Fast food fat

Fast Food Nation places emphasis on the gross industrialization of meat production. Farm animals have become virtual food machines, with an input of land-consuming grains and various growth substances, and an output of formed red patties, tender cuts and tons of tallow with various spare parts for pet food. No consideration is given for animal welfare.

Steer are so obese they are hardly able to move. But this practice produces cheap cuts that are so tender they hardly engage the jaws when ingesting. Little wonder the hapless animal’s muscles suffer from disuse and so are lax and tender.

Meat residue has become so abundant in recent years that in Great Britain, it has been mixed into cattle feed, unleashing our feared Mad-Cow disease. Chickens suffer the same abysmal existence. Meanwhile, factory farming has only served to cheapen meat prices, encouraging greater consumption, with an obesity epidemic as one consequence.

Although given only short shrift in Fast Food Nation, the fast growth in the use of trans-fatty acids used in many processed foods (the altering of oils through a hydrogenation process) has also given rise to obesity. This type of oil is not readily “burned” by the body, but stored, producing havoc in the metabolic processes. As a result, perverse links have been noted in disorders from breast and prostate cancers to diabetes.

Trans-fat is an effective emulsifier, making fries, pastry and baked goods so delightfully crisp and alleviating the use of eggs in its recipes. It has become ubiquitous in its use and hence difficult to remove from the corporate venue. But this is not simply a “bad” fat; it is a dangerous fat.

Many thanks for your review of this valuable film with its informative, albeit sometimes gory, content.

» Edward Abramic

Rotting meat haunts hunter

Wake up, Quebec, your caribou herd is being wasted.

I recently hunted with [Ed’s note: club name removed for reasons of libel] on a Trophy Caribou hunt. It was the worst and most wasteful hunt I have ever been on in my 50 years of hunting.

I shot two caribou and this club only packed out three hindquarters and one back strap. When I offered to help, the guides told me that they would pack out all the meat. This club left four shoulders, three back straps, four tenderloins, one hindquarter, and all the rib and neck meat in the field to rot! If that was repeated 36 times, because there were 36 hunters on the one-week hunt, the people of Quebec and its guest hunters were cheated out of 144 shoulders, 108 back straps, 144 tenderloins, and 144 animals with all their neck and rib meat.

This club let over 2.5 tons of meat rot in the field during the one week I was there. What a waste of your natural resource! It reminded me of historic photographs of how the American bison were slaughtered and left to rot in the field where they were killed.

Not only has this club left your natural resources to rot in the field, they also demonstrated very poor hunting ethics. Two Massachusetts hunters told me that the club guide told them to shoot through cows to kill Boone and Crockett bulls. Fortunately, for all of you in Quebec, the two hunters had higher hunting ethics than this club and did not shoot through the cows. A final incident also showed the hunting ethics, or lack thereof, when one of the club pilots buzzed the herd with his floatplane, and as a result two bulls were killed.

I have hunted and fished in Ontario, Alberta and all over the USA, and never have I seen such a poor display of hunting ethics and waste. I met many new friends in Quebec and wanted to pass on to you how your natural resources are being squandered.

» Erick C. Nefe, Spring, Texas

Martina and Lance

I thoroughly enjoyed your interview with Martina Navratilova in the Mirror. We need more people like Navratilova to promote gay rights everywhere, all the more in Africa and in the Mideast. In the cruel, bigoted world that we inhabit, she is a beacon of hope to thousands.

Could I ask you to also interview in your pages Lance Bass, newly out-of-the-closet gay singer of the boy band N Sync? I am gay-positive, but do not assume I am gay myself.

» Shireen Nigehi

Monopoly protest

In honour of ex-premier Robert Bourassa, I taped over Park Place

on my Monopoly board game and renamed it Place Robert Bourassa. This gesture isn’t original with me. It was inspired by his worship, Mayor Tremblay.

» Ron Huza

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