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The Current Transcript for February 26, 2020

Host: Matt Gallaway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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SOUNDCLIP

From a health perspective, we should probably be eating less meat, but there's a karlovy to that. And the question is what do you replace the meat that you're eating less of with fake meat?

MATT GALLOWAY: The phrase fills vegans with delight and cattle farmers with despair. Plant based animal substitutes are everywhere these days, from fast food joints to perhaps your dinner table last night. In 30 minutes, the celebrated food writer Mark Bittman explores whether fake meat is a flash in the pan or the future of food. And later.

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VOICE 1: Coronavirus what is that?

VOICE 2: It's a virus that's been going around.

VOICE 3: And my dad keeps worrying about viruses.

VOICE 4: Why do we have to keep wearing about viruses? I know.

VOICE 5: It can spread really quickly.

MG: As the coronavirus spreads really quickly, anxiety is growing and not just in Grown-Ups, but also in kids. Some advice on how to talk to our children about this global health emergency. Kids are already paying attention. Also this morning, how scientists here are continuing the ground-breaking work of Iranian-Canadian researchers lost in the downing of that Ukrainian airliner over Tehran. We'll start, though, with our national affairs panel. There is a lot to discuss. Much of it in Alberta where the resource sector is reeling and tensions are high. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. And this is The Current.

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National affairs panel on climate and resource policy

Guests: Kathleen Petty, Jason Marcusoff, Mia Rabson

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I've said it before and we will say it every day because it is true that the world needs more Canadian Energy.

[Applaud]

VOICE 2: He has taught protesters a valuable lesson. They can bring our economy to its knees. They can hold illegal blockades, holding up our rail traffic and leading to layoffs. And he will do absolutely nothing. Does The Prime Minister realized that his weakness has caused this situation to spiral out of control.

[Applaud]

MG: Opposition politicians are finding plenty of reasons to criticize the prime minister this week. And it's only Wednesday. First, tech resources withdrew its application to build a massive new oil sands mine. Then and Alberta Court found Ottawa's carbon tax is unconstitutional. All of this as blockades continue to pop up across the country, and that means there's lots to talk about with our national affairs panel. Kathleen Petty is executive producer of CBC News Calgary and host of the West of Centre podcast. Jason Marcusoff is the Alberta correspondent for McClain's and Mia Rabson is the energy and environment reporter for the Canadian Press in Ottawa. Good morning to you all.

GUESTS: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Jason, we'll start with you. It's been a few days since Tech pulled down its frontier mine plans. How are people in Alberta feeling these days?

JASON MARCUSOFF: There is deep frustration and there's deep anxiety because there was hope for this project. This project brought hope to this to Alberta, to oil workers, to the Fort McMurray region, even though, as many people have rightly said, there was a very good chance that this project would have never likely been built.

MG: Can you explain that? Why would people be hopeful, even if they understood that perhaps because of depressed oil prices, this thing may never have gone forward?

JASON MARCUSOFF: Because of hope, because a job that you hope that they could potentially exist if conditions arise are much better than jobs that will never materialized, even if conditions do improve that. That's why. This province. You know, people in this province realise that there are certain- that oil, that jobs won't come back if oil doesn't come back. They know that the pipeline condition is an issue. They know that these situations are there. But they also know that this is an economy that's not actually based, its economy and it's boom isn't based on digging the stuff out of the ground. And there's lots of that going on right now. Several million barrels worth a day. It's about getting these big mega-projects built. It's the construction jobs that have been sealed, those temporary camps for people go up there from either Calgary, Kelowna, Atlantic Canada to build those mega mines. That hasn't happened in a couple of years. Nobody is building those projects because the economy doesn't work. So the idea of this, of another mine that was going to be, you know, bring 7000 jobs, 20.6billion dollars of economic activity up there, even if this wasn't economically viable at this point, it was some point in the horizon. And that gave people hope. And the hope is quite elusive economically in this province.

MG: Kathleen Petty, how bleak is that horizon for Alberta's energy sector?

KATHLEEN PETTY: Well, just to pick up, I want Jason sad, Matt. It's really about what tech represents. It doesn't matter if it was going to be not built in a year or five years or perhaps even ever. I would point out that when Jason Kenney listed his number of demands of the prime minister in early December post election about this is what you can do to show you care. Tech actually wasn't even on that list and it was a long list, but it came to represent that early in the new year, to the extent now we had a throne speech yesterday, a speech the day before from Jason Kenney. He's going to create a publicly traded company to invest in oil and gas. He said at his availability on Monday that he's not ruling out investing in tech. Because let's remember, you know, tech technically - no pun intended- is still potentially viable because they didn't wait for a decision. So it's still an approved project. And but, you know, when you take a look at the conversations that are going on certainly in this city night, Jason, I don't know if you caught this, but Brad Tennant responded to the Chamber of Commerce - He by the way, Matt is the executive director of the United Conservative Party. And so the chamber came out sort of following up on the CEO of Tech who talking about, you know what, we need to come up with a plan that we can all sort of get on board with in terms of addressing climate change, and some of the concerns in the chamber echoed that message, saying that we need decisive action on this. And Brad Tennant tweets another example of the Calgary chamber putting themselves on a pedestal. No one else believes they are on. When Calgary businesses are struggling, it's a genuine shame the chamber is focussed on nothing but stoking their own vanity with downtown elites.

MG: Yikes.

KATHLEEN PETTY: That's where the conversation is. It's tense and it's toxic.

MG: Mia. The prime minister and the government didn't actually have to make this decision because in many ways tech- made it for them. Did this help or does it hurt the prime minister?

MIA RABSON: It's actually the exact question I was asking some government staffers this week, some of them some liberals are clearly relieved that they didn't have to make this decision. There was a lot of unrest. Within the caucus itself, there were several Liberal MPs telling the prime minister, you cannot approve this project and have us sort of stand up as a party for climate change. But the government, the cabinet, many signals were that they wanted to find a way to approve this project. The environment minister saying, several times in the last couple of weeks, if Alberta would step up with maybe a stronger climate plan, then maybe there's room to approve this project. He didn't quite go that far, but that's sort of what he was hinting at. For the liberals not to have to approve it and sort of tack take it off the table, kind of gives them a small sort of broom breathing room, I guess. But at the same time, they're being blamed by many for that decision, regardless of whether they made it. So it's in some way it was in some ways it's a no win situation happening.

MG: Kathleen what does this do for the relations between Ottawa and Alberta? The prime minister and certainly the deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, has been trying to smooth things over.

KATHLEEN PETTY: Boy [Laughs].

MG: How's that going?

KATHLEEN PETTY: You know what I have to say? I've heard largely very positive things about Freeland that they seem to like her. But it just sort of the general question about the relationship between Alberta and Ottawa. Are you kidding me?

MG: What do you make of the Buffalo Declaration? Is this sort of manifesto of, in particular, by MPs saying that Alberta has been hard done by.

