After seeing the movie Food Inc., I was inspired to stop consuming aspartame and to start my own herb garden on my small East Village fire escape. We’ll see if I actually deliver.
The movie and following panel with Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Alice Waters, Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farm, Greenmarket honcho Marcel Van Ooyen, and the film’s director, Robert Kenner were awesome. The footage was beautiful and vibrant, and the movie was shared a huge range of interviews – bringing to life Fast Food Nation while intertwining stories of an obese family, who had to choose between diabetes medicine and healthy food, farmers currently facing lawsuits against Monsanto (god of soybeans), and Stonyfield going mainstream. As a mainstream documentary, I couldn’t help wondering if it was effective and not overly preachy, or dumbed down Michael Moore style. If I didn’t notice the preachy overtones, it was because I’m clearly a member of the choir. After all, any movie ending with “this land is your land, this land is my land,” clearly had an agenda.
Key take-aways from both the movie and the panel:
- When Alice Waters started buying local & organic produce, she didn’t do it for health or environmental reasons, but because it tasted better
- Monsanto, a soybean company, genetically modified & patented a soybean that is now THE soybean allowing them to sue any farmer that saves seed. They own the soybean.
- How factory farming affects illegal immigrant workers – a big beef plant is in bed with immigration.14 random employees are deported at night, so that the production isn’t effected.
- Stonyfield & Walmart partnership: an example of why making organics mainstream is good
