Health Canada’s proposed labelling requirements for ground beef and pork are getting some pushback from livestock producers in Alberta.
The province’s Ag Minister Nate Horner says producers are requesting an exemption similar to what is on other foods.
“The rationale is for milk for example, they would say that there’s no reasonable way that people can get enough calcium in their diet. We think with ground meat, there’s no other reasonable way that people can get enough zinc, iron and vitamin B12. Also, they’re not taking into account that once cooked, these foods do not exceed a saturated fat threshold.”
Horner says there’s some concerns about how this could affect the market for beef and pork products.
“There’s a lot of speculation about what message this sends to our American neighbours. We have a very fluid border with live cattle and boxed meat in the very integrated North American market. We’re looking at other markets all the time in a really changing geopolitical landscape. There’s a lot of countries that are hungry for protein and we don’t know what kind of message this will send to them.”
We had the Minister on the Trending 55 Hot Seat, that full discussion can be found below.
– Kyle Moore, Trending 55 Newsroom