KATHLEEN PETTY: I don't know. I think, look, I think it speaks to a lot of the frustration in this province. I think it's fair to say. But the real substantive stuff is going to come out of this fair deal panel, which reports at the end of March. And Jason Kenney, again, is talking about implementing the recommendations of this panel. There are many measures all meant to assert and I'm using Jason Kenny's words here, Alberta's autonomy. And that's really the path we're on right now. And it is going to be the source of much more tension between Alberta and Otto.

MG: Jason, you wrote that Premier Kenny was in some ways almost daring Ottawa to kill this project. What did you mean by that?

JASON MARCUSOFF: His rhetoric is not very appealing to the to the Liberal MPs out there. I've heard from one Liberal source that that the more he said on this, the less some liberals were inclined to to speak. When Rachel Notley was an hour, even though some of their policies are not that different, they had the same 100 megaton cap on overall oilsands emissions that actually had no teeth to it. Ottawa [unintelligible] minister finally goaded Jason Nixon, [unintelligible] to put some teeth behind that. But, you know, listen to the rhetoric of Jason Kelly. A lot of people, even in Alberta, don't believe there is any climate change plan left. He was really ramping this up as if you don't do this, if you don't give our oil sands mine another 'yes' like you all like other governments always have, then our companies and our government is you know, our country is broken. A lot of Liberal MPs will hear that and say, hold on a second. You don't get to dictate terms in our climate policy. You don't get to dictate terms on how we do things. Jason Penney has had a habit of inflaming things. And, you know, there are even suggestions in Calgary now that by having elevated this to this national priority, this big make or break issue in Ottawa, he gave it a big target for progressive liberal MPs, for environmentalist to make this a project on which to deliver a major blow to the oil sands. Because Jason, had he set it up as such.

MG: There were all sorts of reasons why this project didn't go forward, one of which we talked about depressed oil prices. But in the letter, that's the tech CEO wrote, he talked about the framework that doesn't exist right now in this country to try and figure out how to move forward on projects like this, given environmental concerns, given talks around climate change. Kathleen, you've said that it's time to have this frank conversation about whether we want to be in the fossil fuel industry or not. How do we do that?

KATHLEEN PETTY: Yes, and I don't even know if we have the spine to do it, honestly. I think that's part of it. I think people feel that Ottawa at its core, and by Ottawa I mean the federal Liberals in particular, don't support the fossil fuel industry. You know, it's sort of as simple as that. So we're sort of it at war with each other and that this ground of, this middle ground of, trying to sort of protecting environment and advance climate change measures and have a fossil fuel industry are fundamentally incompatible and you need to pick a lane.

MG: What we're seeing now. The result of not having that conversation is coming home to roost.

KATHLEEN PETTY: I think it is like I think we have to be, you know, talk very plainly about it. And if the idea is to transition away, which so many people are talking about, then come up with the plan. What's the plan? How does the transition happen? Because it's still our biggest export. Oil and gas is still the biggest export in the country.

MG: Mia, given how polarized, as Kathleen says, this conversation is. How likely is it that we would see a discussion like this in Ottawa?

MIA RABSON: Well, we haven't seen it in four and a half years since the Liberals took office with this grand bargain that they could find a way to balance, continuing to develop our resources and combat climate change. This is something Justin Trudeau promised when he was first elected in 2015. We've spent four and a half years hearing him say repeatedly that the economy and the environment go hand in hand. They have not had that conversation, partly because it's so polarized, partly because the voices that are the loudest are those on the extremes on both sides, which is no oil development on one side and no climate plan on the other side. Those voices are the loudest and they're getting sort of the most attention. But now you are seeing so many more. You have the Tech CEO, the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, major investment companies, international companies, some companies like BlackRock at JP Morgan Chase yesterday, they are coming out there saying we can't go forward without more of these plans.

KATHLEEN PETTY: Can I just add something that's important? Is that the oil and gas industry is on board and they have been for a long time. Oil gas has always has for a long time, certainly since the early days of Notley and Jason will recall this as well, are all for a carbon pricing. Now, there's some differences about where they think it should be applied. But and there's a lot of companies that are on board with net, you know, 2050 net zero emissions. But what the industry needs is certainty and they don't have that well.

MG: I want to bring Jason in a moment. But to your point, Kathleen, you said you don't know if we have the spine to have this conversation. What do you mean by that? If there are some actors who are say I mean, sure, those, on getting a lot of the attention, perhaps are being characterized as being on the polarized ends of this. But if there are some actors who want to have that conversation, where's that spine going to come from?

KATHLEEN PETTY: Oh, I wish I knew, because so much of it is just rhetoric at this point. And now people are sort of battling even inside the province itself. So, you know, and there's a lot going on here. You know, there's a lot of stuff happening internally in this province. Never mind the external conversations with Ottawa. And I frankly don't see it because I don't see who where the spine comes from, because, frankly, politicians lost spine a long time.

MG: Jason, you said there's no clear sense as to whether another green lit oil sands mine fits within Canada's short, medium or long term environmental concerns. Is there a path forward for projects like this?

JASON MARCUSOFF: It's hard to see how it fits into the Paris agreement. It's hard to see how this fits into the net zero commitments by 2050, if only because we have no idea what those [unintelligible] look like, what this plan is. In a way, I feel for the Tech resources, their CEO. There, you know, they had Jason Kenney. The oil companies are used to a certain type of framework that reconciles oil and gas and climate change. That is, you know, the federal governments and provincial government approves every project and they just figure it out down the road. They kick the can down the road. Obviously, pressures have shifted. It's been more than four years since anybody's had to approve a giant oil sands mine because nobody is proposing them. And you know, the pressures have changed. So. So without this major framework, without this one, that no figuring out how many oil sands we are having in the can, we have a lot a lot more than enough to build produce what taxable resources, producing more than seven times over. But without that plan, it just random. It's ad hoc every you know, every major project because it's oh, do we do it now? Do you do it now? To have this spine that Kathleen is talking about would mean to consider drawing a red line where the end of the oil sands is.

KATHLEEN PETTY: Can I also say we don't we don't agree. I was just going to say, Jason, the other important thing to point out is we don't agree on where the emissions are. You know, we started off by talking about the emissions cap rate. It's 100 megaton cap. There are no regulations attached to it. There was some openness to attaching regs when tech was still a possibility. And that's as early as last week. I'm not sure that enthusiasm to attach regs will be there. That will be really interesting to watch. And then in addition to that, Ottawa and Alberta do not agree on where our emissions are right now. We can't even agree on that.

MG: Well, an end to this, Mia, comes the Alberta court ruling, which finds that the federal carbon tax is unconstitutional. What does that mean in this larger conversation?

MIA RABSON: It was a definite surprise, I think, to some of her for that to happen, because the other court rulings on the same subject in Ontario and Saskatchewan and a legal opinion in Manitoba had all gone the other direction. So most people I was talking to were not expecting this to happen. Certainly gave some wind to Jason Kenney sales this week and maybe a bit of hope to Alberta. You can sort of see if some people here deflate when that news came down. It certainly doesn't help. I mean, the decision on the carbon tax now is going to ultimately be made by the Supreme Court. But if it doesn't, it doesn't help end this polarization between how do we actually go forward with natural resources and an environmental plan. The federal Liberals have said for many years that putting a price on pollution will force people to cut emissions, whether it's emissions intensity in oil production or overall emissions. And they say that's the only way that you will sort of get buy in from the general public across the country to continue to develop resources. But because this, and that's partly what was in that tech letter, because that fight has not been solved, because all we still hear is no carbon tax, carbon tax. We don't have a plan, an actual plan that everyone can agree on, they did not feel comfortable moving forward with this project, given the other financial issues that their face.

