Eat BC! – Media

Learn more about how Eat BC! has been received throughout British Columbia and how it has affected the BC Food Industry.

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Please click on the link below to find out what has been happening with Eat BC!

Eat BC! Campaign Kicks Off (Video)

September 14, 2007 Press Release

Eat BC! & The Spirit of BC (Video)

Jeremy Berry
Communications Manager
Ministry of Agriculture and Lands
250.356.8950
250.889.2285 (cell)

Here is a list of interesting facts about food grown/raised within British Columbia.

There are about 265,000 beef cows in BC which is approximately 5% of the total Canadian herd.
Bison can easily jump over 2m fences. They can go almost anywhere and a common saying is, "You can lead a bison anywhere it wants to go!"
BC's 56 turkey producers produce about 15 million kilograms of turkey annually. That's about 1.9 million turkeys per year.
Turkeys are difficult to raise because they have difficulty learning to eat and drink in the first 5 days of life.
Chickens do not chew their food. The food is moistened in the throat, and ground up in an organ just before the stomach called the gizzard. If a chicken is on the range, it will eat grit, hard particles like small stones. These particles are what the food grinds against in the gizzard.
The average chicken lays about seven times her weight in eggs a year.
Game birds are traditionally wild birds that are raised in captivity for food consumption. Pheasants, quail, partridge, squab (baby pigeons) and silkies (bantam chickens) are raised in BC. Producers of pheasants are faced with problems of "feather picking" or "cannibalism", the tendency of birds to eat one another. Often the producers have to fit each bird with a coloured plastic blinder in front of its eyes to prevent the birds from pecking each other.
A goat is a frisky, short-haired domesticated mammal with small horns. A female goat is a doe, a male goat is a buck and young goats are called kids. A common name for a milk goat is a nanny. Goats were domesticated as early as 7000 BC. They were brought to North America, with sheep, by settlers in New France in the early 1600s.
Ostrich meat is eaten in upscale restaurants and is exported to Europe, where it is considered a delicacy. There are very few ostriches in Canada, so purchasing breeding stock can be quite expensive. A large initial investment is required. An ostrich egg sells for $35; a day old chick $125. An adult breeding pair can cost $1,000 to $5,000. Adults are capable of protecting themselves from coyotes or stray dogs with a strong forward kick.
Apples clean the digestive system. Eating an apple cleans the teeth and massages the gums, removing more bacteria than two three-minute brushings followed by a gargle. Scientists have proven that apple eaters have fewer headaches, intestinal disorders, colds, respiratory problems and illnesses associated with the nervous system.
BC produces about 4 million kilograms of beans. This many beans would cover a football field to a depth of over 2m.
99% of BC blueberries are grown in the Fraser Valley in Richmond, Pitt Meadows, Matsqui Prairie and Surrey.
The carrot is a highly refined version of a common weed, Queen Anne's lace. Both plants originated in the Middle East.
BC produces about 3 million pounds of pumpkins a year. The greatest challenge facing pumpkin growers is controlling weeds. Growers in BC are fortunate in that there are very few pests and diseases which afflict pumpkins so they do not need to be sprayed with insecticides or fungicides.
For every ½ kilogram of honey produced, bees fly over 50,000 kilometres, which is more than once around the earth. Although worker bees live only about 6 to 8 weeks in the summer, a queen (bee) can live for as long as 5 years. It takes about 1 year to establish a bee hive. A queen bee will mate with up to 10 drone bees shortly after she is born. The sperm she recieves is stored in a special organ, and is enough to last her lifetime. Once a queen has returned to her colony, she will start laying eggs. A queen can lay up to 2000 eggs a day.

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