying hens out of cages is directing its free-range campaign at universities and colleges
Munching on salad and sipping coffee at a café in the basement of the University of Toronto's Hart House, second year history student Wokie Fraser confesses she's never really thought much about eggs, where they come from or why they seem so affordable.
There is always a carton of eggs in her refrigerator, she says. She buys them pretty much every week, almost without thought.
That changes, however, as she grimaces at images released a few minutes earlier, two floors up, as a campaign was launched to change the kind of eggs bought and sold on university campuses across Canada.
"I never really thought much about this," Fraser says, looking at stills from a video snuck out of an egg barn in south-western Ontario and released yesterday.
The pictures have an impact.
"What else is there?" she asks.
At the earlier media conference, members of the Canadian Coalition for Farm Animals attempted to answer that question. In fact, it's just the kind of question they hope more people will ask as a result of their new campaign, launched yesterday.
"This is the reality of how 98 per cent of our eggs are produced," Stephanie Brown, spokeswoman for the coalition, tells the media conference.
Behind her plays a video of laying hens crammed into 16-by 18-inch battery cages, three to a cage. The hens' feathers are worn off by constant rubbing against the bars of the cages. Exposed skin, she says, is burned by ammonia levels in the barn.
"The science is clear on battery cages. Hens suffer," she says. "A hen has a space smaller than a piece of paper for her entire life."
Brown said the tight space makes it impossible for the hens to act like
hens, giving themselves dust baths, perching on things, stretching their
wings.
The coalition wants to end such conditions. Its new campaign to convince universities and colleges to switch to free-range or organic eggs, is its way to build up a critical mass of demand for such eggs.
That, in turn, will make it easier to build supply chains for the mainstream market.
"We are asking all consumers to opt for cage-free eggs," says Lynn Kavanagh, also with the coalition. "There are alternatives."
She suggests consumers buy free-range or free run (from hens allowed to wander around a barn) or organic eggs (from hens allowed outside, weather permitting), and to avoid eggs from caged birds. Ultimately, she would like to see eggs from hens in cages labelled as such.
But for now, the emphasis is on getting universities to switch. She hopes to build on the momentum of a similar campaign in the U.S., where more than 100 colleges and universities have signed on to be cage-free.
In Canada, the University of Guelph announced last week that it begin selling cage-free alongside regular eggs, after students voted for the move.
The University of Toronto, meanwhile, is involved in a similar program, committing to bring local, sustainable and ethical food to its cafeterias.
Kavanagh says she recognizes that farmers have money tied up in their battery cages, so advocates a phasing in of free-range egg systems. As cages wear out, she wants farmers to be encouraged to shift to free-range rather than buy new cages.
The university campaign is meant to provide that encouragement by helping to establish a wider market for the niche product. And the wider the market is, she says, the cheaper the eggs will be and the more inroads they will be able to make to the wider consumer sector.
Harry Pelissero of the Egg Farmers of Ontario, which represents both cage and cage-free farms, says he has no problem with universities offering students cage-free eggs, as long as they have a choice to buy conventional
eggs, as well.
"That's certainly something we could support," he says. "Our farmers will grow whatever consumers demand."
Brown says a study for the University of Guelph found that free-range eggs would cost about 20 cents more an egg, or 40 cents for an omelette. "People will pay for ethically raised foods," she said.
Sitting with Fraser in the café, and also having salad and a coffee, first year arts student Karim Blair agrees. He already buys free-range eggs.
"You feel better about yourself when you buy free-range."
Fraser nods. She can see his point. She likes fair trade coffee, which costs more so that more money can get to farmers in developing countries.
So can see the argument for using her consumer dollars to change the way eggs are produced.
"Forty cents isn't that much," she says. "I really should switch."
(End of Star article on Humane Conditions.)
--------------------------------
Sherbrooke Record (Quebec)
April 4, 2007 Wednesday
Ironman triathlete is a vegan; Sees no need for meat
Julia Elliott, CanWest News Service
SPORTS; Pg. 10
OTTAWA
OTTAWA - With its missive to switch from eating meat to plant-based foods, it'd be easy to dismiss The Thrive Diet as just another book singing the praises of fruit, veggies and blender drinks.
But Brendan Brazier of North Vancouver is a vegan with a difference -- he's a celebrated Ironman triathlete, belying the widely held belief that you have to eat animal protein to build muscle. His new book tells his own story about dealing with physical stress as an athlete and the foods that helped improve his performance. He says his plant-based diet worked so well to reduce training stress that he won the Canadian 50K Ultra Marathon championships in 2003 and 2006.
Brazier is promoting his book on a five-city tour. He'll visit various book and food stores where he'll talk about whole foods. (As a vegan, Brazier not only shuns meat and fish, but all animal products, including dairy and eggs.)
Speaking recently in Ottawa at a Real Canadian Superstore location, a lean Brazier spoke plainly, without notes, to some two dozen people about his vegan journey and its sometimes short-lived appeal for others.
"More people are trying a vegetarian diet now than ever before because there are so many vegetarian options," he said after the event. "There's lots of tofu hot dogs and hamburgers. That's one of the problems, though, that there's so many foods like that that aren't really that healthy; they're vegan junk food, really. So people aren't feeling good on the vegan diet. They assume that it's the vegan diet that's not working when really it's the junk food."
Brazier used to travel with a blender to concoct his own healthy meals, but now he brings along some of his own plant-based products which hit stores in 2004. (The line is called Vega and last year Brazier was shortlisted for a Manning Innovation award for Vega's meal replacement packets.)
Brazier, 27, was a teenager when he began experimenting with various diets that might support his high-energy lifestyle.
"I knew that there was a very tight connection between diet and performance," says Brazier. "What I realized was that when I was eating refined pastas and breads and peanut butter and lots of things that are really processed and hard to digest, that that was creating a stress response within the body which raised cortisol levels and stress hormones and that made recovery (after training) a lot slower.
"The quicker you can recover from exercise, the closer you can schedule workouts together. Then, of course, you can train more and then improve at a faster rate.
"I realized that I was lacking a whole bunch of nutrients: protein, essential fats, fibre, vitamin B12, omega-3 fatty acids. I was getting tired and people were saying you really should go back to eating meat. But I was curious if I could find all these things from plants. I did and blended them together and that became the first incarnation of what is now Vega."
The Thrive Diet found its origins three years ago after Brazier was hit by a car while riding his bicycle. After injuring his leg, he couldn't race so he wrote a book -- Thrive -- that outlined his nutrition program. This year's expanded version contains meal plans, recipes and more information about foods.
(End of Sherbrooke Record article on Brendan Brazier.)
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