MG: So where does that leave the government than, Mia? If you have a government that says and a prime minister that says you can have it all, you can have resource development, you can have a plan to fight climate change and the carbon tax will help everyone. Where does all of this leave the prime minister?

MIA RABSON: The ball is in the federal government's court to show how that can happen. They still don't even have their sort of targets. They keep promising that they're going to increase the targets and sure of show that path forward to net zero by 2050. We've not seen what that looks like. And if we are going to, for example, build a mine like Tech or expand oil sands productions, that would increase emissions here. Where are we going to cut on the other end that we would actually end up getting to our climate targets? That's part of the problem that a lot of people do not see that path forward and the federal government keeps talking about it, but they have not laid it out.

MG: Jason, was that promise ever viable to be able to have everything?

JASON MARCUSOFF: The liberals sure wanted it to be. And it you know, and again, that's a tradition from the past. The conservatives in the past under Stephen Harper kept talking about climate change. They're even talking about carbon pricing at some point, a cap and trade system. But they also kept expanding the oil sands. Without this sort of framework, without the sort of plan, we really have to, you know, do a forensic deep dive to figure out what where how do you reconcile a federal government that is seems to be set eventually to refuse this tech frontier mine, but has purchased a bitumen pipeline that will be the service in a couple of years. How do they do both of those things? And, you know, my little take on that is that they're interested in continuing the oil sands and serving demand for the near term, but in the long term, you know, should this, you know, should the finances for something like this Tech frontier might be viable in, you know, in 15 years, maybe they're saying no. But we're just guessing at that. Without some sort of policy that that assess, as Mia says, that sense of where the targets are, we're just guessing. And who can blame in a way, Teck resources for to pull this project if it's just not even sure where the goalposts are that it's trying to fit through.

MG: Kathleen, last minute to you.

KATHLEEN PETTY: I was just going to say and the project isn't technically dead. Let's not forget. I mean, when Jason Kelly was asked about, you know, coming up with some kind of entity that would invest in oil and gas, and he was asked if that would include tax he didn't rule it out.

MG: In buying the mine or something like that?

KATHLEEN PETTY: Yes. He didn't rule it out. I mean, he didn't you know, he didn't sort of embrace it, but he also didn't rule it out. So it's going to be really interesting to see where this money comes from, how much it is, how he's going to apply it. And B, because I still don't know how that sort of moves it forward because again, we're still back to the notion that even though this was a mine that was approved and let's remember, is still an approved mine. What Tech did was make sure it wasn't spiked. Right. It wasn't killed because that was the risk.

MG: More on this. Certainly it's not going anywhere. And we'll figure with that spine comes up as well and whether there will be that big gotcha conversation. Thank you all this morning.

GUESTS: Thanks, Matt.

Kathleen Petty, executive producer of CBC News Calgary, host of the West of Centre Podcast, Jason Marcusoff, Alberta, a correspondent for McClain's. Mia Rabson, an energy and environment reporter for the Canadian Press in Ottawa. The CBC News is next. And then.

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For me, the passion that drive, that's she had is something I can never forget. And that's what she instilled in me.

MG: For students of Mojgan Daneshmand, her drive and passion is something that they remember and they are playing it forward. The Canadian scientist was killed when Iran shot down a Ukrainian airlines flight in January. Canadian academics are finding a way to keep her memory and her work alive. We'll tell you about that coming up on The Current. Stick around.

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Mark Bittman on plant-based 'meat'

Guest: Mark Bittman

MG: Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

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MG: Still to come, incubation period, quarantines COVID-19 is probably teaching kids a lot more than they want or need to know about virus transmission. How much information is too much? We'll find out in about 40 minutes. But first, remember that slogan? Where's the beef? Well, it's got a whole different meaning now.

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MG: Wasn't so long ago that so-called plant based meats that look and taste just like or fairly close to the real thing. Well, one of those future trends to be on the lookout for something has happened recently, though, from high end burger bars to fast food joints, coffee shops and freezer aisles. Suddenly, plant based meats are everywhere. Is that cause for celebration? Is this just a fad or is it the future of how we'll eat? Well, that all depends on who you ask.

SOUNDCLIP

BOB LOWE: I'm Bob Lowe. I'm vice president of Canadian Cattlemen's Association.

BRUCE FRIEDRICH: My name is Bruce Friedrich, executive director of a global non-profit organization called the Good Food Institute.

BOB LOWE: I've never really felt the urge to have a plant based burger. I like beef on a burger. I think of a hamburger.

BRUCE FRIEDRICH: I've had cultivated me meat that is drawn directly from cells. But other than that, I have not had an animal meat burger in quite a while.

BOB LOWE: These new companies are coming out claiming that plant-based burgers are healthier for people and healthier for the environment. Both of those statements are actually wrong.

BRUCE FRIEDRICH: Well, there's nobody who is an actual environmental scientist who would agree with that.

BOB LOWE: Without cattle, we would be losing one of the biggest natural ecosystems in the world, which is grasslands.

BRUCE FRIEDRICH: Whatever environmental harm you're looking at, conventional meat production is one of the top three causes of that harm.

BOB LOWE: According to science you aren't supposed to eat processed food. There's not much more processed than plant based burger.

BRUCE FRIEDRICH: Meat has no fibre and no complex carbohydrates. Meat also has a lot of saturated fat and a lot of cholesterol.

BOB LOWE: My biggest beef, if not call it that, is instead of presenting themselves as an alternative, it almost looks like they're trying to eliminate animal agriculture.

BRUCE FRIEDRICH: I do make a point of striking up conversations with people when I am in line at Carl's Junior or Burger King, encouraging them to try and be beyond Burger. The main thing I say is that it is insanely delicious and healthier and it's fantastic.

MG: How does that food fight leave you feeling? Confused, conflicted, maybe hungry. Mark Bittman is the author of 30 books, including The How to Cook Everything series and VB 6. He's also a member of the faculty of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Mark, good morning.

MARK BITTMAN: Good morning, Matt. I'm in New York City.

MG: Who is making the most compelling argument there do you think?

MARK BITTMAN: You know, it's such a it's such a turf war. The cattleman guy is basically wrong about everything except that the new fake meat burgers are among the most hyper processed foods you can buy. That is true. So if you're trying to stay away from ultra processed food, that's in the mix. Bruce Friedrich is a friend of mine and has done great work. But for him to say absolutely delicious or something like that, he hasn't eaten meat in long time. He's forgotten. Because I had an impossible whopper and it's disgusting.

MG: So it's different for people. Let's start with a taste. For people who've never had one of these things before. What does it taste like?

