To meat it or not to meat it??

After watching Food Inc. yesterday I am almost thinking that being vegetarian again wouldn't be such a bad move... I must admit, that some of it wasn't too much of a surprise after reading My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki about 5 years ago (while I was vegetarian).  I think for me what became an outstanding issue for me was the way in which the food industries in America really didn't think that it was important to inform consumers exactly what they were eating- or felt in any way compelled to ensure that what we eat is actually safe and nutritionally good for us!

However, what I found really eye opening is the broad spanning control that the corn, soya and wheat sectors have over all the other agrarian industries in America.  Why are cattle being fed corn when their natural diet is grass?? This actually increases the rate of E.coli in the gut of cattle which has along with sloppy food safety regulations resulted in an increase of E.coli poisoning in the States.  Also 90% of the States' soya produce is genetically engineered from a seed which is 'owned' by a major soya bean company.  The average American isn't even aware that they are consuming genetically engineered produce and meat. 

This got me to thinking... is Australia like this? And unfortunately we are... after doing a little research I came across the True Food Guide.  This Australian website shows that indeed we do have GE foods, they were introduced in 2008.  The link will take you to the page that allows you to download products which contain GE produce.  We currently don't have strict labelling laws for GE foods.  So if you are interested you can sign the petition for comprehensive laws for GE food labelling. We also have factory farms in which cattle, pigs and chickens are kept in appalling conditions, allowed to wallow in their own faeces and fed hormones for greater growth (more information can be found here ). 

To say that I am sickened by this is an understatement - please don't think that I am going to get all high and might here... but what I am going to say is that I am not going to becoming vegetarian, because then I am opting out of the market.  What I am going to be doing instead is choosing ethically produced meat.  So that means organic at supermarkets otherwise it's off to the farmers market for us when we want to get meat from now on!  Hopefully our more ethical purchases will combine with all the others out there - and we can make a difference. Hey- if Wall Mart can introduce organic yoghurt... think of the possibilities!

Ok- I promise next post isn't going to be so depressing...

K