Rare event: Kohima’s meat business going through lean winter

Atono Tsiikrii KOHIMA, DECEMBER 23 Nagas are known for their profound appetite for meat. In any given occasion, be it birthdays, be it Christmas, and be it New Year, and of course weddings, one will find a fine array of various types of cooked meat for the buffet. And the Naga person is not satisfied until he has had a bite of those tempting pieces, especially of pork. Go to any Naga kitchen and one will find either fresh cooked meat or its smoked counterpart. In spite of the many health risks associated with consumption of high quantity of meat, the fact has yet to deter anyone–especially the Naga–from consuming any less. Eating red meat contributes to risk factors associated with heart disease and stroke, cancer, diabetes, blood pressure etc. According to an article published by Dr Debojyoti Borkotoky, Subject Matter Specialist (Animal Science), of the Krishi Vigyan Kendra, the per capita consumption of meat in Kohima district is known to be as high as 106.44 grams per head per day. The amount is much higher than the recommended level of 34.00 grams per head per day, recommended by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). The total import of meat per year to Nagaland state was 19.05 thousand tons and the monetary value of import of meat from outside the state was estimated to be a round Rs 153.16 crore (Anonymous, Nagaland Basic facts 2012). Nationally, the percentage spent on meat is highest in Nagaland than in any other states (Deka and Thorpe, 2008). However, surprisingly, the year shows a totally different development: butchers from various pockets of Kohima town have admitted to decline in the sale of, well, yes, meat. Could it be due to rising health consciousness among the people? What are their reasons? Let’s find out from our meat dealers and abattoir handlers from Kohima town. Mechao Kikhi of meat outlet Pork Chop, located at Jail Colony said to have closed down for the festive season due to noticeable decline in business during the past few days. Otherwise, it may be mentioned here, that Pork Chop is one of the most popular abattoirs in the town. A venture initiatied by local nongovernmental organization YouthNet, people are usually seen thronging the outlet due to the venture’s purported ‘cleanliness, hygiene and good quality of meat they supply to the people.’ The scene is somewhat lean now. Kikhi said that usually during the Christmas season, people use own livestock or else share it among themselves. This could be one factor that there is a decline in the meat business meat dealers. Nonetheless, Pork Chop will be opened for the people in a few days, Kikhi assured. There is a slightly different story here: Neilakholie Zhalie, a meat dealer in Keziekie of the town who sells only local pork brought from nearby Rüsoma village said that business was not as usual as other days. Apparently, he is always ready with about 140-150 kilograms of meat for his customers. However, there is a slight change of color for this meat dealer. Of late, he explained, there has been a ‘decline in business.’ He said it could be due to the people leaving for their respective villages for the festive season. Otherwise, he said defensively, there is ‘enough for supply if there is demand from the people.’ Another meat seller from PR Hill, Neitho, also admitted that unlike other days, business had been very slow for him this festive season. He has a supplier from New Market in Kohima, and admits that in the last few days at the end they have had to go home without selling all the meat. Nchum, who is manning another meat shop in the heart of the town, Razhü Point, also spoke of the decline in business. He said it could be because ‘friends and relatives were purchasing entire pigs and sharing among themselves.’ Now we have a small idea why meat dealers in Kohima town are facing a decrease in the business for once and at a time of year in Nagaland when meat should actually be selling faster than hot pancakes. It definitely isn’t health consciousness among the people. On a fly-by, avoid going to hospital after the merry making by following some simple tips: add lots of greens and salad in your diet to neutralize the fat. Citizens’ Factfile: Adverse effects of meat consumption Meat is very high in fat, especially saturated fat There are numerous claims today about saturated fat. Some claim that we do not need any saturated fat to survive, or that all saturated fat is bad, while others tell us to eat freely and that this substance is essential for our health. While not all saturated fat is bad, saturated fat from animal products like meat appears to directly affect the function of our cardiovascular system in many negative ways. Not only is it linked to putting a strain on one’s heart through possible fat deposits in the arteries, increasing one’s blood pressure and causing artery damage, but it is the major fat responsible for dangerous weight gain. Today’s meat is even higher than ever in fat because of how the animals are raised, with no exercise or natural grazing capabilities. Hence they sit in a cage and are over fed, which leads to higher than normal unhealthy fat deposits. Meat is very high in cholesterol Most animals produce their own cholesterol and there is no need to be eating someone else’s, especially given the fact that your body is great at regulating its own cholesterol when we don’t throw in extra cholesterol from foreign sources. Cholesterol production can also increase in times of stress and decreased activity, both which are real problems for the animals of today. Meat is very dense in calories Since meat contains so much fat, and fat is the most calorie-dense nutrient, it is a substance that if eaten regularly or in excess can easily lead to weight gain. Meat produces carcinogenic compounds when cooked These are called heterocyclic