MARK BITTMAN: Doesn't taste like anything. I mean, doesn't this like anything familiar. And if you put it on a if you put it in a taco where it's a small amount of so-called meat with a large amount of flavourings of other kinds, I mean, that's fine. But, you know, if you put bulgur in a taco or wheat berries, cooked wheat berries in a taco or black beans in a taco, you could call that a meat substitute, too.

MG: Do they do they taste better than I mean, the veggie burgers of all were which were a bit like eating hockey pucks.

MARK BITTMAN: You know, I don't think so. I think that there's work to be done on making good veggie burgers. This this work, this sort of high tech work is backed by literally billions of venture capital dollars and is attractive to that that industry because it's hyped and it's profitable and it's got all the marketing power that it that it could possibly need. So, you know, if you call something an impossible burger and you have this great story about how you're making blood out of beet and other plant and it's plant based and now you've got Burger King on board and so on, that's a lot a lot a lot of powerful hype. The taste is tertiary, not even secondary. I mean, it's a sort of last on the list.

MG: Are you surprised at how popular these plant paid? Me based meats have become even writing about food as a method for a long time and it feels like something is happening right now. Does that take you by surprise?

MARK BITTMAN: I mean, nothing surprises me as far as trends go in in North America. But I think we're ripe for this. I think that people are hearing the message that we should be eating more plants than we should be eating less meat, and I think those messages are both correct. So from that point of view, this is a success that everybody should be celebrating. But we should also be eating fewer hyper processed, ultra processed foods. And this doesn't take us down that road. This takes us down the road of eating essentially more junk.

MG: People talk about the environmental impact of this and the environmental footprint of eating meat. And we'll say that eating meat leaves a huge environmental footprint. Can we say how much greener a plant based meat patty is compared to a regular burger?

MARK BITTMAN: You would get arguments from what I'm about to say, from both beyond meat and an impossible. But I don't- I think the jury's out on that. I don't think we know. I don't think we really know about water usage. I don't know if we can make enough. Mostly it's pea protein and other plant based protein that goes into these products. I don't know that there's enough of that to replace all the meat that we eat. And by the way, this is - and you know this - but this is a very complicated and nuanced argument. And there are people who will argue that we can raise as much beef, or nearly as much beef, through sustainable methods in North America as we now do in by raising animals in factory farms. That that is we could go, we could have as many or nearly as many grazing, really grazing cattle that are grass fed as we do grain fed cattle in feedlots right now. So there's no way from me or almost anyone else to know what's really true here. What's true is that from a health perspective, we should probably be eating less meat. But there's a karlovy to that. And the question is, what do you replace the meat that you're eating less of with?

MG: Do we know what's in these plant based products? I mean, I look at the ingredients list in the back of a beyond burger packaging and it goes on and on and on. Do we know what it was that actually in it?

MARK BITTMAN: Well, that's what's in it is things that you don't understand and that you could never possibly make. But I think the building blocks are basically texturize vegetable protein. That is somehow protein is processed through a process that's very technical, and complicated vegetables. And again, it's largely legumes or processed to extract their protein and to turn it into something that vaguely resembles the granular structure of a hamburger.

MG: So when the cattleman, Bob Lowe, says that this is a highly processed food, is he right?

MARK BITTMAN: He's totally right. He's absolutely correct. This is a highly processed. The only thing that he said that I wouldn't argue with. Everything else he said is utter nonsense.

MG: Bruce Friedrich says that I mean, the fibre in this is good and fat. There is a lot- and you'll hear that argument not just from Bruce, but from the people who are creating these products, that there is a health benefit to eating this. Do you buy that?

MARK BITTMAN: Well, Bruce, you know, Bruce comes from a very particular place. And Bruce's place is he wants people to eat no meat at all. So he's going to say what it takes to back a product that gets people eating less meat. No, it does not taste good. And it's not clear that it's good for you. Is it better for you than eating good beef? I'm not sure. I wouldn't bet on it. Is it better for the environment? I think it probably is. Is it better for animals? Unquestionably.

MG: Well, that's the other part of it, is that from animal welfare point of view, people would say that this is a real benefit.

MARK BITTMAN: Yes, it's a game changer from an animal welfare point of view. But there are many points of view. And, you know, responsibly raised meat is a game changer from an animal welfare. I mean, if you believe that no animals should be killed for the benefit of humans, that's a very clear position. But most of us don't take that position. Most of us, in fact, eat animal products and wear leather belts and shoes and so on. The question many of us have is how are those animals raised? And that's a huge question. There's no denying it. But there's a big difference between raising animals that are being tortured every day of their lives in confinement, being fed unnatural diets and including antibiotics and so on, and animals that are allowed to live relatively natural lives with, you know, an abrupt end. No question. But there's a big difference there.

MG: Is it ironic to you that the venue where you're seeing in some ways the most of these plant based options, burgers, and particularly our fast food chains, whether it's McDonald's or Wendy's, think the list goes on and on?

MARK BITTMAN: You know, when I talked with Pat Brown about this, I've talked with both. This is this is a bit ironic is that both Beyond Meat and impossible were founded by people whose last name is Brown. So I've talked to both Pat and Ethan Brown - no relation - about this, and I've said you're driving people into Burger King, you're driving people into Dunkin Doughnuts. How is that possibly a good thing? And their argument is, no, it's people who are already going to Burger King, but instead of ordering a whopper, they're ordering an impossible whopper. Now, my counter to that is if you're a fan of a whopper - and I know plenty of people who are - If you're a fan of a whopper and you try an impossible whopper, you are not going to order another impossible whopper. I mean, it's just much worse taste. I'm sorry.

MG: It's one in [unintelligible].

MARK BITTMAN: Yes. I mean, unless if you're a vegan, if you're a serious, principled vegan, I don't think you're eating in Burger King in the first place.

MG: There are big name meat companies. Tyson in the United States Maple Leaf here in Canada that are investing huge amounts of money in plant based products and sometimes rebranding themselves not as a meat company, but as a protein company. What do you make of that?

MARK BITTMAN: This is this might sound like nit picking, but calling animal products protein and then saying, well, we're going to make fake animal products and call them protein also is really a problem for me because there is protein in every single food, there's protein in lettuce. And obviously the concentrations are different. But you can't characterized by tricking us into thinking that protein is meat and meat is protein and therefore meat substitutes are protein. That's a marketing ploy. Beans, legumes are the highest, most valuable source of protein on the planet. And that's a fact. More people get more protein from legumes than they do from anything else. So if you're going to turn legumes into fake meat and then label that protein, that to me is misleading. And I think I haven't said this explicitly. So I should what we should be eating instead of meat is legumes in as close to their natural form as we can, because that's where there's high fibre and there's high protein. And there's a bunch of micronutrients that are undoubtedly lost in the process of turning those beans into ultra processed food. And there's a bunch of things that are added that we don't need when we turn those beans into ultra processed foods. So, you know, to me, the alternative to beef is not fake beef. The alternative to beef is legumes. That's globally true.

MG: We asked Rachel Conrad, who's the chief communications officer with Impossible., about legumes. Have a listen to what she said.

