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Food, Inc.: Take Action!

I’ve gotten several emails and comments from people who think I’d enjoy the movie Food, Inc. (thanks, Catherine, Georgina, and Shannon!).

Sadly, I haven’t had a chance to see it yet. I’ve read enough about the food industry to have a good idea about the contents of the film, but I’d still love to see it. The practices and manipulations of the food industry should be widely known and it’s great that this movie is trying to spread the word. If you’ve seen it, feel free to comment or reblog and let me know what you thought of it. In the mean time, I checked out the Food, Inc. website and found this list of 10 things you can do to change the food system, many of which I’ve discussed before (click here to get details):

1. Stop drinking sodas and other sweetened beverages.
2. Eat at home instead of eating out.
3. Support the passage of laws requiring chain restaurants to post calorie information on the menus and menu boards.
4. Tell schools to stop selling sodas, junk food, and sports drinks.
5. Meatless Mondays — Go without meat one day a week.
6. Buy organic or sustainable food with little or no pesticides.
7. Protect family farms; visit your local farmer’s market.
8. Make a point to know where your food comes from — READ LABELS.
9. Tell Congress that food safety is important to you.
10. Demand job protections for farm workers and food processors, ensuring fair wages and protections.

Saw Food, Inc. tonight. (Aren’t I on a roll with seeing movies lately? I’m proud of myself, and I’m actually enjoying it instead of reading and watching TV. Anyway.)

Comments:

• Great, great film. Very well put together and the footage was absolutely stunning during some of the scenes with corn fields and organic farms.
• I teared up during a few parts. Yes, actual tears were fought back.
• I am really never eating anything from a pig again. I already haven’t for six years, and I am never, ever going back.
• Now I’m considering not eating chicken. They spend 100 percent of their day in darkness. The farmers take out loans of up to $300,000 for their farms and they make only $18,000 per year from the top poultry companies. I had to close my eyes during those slaughtering scenes. Unfortunately I saw enough to make me reconsider my menu options next time I’m at a restaurant.
• I tried to block out all the parts about ground beef, but two things stuck in my memory: the cows stand ankle deep in their own feces all day, and when you eat a ground hamburger patty you’re eating parts from about 1,000 different cows. YUM. Thankfully, grass-fed cows are treated more humanely, and they’re exposed to grass (obviously), which helps their digestive system rid itself of E coli bacteria. This is something that all the other cows are deprived of, since they’re fed strictly on corn.
• Even though you’d think soybeans are really great for you, 90 percent of them are sprayed with chemicals. And the farmers who try to clean their seeds and save them to beat the system are being persecuted and blacklisted from a top seed company.
• Vegetables (especially organic ones) need to be cheaper so that everyone, not just people who have a steady job and a lot of money, can afford them. A fast food burger and fries should never be cheaper than a head of broccoli.

Go see this film now while it’s still in theaters. We all need to start buying more organic items and eating less meat and fast food. I’m going to try harder at this starting now.

I haven’t seen the film yet, but have been reading along these lines for quite a while and fully support efforts to change the situation.

But wow… no bacon ever? I can’t quite get my head around that one. Must be some awful pig footage in there.