amines and they get produced when animal flesh is cooked, especially at high temperatures. HCAs form when amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) and creatine (a chemical found in muscles) react at high cooking temperatures. Researchers have identified 17 different HCAs resulting from the cooking of muscle meats such as beef, pork, fowl, and fish. Meat increases chances of colon cancer Aside from the heterocyclic amines talked about above, meat does not clear from the intestines fast, unless ample fiber is included in each meal. This is mainly due to the fact that meat is high in protein and protein takes a very long time to get fully digested, thus it sits in our intestines the longest. This time factor, allows any carcinogenic compounds to do the most damage to the lining of the intestinal walls. Meat is hard on the digestive system Besides the increased chances of colon cancer, meat can cause a lot of digestive disturbances for the very same reasons. Meat takes a long time to pass through the intestines, where during this time it putrefies. Putrefaction produces toxins and amines that accumulate in the liver, kidneys and large intestines, destroys bacterial cultures and causes degeneration of the lining of the small intestine. Over a few years of a regular meat diet, putrefied meat is going to adhere to the lining of your intestines, where it often causes various digestive problems such as IBS, stomach cramps, prolapsed colons, haemorrhoids, constipation and many other problems that are not even directly linked to the intestines. Meat carries the highest risk of bacterial contamination Meat is animal flesh, and animal flesh is most prone to bacterial growth. This process is increased even more after the meat has been killed, as it starts to putrefy right away. Today, we do have many advances to decrease this process as much as possible, mainly refrigeration, but the most common food-borne illnesses still come from meats. Meat increases chances of autoimmune diseases Due to the fact that some animal proteins are very closely related to ours, the body responds to a lot of these as foreign particles and tries to destroy them. (Not very different from how some organ transplants get rejected.) When the body does this on a regular basis, after some time it begins to turn on itself due to some auto-immune processes that end up resulting in things like arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis and others. Meat contains synthetic hormones, which disturb our hormonal balance Unless the meat comes from an organic farm, most farms today inject the animals with various hormones for no other reasons than to speed up and enhance the animal’s growth. The faster the animal grows, the faster the monetary return and the bigger it grows obviously the more meat can be obtained for less money. Most of the hormones are various growth hormones, which not only disrupt our own hormonal balances, which can lead to many different health conditions, but also have been theorized for the faster than normal onset of puberty and development of our children today. Meat contains various drugs Due to the fact that every animal translates to dollars, most if not all animals are regularly subjected to various drugs, mostly antibiotics. These drugs do not magically vanish and researchers are studying these effects of them on our bodies. However, what we do know for sure today is that it has contributed to the current antibiotic resistance, where the antibiotics that we may need at a point in our lives, no longer work because the bacteria have gotten so much experience with them in small doses to mutate against them. Meat contains its own diseases As well as each animal and farm is controlled for safety, regulations are nowhere as close as we would like them to be. Even though it is easy to catch an infectious disease in an animal and then treat it appropriately, other chronic diseases are not as easily caught. In fact, think of how healthy an animal can be, that sits all of its short life in a tiny cage, where some cannot even properly stand up, let alone walk around and get some exercise. Meat production leads to wasted natural resources like water and land Having seen the above number, now imagine how much water is wasted each year to grow the food to feed these animals and how much water is wasted to keep them hydrated while they are growing. In order for land to be made suitable for animal production, land must be properly cleared and this usually involves the chopping and clearing of many trees. Livestock production accounts for 30% of the entire land surface of the planet. Just think of how many people can be fed in the world and have clean drinking water, if it wasn’t all going to the billions of animals. Meat production is heavily responsible for climate change Animals produce natural gas, mainly methane. Methane is a very potent greenhouse gas, in that it traps heat even more readily and abundantly than carbon dioxide. In fact animal production is responsible for about 18% of the world’s climate change and to put that in perspective that is even more than all of the world’s transportation. Meat raised under stressful conditions has a negatively altered biochemistry that negatively alters ours Just think about yourself and what happens to you in times of stress. The number one thing that happens to all animals under stress is an elevation of stress hormones, which initialize a whole slew of other biochemical reactions that lead away from an animal’s healthy balanced state. This of course leads to various diseases. When we consume this meat, whether you embrace the Eastern views of karma, qi energy changes and thus chakra disruptions or not, eating meat from stressed animals has been shown to be linked to various negative mental and emotional states of being in us as well. (Source: EvolvingWellness)