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Tofu and lentils and dahls and chickpeas and rice have been around for millennia and that has not dented meat consumption. Meat consumption globally continues to go up, up, up. The first thing people, countries, societies do when they get more money is to essentially buy more iPhones and buy more meat from animals. Okay. It doesn't really matter how much you beg them to eat more beans, they eat more meat. So the solution is not to say, no, people, radically change your diet and start just eating plants. That is not going to work. We need to simply create meat in a better way from plants. You don't put the burden on the consumer. That doesn't work.

MG: Mark Bittman, what do you make of what she said? That essentially they've created a better vehicle for you to consume the things that you might get out of the lentils and tofu because you don't want to eat the lentils and tofu in the first place.

MARK BITTMAN: The one thing she said that made sense was the last, which is you don't put the burden on the consumer. That is really right, because this is a question of what's being supplied. It's not a question of demand. It's a question of what's being offered and what's being offered- the radical change is not to ask people to eat less meat and more beans. The radical change is flooding the market with cheap meat. So that's a complicated process that's taking place over the last 50 or 60 years at this point 70 years. And we can flood, especially in North America, but Europe and Australia also, we can flood the market with cheap meat, but we can flood the market with cheap meat because it's the way we've set up agriculture and it's the way we subsidise what's being grown. If we did not flood the market with cheap meat, then people would be eating less of it and we wouldn't be worried about substituting bad veggie burgers for bad meat. We'd be looking to try to eat things that were actually good.

MG: If we actually paid that, not the real cost. But in some ways it is. It is the real cost.

MARK BITTMAN: The true cost of food. Yes, the true cost. The food would make what we now think of as meat substitutes like legumes way more attractive. We should. I have no problem with eating meat. I think we should be eating better meat and less of it. I don't think our diets should comprise lousy meat and lousy meat substitutes. I think our diets should comprise good meat, not much of it and good meat substitutes.

MG: It's not just beef and like the burgers that impossible. is involved in. Last month, they unveiled Impossible pork at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. What did you make of that?

MARK BITTMAN: Well, two hilarious things. It's being introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show, which shows you that this is being pitched to venture capitalists as a tech enterprise, which is part of its success, has nothing to do with food. It's technology. So it's like more like Uber than it is like a farm. That's one thing. But the other thing is, by changing the name from beef to pork, all they're changing is food colouring they're adding and maybe some of the flavourings that they're adding, it's not as if it comes from a fake pig instead of a fake cow. It's the same stuff.

To your point. I mean, it's interesting, the company embraces this idea that it is a technological innovation. Have a listen again to Rachel Conrad from Impossible, why they unveiled this thing, the Impossible pork at a tech show.

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We need to explode this stupid, outdated mythology that somehow food is not a part of science. You know, let's not be brainwashed by 50 years of, you know, marketing pablum. And let's not fool ourselves into thinking that cows come from that red barn door with the grass blowing in the wind on the package. We all know that food is a technology. All of that is a marriage between science and technology. And in fact, it is the most destructive technology on the planet.

MG: Is food a technology, Mark?

MARK BITTMAN: I don't know what technology means. There's something about technology that implies innovation. And from what Rachel says, you would think that it's impossible to put a seed in the ground and grow a plant. And yet we know that that happens. So is that technology? I mean, there is food that is still being raised and grown by people for people. In fact, the majority of food eaten in the world is raised and grown by people for people. So she's right and attacking modern day meat production. I have no problem with that. It's a question of what are you going to do instead? And if you believe that what you should be doing instead is going higher tech, then that leads you in the direction of Impossible or cell based meat or whatever. If what you believe is that we should be stewarding the land, we should be helping people farm with dignity, we should be trying to grow and supply people with real food, that's a different route. I mean that these are really diverging path you're advocating here.

MG: Michael Pollan famously wrote wanted to eat food, mostly plants, not too much. You have. And you wrote a book about this, VB6, Vegan Before 6, where you avoid animal products most of the day. Then you have what you like in the evening. What are you eating these days? I mean, how is the conversation that people are having around food and what to eat and how we can eat and what's available? How is that shaping what you're eating these days?

MARK BITTMAN: I mean, modesty aside, I'm one of the people shaping that conversation.

MG: Absolutely.

MARK BITTMAN: Yes. So I think that what I need is more less reactive and more I don't know what it's honest in any case. So I eat as much as I can locally and seasonally. I recognise that that's a privilege and that everybody can do that. But I do think that - I said this before and I think it's the most important thing I have to say - we need to change the supply chains so that we are offering everybody decent food. What I eat is I guess would qualify as decent food. But I live on a I live on a farm. I buy most of my vegetables and my animal products locally. But it's easy for me. It's not easy for everybody. And that's why we have the kind of problems that we have. If we make it easy for everybody, we can change this stuff.

MG: Do you think, you know, it is still relatively close to the beginning of the year and some of the resolutions that people make, are we're going to eat less meat this year? And people who are influential in terms of diets like yourself will say that might be a good idea. Here's how you could go about it. You'll see cookbooks come out and instructions through popular cooking websites, what have you. Is your sense that people want to eat less meat? And if they do, why do they want to do that?

MARK BITTMAN: Well, the people that I talked to definitely want to eat less meat and do so. But it's a it's the people that I talked to in person is a self-selecting group and it amounts to preaching to the choir. But if I go in front of an audience, no matter how big and I say how many people are eating less meat than they were 10 years ago, everybody raises their hand. A few curmudgeons refuse to raise their hand, but I bet they're doing it, too. So people know what good diets are. If I say the two words, good diet, the same image comes up in most everybody's head and they know: oh, I should be eating less ultra processed food. I should be eating more fruits and vegetables. I should probably eating fewer animal products. That's kind of known. But the question is, how do we get people to do that? And an industry would like us to believe that this has to be done through behaviour change through that that people have to somehow, through their will, eat less meat and eat more vegetables and so on. And that's the argument Rachel Conrad’s making when she says we can't rely on magic, we can't rely on people's will. That's true. What we have to rely on is changing the supply chain. And the only way to do that is to change what's being grown. And the way to change what's being grown is to change food and farm policy, which were really bad at doing. We have never said how do we grow food that stewards the land that benefits farmers and that nourishes eaters. We've never asked that question as a nation, your nation or mine, has never said we could make this policy. We could make it policy that we sustain the land and make it good for farming and farmers and grow good food for people. That would be an interesting starting place and one that a real democracy could do.

MG: Is this thing that we're in right now where these products are being pitched as technologies like the Impossibles, looking at seafood, for example? It's the pork. It's the beef. Is this a fad? Or if we were to talk five years down the road, do you think it'll have a meaningful impact on not just what people eat but how people eat?

MARK BITTMAN: I think we'll be eating more fake meat than we are now. Whether we're eating less real meat than we are now is another question. I don't know the answer to that one. Is it beneficial? You know, maybe it's beneficial, but doesn't improve people's health. Does it improve our relationship to the land? Does it improve sustainability? Address sustainability issues? I don't know the answers to those questions. I know that this is not the best direction we could be going.

MG: It's great to talk to you, as always. Thank you.

MARK BITTMAN: Super fun. Thanks, Matt.

