CANADIANS’ LOVE AFFAIR WITH MEAT IS DONE, NEW STUDY FINDS.

We’re rethinking our relationship with meat

Canadian men, more than women, consider meat one of life’s greatest pleasures and older men in particular think nothing compares to a good steak, a new survey finds.

For beef farmers, that’s about where the good news ends. According to a new survey on Canada’s “protein wars,” 6.4 million Canadians already have restricted or eliminated meat from their diets, while a third of the population intends to do so in the next six months.

But the survey paints a conflicting picture of our attachment to meat and willingness to embrace chickpeas over sirloin, with three-quarters strongly or somewhat agreeing that, “as humans, it is natural to eat meat” and that eating meat is part of “a natural and balanced diet.”

“It appears that Canadians are still somewhat attached to meat consumption, generally speaking,” said principal investigator Sylvain Charlebois, a professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University. “But more and more Canadians are reconsidering their relationship with animal-based protein,” he said.

The findings come as Health Canada prepares to debut the latest iteration of its food guide in November, one that had been expected to lean more vegan than omnivore. In its “guiding principles” for the food-rules rewrite released earlier this year, Health Canada urged a shift to a “high proportion” of plant-based foods, without necessarily excluding animal foods.

The preliminary recommendations also encouraged replacing foods that contain mostly saturated fat with foods containing unsaturated fats (such as nuts, seeds and avocados). Dairy and red meat are the primary sources of saturated fat.

Canada’s dairy and meat industries have pushed back against any serious dumping of meat, milk or other radical changes, and it’s not clear whether Health Canada will wilt to pressure from that juggernaut.

The meat industry says it has been assured by the government the food guide won’t go low-meat. But other countries are trending in exactly that direction.

For the study, researchers surveyed 1,027 adults over three days in September. Charlebois conducted the study along with Simon Somogyi of the University of Guelph and Janet Music of Dalhousie’s faculty of management.

With a sample of this size, the margin of error is three per cent, 19 times out of 20.

Nearly half (49 per cent) of those surveyed said they consume meat or meat-containing products daily; 40 per cent said they eat meat once or twice a week.

Two per cent considered themselves vegetarians, one per cent vegans (no animalbased products, including honey) and one per cent lacto-ovo vegetarian (no animal flesh, but eggs and milk products permitted).

Fifty-one per cent said they would be willing to consider reducing meat some time in the future.

“The younger generation is not so interested in the health but the humanitarian approach to the way we’re feeding ourselves,” said renowned nutrition scientist Dr. David Jenkins of the University of Toronto.

“You don’t mind a cow in the green field with the blue sky above and the tree and the sun — what every kindergarten kid draws,” he said.

“But when you come to a mechanized abattoir, that’s not such fun. There’s no blue sky, no happy, prancing (cattle). And I think that’s a big grassroots change among the young.”

Women were more likely than men to agree meat is replaceable by other sources of protein, and men who are not overly educated were more likely to agree “I am a big fan of meat in general.

“Eating meat is a manly thing, let’s face it. It’s always been portrayed as a manly thing to do,” Charlebois said.

Overall, the survey found that, “If you earn more, if you are a woman, if you are more educated, you are less likely to be attached to meat,” said Charlebois, who believes we’re experiencing “the womanization of protein consumption.”

Canadians have reduced their meat intake since 2004. Today’s consumption levels are similar to those in Mediterranean countries, “places where diets are widely recognized as being amongst the healthiest worldwide,” said Marie-France Mackinnon of the Canadian Meat Council.

Canadians consume, on average, 41 grams of cooked fresh meat such as beef, pork, lamb or veal a day, she said — “that’s about half the size of the palm of your hand.”

“No one has said ‘eat more beef and grow strong’, which is what they said in the 1930s,” Jenkins said. “No one is saying that anymore.”

NO ONE HAS SAID ‘EAT MORE BEEF AND GROW STRONG.’