MG: Thanks, Mark. Mark Bittman is the author of 30 books about food and cooking, including How to Cook Everything series and VB6. He was in New York. You can sign up for his email newsletter at markbittman.com. What do you think? Are you including plant based meat? He said in quotation marks, meat in your diet. Are you trying to eat less meat? Are you going entirely meat free? What is your reason for any or all of that? Let us know. Email us at thecurrent@cbc.ca. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC or go to cbc.ca/thecurrent and click the contact link. Coming up in about 15 minutes on the program.

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I felt like it might get viral around and it might come to new places and spread; Quebec, Canada, New Jersey, Ottawa.

MG: Even Ottawa. Kids here about COVID-19 spreading and they might get worried about their own health or their families. After the break, what to say to kids and how to say it when it comes to a virus that's spreading around the world. That's on its way. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current. Stay with us.

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How Canada's scientific community is moving forward after 'unbelievable' losses in Flight 752

Guests: Mohammad Abdolrazzaghi, Mehrdad Hariri

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

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I'm Javad Soliemani. I lost my wife Elnaz in the flight. P.S. 752. Elnaz andI Moved to Edmonton in September of 2018 to start our PhD program. Elnaz actually convinced me to move here. But now I'm alone without her. Now I'm here in her memorial. It's only a foot off her.

MG: Javad Soleimani props a picture of his wife on the podium as he starts to talk about their life together. He was speaking at a memorial in Edmonton on the weekend, remembering the people killed when Ukrainian Airlines Flight 752. 176people died when Iran shot down that plane. And he talks there about he and his wife came to Canada to study. In fact, many of the victims were students and professors.

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My name is Mojgan Daneshmand. I'm a faculty in electrical and computer engineering department at the University of Alberta. I'm the supervisor of a research group that focuses on microwave and millimetre wave technology. We use this concept to develop new sensors. We interact a lot with the industries that are local and we've worked with them towards getting better and better devices every day.

MG: Mojgan Daneshmand, her husband, Pedram Mousavi, a professor himself, and their two daughters all died on Flight 752. Daneshmand was an engineering professor at the University of Alberta, where she ran a research lab. Mohammad Abdolrazzaghi was one of her research assistants and wants to continue on with her work. And he joins us now. Mohammad, good morning.

MOHAMMAD ABDOLRAZZAGHI: Moring Matt.

I'm sorry for the loss of your colleague, and I can't imagine what the last few months have been like for you and for your team. We heard Mojgan say that her team was doing work with sensors. What are these sensors?

MOHAMMAD ABDOLRAZZAGHI: Yeah, Mojgan has started the project of hamsters on not just one project, but like many different topics, since about six, seven years ago and we were developing sensors for many applications that they could be biomedical sensing or chemical sensing, they could be used to further sensing the environmental change. So, for instance, if there is anything happening in the temperature of the environment, we could develop a sensor to read that or any thing happening where the humidity of the air or even if there is any specific gas coming out of the exhaust of the cars or to chimneys of the factories. We could develop a sensor to read that to see how polluted the air is going to be because of that specific instrument. Or also for biomedical applications, for instance we could develop sensors that could read these special components in our blood, for instance, glucose level in our blog, while we never need to prick our fingers to take our blog and do you electro chemical sensing on them.

MG: Tell me more about it. I want to talk about the blood thing in a moment. But if you take a look at those sensors in an industrial world, how could they be used?

MOHAMMAD ABDOLRAZZAGHI: So the sensors that we were developing. These were a non-contact plan or sensors so they could be wearable and it can become conformed around to the objects of interest. And they can have no contact with the device on our test. So you could use one of those sensors in a way that there is no contact between the material that is going to be sentenced or chemical, that we don't have a physical access to that. And still, the microwave, which is the most basic idea behind our sensor, can be propagated through air to interrogate the material. And then because of the reflection of the microwave from those materials, we could grasp information about what that material is or how much of that material is in that specific location.

MG: I was reading that some of this could be used in oil sands.

MOHAMMAD ABDOLRAZZAGHI: Yes, exactly. Part of our research was extended to study the change in the components of oil in real-world Application, for instance. There are specific components in oil theory called asphalted and chances are that they asphalt and could be extracted from oil and they can collect together and many [unintelliglble] larger and larger molecules. And as a result, there would be a pipeline clogging. And also the reserve or clogging that would cost the extraordinary amount of money for the maintenance. So our research enables us to develop a methodology to have a pre-emptive sensing mechanism to find out that whether Esselstyn is going to be extracted or precipitated or not, or like which level of that process we are in so that we could predict and prevent those types of issues in oil as an industry.

MG: And you mentioned just quickly, tell us about the blood glucose measuring and how that could be done without, as you say, pricking your finger.

MOHAMMAD ABDOLRAZZAGHI: Yes. Exactly. So normally what happens in an industry right now is that you go to a clinic and they take a blood sample after your blood and they use it in their kits to measure the level of the glucose in them. And that's not so convenient for the patients, whether they would be elder or kits. Alternatively, we developed a sensor that could be wearable and there is no direct contact between the sensor and the blood. So it would be is so similar to a wristwatch. While are you wearing the microwaves coming out of our sensor will be integrating with the blood and the interaction of it that would tell us that what would be the level of the glucose into blood. Since that looks like a wristwatch that can be used continuously so would have a continuous monitoring of glucose levels, whether you asleep or you're awake or during days or weeks. So it will not be a single time measurement.

MG: t's fascinating technology. How close was the team to getting these sensors to market when Mojgan died?

MOHAMMAD ABDOLRAZZAGHI: Well, we initially were developing the proof of concept for so many of these technologies because they are really cutting edge in the studies. And the literature has shown that there is not much done in this regard. We require really highly sensitive and so high end sensing mechanisms to enable us to do these applications. We were just so close, maybe like one or two more years away from putting all of these stuff to get her into a nice industrial packaging and sending it out.

MG: Given that, I mean, there's so many layers to this tragedy and her death and the death of all of those on the Ukraine Airlines jet. What was that like for you and what does it mean for your team in terms of losing that momentum in that research?

MOHAMMAD ABDOLRAZZAGHI: Well, that was so shocking that first when I hear that news. And we were stressed that first I would go forward without Mojgan and being a supervisor. Yes, certainly we you felt her loss and nothing could express it like how lonely we became after death. However, as we have learned from Mojgan these years in our meetings and our gatherings, we kept our momentum as much as possible to continue all our research, since we had a couple of our post-docs supervising us and still research assistants to keep the group together. And we were somehow in know of the invasion that Mojgan had sketched for us before her trip to Iran. So we had an idea how the projects were supposed to go and we vowed to her and the University of Alberta to continue her research. So we definitely try really hard to keep this momentum as much as possible.

MG: Just finally, you knew her for a long time. Why was it so important for you to ensure that her work continued after her death?

Well, it goes back to all of the ideologies and mindsets that Mogjan had set in us, and we inherit those final thoughts because of our meetings and discussions over the past few years. The main point of joining Mojgan's crew, when I did that in 2014 was to establish a better world rank university for my graduate studies and continuing that to get a degree and continuing my education. So that was the core idea of joining core research. However, even though Mojgan was gone makes this a little bit bumpy and so hard to continue. But we never forget the main point that we joined her group to continue our research and studying in a better place to get a degree that could have transferred all of our studies into a memorable degree.

MG: It's really wonderful that you're continuing her work and I'm sorry again for your loss. Mohammadd, thank you for talking to us.

MOHAMMAD ABDOLRAZZAGHI: Yes. Thank you. Thanks for covering the story.

MG: Mohammad Abdolrazzaghi is a graduate research assistant at the University of Alberta. 85 people from Canada's scientific community were killed on Flight 752. Mehrdad Hariri is the president and founder of the Canadian Science Policy Centre. He's with me. Good morning.

MEHRDAD HARIRI: Good morning.

MG: This was a huge loss for you, for your community, for the scientific community, for Canada. There is. It's an awful story, but there is something beautiful in hearing about the work continuing in many ways. How do you how do you react to that?

MEHRDAD HARIRI: I think this is as you said, it's a tragic event. But this is wonderful story that colleagues coming and taking the torch and continuing the legacy of the researcher who lost their lives in this plane, in particular in case of this Dr. Daneshmand's legacy in her research.

MG: It's almost been two months since this plane was shot out of the sky. What impact has that had on the community still?

MEHRDAD HARIRI: I think still the community is in a state of disbelief and shock because the scale was great. It was devastating. It was you heard that researchers, students, lecturers lost their lives from across the country, from Vancouver to Halifax, Winnipeg, Waterloo, Edmonton, GTA, Toronto, Windsor. This was unbelievable. To my knowledge, this is the greatest loss of scientific talent since World War Two. I cannot compare this with any other in the recent history.

MG: It's staggering when you think about it.

MEHRDAD HARIRI: It is, really.

MG: Why were there so many scientists and researchers on that on that one flight?

MEHRDAD HARIRI: Well, there are a couple of reasons to mean one. It was the flight right after the Christmas vacation. So many of the students, lecturers and researchers went back to visit the families using that to Christmas holiday. And that was apparently that was the first plane or one of the best planes in terms of the timing and affordability, et cetera, coming back from Tehran. So many use that flights to come back to Canada. The other reason, as you may know, that, you know, pursuing scientific careers and pursuing higher education among Iranian families is a tradition. So families really want their children and kids to go to universities and study in different levels. So and on the other hand, there is a sizable Iranian Canadian community, immigrants, citizens, permanent residents who come to Canada. And the first thing they do, do they see if there is a possibility of or shooting to pursue and continue their educations in Canadian universities. In addition to that, there are many international students, many Iranian students who come here as a visa. One of the reasons being due to the incompetency of the government. Iran is on the top of the list of brain drain so a lot of people would like to escape the country and in pursuing better life and continuing their education. Canada is the one of the top destination, partly because the U.S. is very hard to get. And also, the Iranian universities are well-recognised in any Canadian community and they easily get admitted to the Canadian university.

MG: As I mentioned, there are layers and layers of this tragedy. And obviously, first and foremost is the personal tragedy and the loss of those individuals on the plane. But there was so much great work that they were doing. Well, how worried were you that that that work - I mean, again, in the scale of things, perhaps it's not as important - but how worried that that important work, that ground-breaking work could come to an end because of that?

MEHRDAD HARIRI: Yeah, that's, as you said, leers of the impact of this tragedy. And that's part of it, is the impact on the research and the research that some of it cannot continue the way it was. But I'm really grateful that Mohammad, for example, you [unintelligible] is pursuing and trying to continue the work of Dr. Daneshmand.

MG: You yourself took an active role in this. You began writing letters to universities to set up scholarship funds for the names of those who died.

MEHRDAD HARIRI: Yes, that's right. It was a day or two after this tragic event. I wrote letters to presidents asking if it is possible to in order to continue the legacy of these researchers.

MG: Why was that important to you and even in those couple of days after this had happened?

MEHRDAD HARIRI: I think we were all in a state of shock, disbelief, anger, grief. We didn't know what to do. I think I'm part of this community. I thought we got to do something and maybe continue the legacy in helping out the other Iranian students to pursue their studies and continue research would be one way to remember these victims. I was not, by the way, I was not the only one. I must mention the name of my friend Rahim Rezaie, who also exactly acted on himself. And then we got together to ask UofT, University of Toronto to set up a memorial fund. And so there were many others, by the way, in response from president of universities, some of them had already acted on those and some they pursue that suggestion and started memorial funds, including UofT.

MG: Just finally, I mean, as you mentioned, you're a leader in the scientific community here, but you're also not a member of the community.

MEHRDAD HARIRI: Right. I don't consider it a leader, but thank you.

MG: You are. What sort of weight has this had on you? And what sort of effect has this had on you personally? What's happened over the last couple of months?

MEHRDAD HARIRI: It was impacted me that nothing else had such effect on me personally and my family. The tragedy was so close to me personally. I am a member of GTA community who had lost a lot of members. I am a member of scientific community and I'm a member of Iranian-Canadian community. So it was impacted me in many ways and it was devastating. It was very hard. I was watching the news with tears in my eyes and my wife as well. And we received a note from my daughter's school that a graduate of that school lost live. And it was extremely difficult, devastating time. And I have not yet fully recovered from that. I must admit. And every time that I hear something and clips of something, I have tears in my eyes. It is very difficult.

MG: There is something as I said, though, something coming out of something as awful as this is something that's really encouraging about people rallying around the work of these individuals saying, you know what, we're going to continue that work and we're going to show that that work that they dedicated so much time and energy to lives on in future.

MEHRDAD HARIRI: Yes, that's right. That's the spirit of humanity, the spirit of collective work. And I must say, the it was also a defining moment for many of us, as Iranian-Canadian said, what it means to be a Canadian. Because I'd received many of my colleagues and friends in the community, received so many messages from many people across the country in support and in sending solidarity messages. And it was really at the same time, as you said, is it tragedy, but it was a defining moment. What it means to be an Iranian-Canadian.

MG: I'm sorry for what you've been through, but I appreciate you telling us about how much of this work is continuing. Mehrdad, thank you.

MEHRDAD HARIRI: Thanks for having me.

MG: Mehrdad Hariri is president and founder of the Canadian Science Policy Centre.

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How should you talk to your child about coronavirus? Start by asking if they're worried, says pediatrician

Guest: Hirotaka Yamashiro

MG: You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. My name's Matt Galloway.

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VOICE1: How did the coronavirus start?

VOICE2: Should we eat food that comes from China?

VOICE3: Like I wonder if they run of food and they can't leave the house.

VOICE4: How do people get sick?

MG: Kids, as you know, have questions about all kinds of things. When the news is full of reports about an illness and illness that's spreading, you can bet those kids may have even more questions than usual. Dr. Hirotaka Yamashiro is no stranger to those types of questions. He's chair of the pediatric section of the Ontario Medical Association. Doctor, good morning.

HIROTAKA YAMASHIRO: Good morning.

MG: How does the coronavirus come up when children come to see? What did they ask?

HIROTAKA YAMASHIRO: Well, it comes in both ways. You know, I personally, as a parent and as a pediatrician, I know that I have to make sure that even if they don't bring it up all by themselves, that I always take the opportunity, depending on the age of the child, to ask him if they are worried about what they're hearing. Just like anything that would be in the news. But this could be there's an unknown factor. And we know that children and nowadays are really suffering from increasing rates of anxiety in general. We really take the opportunity in our offices to make sure to put all the questions the parents have and of course, the child has. We try to take that opportunity to give them good up to date information.

MG: What are some of the questions that you're getting?

HIROTAKA YAMASHIRO: The specific questions, I think we we got questions about what what are the chances I might get it? And I guess the biggest one is how can I make sure that not only myself, my friends, usually the children, obviously, they really get worried about those immediately around them. So they want to know is there a test my friends could get it, my mom and dad, what what could I do to prevent getting this virus?

MG: And so this is a conversation, I think that any of us who have kids are having around the dinner table or in the car on the bus, in the living room would have you. What should you tell a child who asks you questions about coronavirus?

HIROTAKA YAMASHIRO: So I think that, first of all, you want to make sure that you tell them that what we know about this virus is that as much as you see all the news reports, the numbers show that most people who get the Corona virus do not get very sick, if they get sick at all. What we don't know is that a very small number of people who get the coronavirus about a week or two later suddenly get very, very sick. And that's probably the biggest concern from a health standpoint. So I think we know that parents and doctors are probably the most trusted source of information for most children when they think about a virus or something that has to do with being healthy. So one of the things we try to do is to reassure them that what we know about the Corona virus, we haven't had a lot of cases so far in this area or in North America. And we know that most people who got the virus, they do not got any symptoms or they will get a very mild illness. But it's a good opportunity, though, in having that conversation to talk about the fact that good hand hygiene, watching a hand, coughing into your sleeve, all those things you've heard about. It's a really good opportunity to reinforce that.

MG: Those conversations are certainly happening. Have a listen to this.

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I feel like they should just like be straight up because kids can take a lie. They're not weak in the sense that parents think that we are. And we can handle it.

MG: What do you make of that, doctor? Should parents be straight up in terms of the way that they answer questions about something that can be as alarming as a virus that's spreading around the world?

HIROTAKA YAMASHIRO: I think it's up to each individual parent and they know their children best in terms of how they found it's easiest to have that sort of dialogue. But I think that it's probably in this case because the children are probably worried about it. They are probably getting their information from many other sources other than at home or at school or for their doctor, that you make sure that you ask him if they're worried about it. And if they are, what are they worried about. And again and take that opportunity to say there's also flu going around. Flu is definitely making people very sick all over North America in big, big numbers. So it is a good opportunity to say that the way you protect yourself and the people you love around you is to is to wash your hands, wash your hands and wash your hands. That is by far the most important thing to do to your point.

MG: Kids are paying attention. I mean, whether it's listening to the radio or whether it's picking up conversations in the playground or through social media, they're aware of what's going on. And so how much of this is about providing accurate information?

HIROTAKA YAMASHIRO: I think it's a big part of it. And I think what you want to do is to make it something where-- I think kids depending on. They will certainly be willing to take on some responsibility, but things they can do to keep themselves healthy. And I think that by not sort of minimizing what they're worried about by but talking to them, this is what we know. What have you heard? What are you worried about. I think having that anger and how ongoing and engaging dialogue is definitely helpful. It relieves probably hopefully whatever unnecessary anxiety children may be feeling. But it has to be an ongoing process.

MG: Anxiety is a real thing. And as you mentioned, kids are experiencing and displaying more signs of anxiety now than perhaps in past. The news is also bad. I mean, it's just a constant stream, it seems, like of bad news these days. So if a parent finds that their child is perhaps becoming obsessed with the news of the Corona virus, which of the parent to?

HIROTAKA YAMASHIRO: Absolutely. I think dad and I have had some parents talk about that they're worried. And you see you see it where children, they don't they're not only just telling you they're worried about it, but now they talk about I don't really want to go to school. I don't want to shake hands with certain people. They start talking about actions were it's definitely affecting how they lead their day to day lives. And we know that no matter what the cause, if anxiety in any child and, you know, anxiety can be diagnosed in children as young as three or four year old, it's not unheard of. It is really important for the parents to recognise that the level of anxiety seems to be a little bit more than just worrying about things. And it's starting to really affect their actions and what they're willing and not willing to do to talk to their doctor, to a pediatrician or to a family doctor, because it's very easy to get them targeted counselling and things that will help them sort of alleviate that anxiety, because, as you know, anxiety can be a very insidious, very, very debilitating thing for many, many people.

MG: As you say, there are two things that seem to have come out of this. One is make sure you're having the conversation. But also washing your hands is the safest way to avoid this.

HIROTAKA YAMASHIRO: Absolutely.

MG: Doctor, thank you so much.

HIROTAKA YAMASHIRO: Thank you.

MG: Dr. Hirotaka Yamashiro is the chair of the pediatric section of the Ontario Medical Association, talking about how to talk to your kids about coronavirus. You're doing this in your own home. Let us know how those conversations are going. Head to the Web site cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact link. That is it for the current for today. Q is coming up. Gord Sinclair is releasing his first solo album, bassist for the Tragically Hip for his whole career. He's now out on his own and he'll talk to Tom Power about that album and about Gord Downie as well. You'll hear that coming up on CBC Radio One. You can listen to that through the CBC Listen app. Find that wherever you find your apps and you can use it to get caught up on some things that you might have missed on this program or others. If you missed the Mark Bittman interview, you might want to catch up on that. We were talking about the proliferation of plant based meat, things that look like meat but aren't meat. I'm not sure why I'm calling them meat because they're not entirely meat. But anyway, that discussion got us thinking about another burger. Sounds pretty amazing. It's not the impossible burger. It's the implausible burger dreamt up by the clever people at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. And we'll talk to you tomorrow.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: When you want that real meaty taste with none of the gilds bite into the new implausible burger, the only burger alternative guaranteed to probably not be meat. Sorry, did you say probably? The Impossible Burger is 100 percent juicy, 100 percent delicious, and 100 percent plant based just like [unintelliglbe].

VOICE2: So good. I can't believe it's not meat.

VOICE 1: Yeah, me neither. Well, but no one likes all the problems with eating animals. So the implausible burger allows you to plausibly believe that you aren't.

VOICE3: Yes, but this is fake meat, right?

VOICE 1: Sure.

VOICE4: Oh, was that. What? Did you just wink at me? I can't see you.

VOICE5: Just tell me what I'm eating right now.

VOICE 1: Nobody knows because implausible burgers are created inside our patented blind processing plant where we bring in the freshest vegetables and plant proteins and also let a bunch of beef cattle in. What happens in there? We don't know. And we pass that not knowing on to you. Every implausible burger exists in an unknowable quantum state. It's like Schrodinger's cat.

VOICE6: May contain some cat.

VOICE7: Take a minute, he said.

VOICE 1: That's because the implausible burger is so believably me that it can give you salmonella. The implausible burger ignorance is delicious.

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Wednesday February 26, 2020 Full Transcript

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