Food, Inc.

April 22, 2010 | Filed Under Consider this, Do your research!, Health, Inspiring, Learn something, Moment of Truth, Pay attention, Rewritable words, Watch this, Website 

I was all over Twitter with it, but everyone doesn’t use Twitter, so I decided to share some of the information, reminders and thoughts I had while watching Food, Inc., on PBS. Food, Inc. is an incredibly eye-opening film everyone who eats should see. PBS believes this so strongly that it’s airing the film on national television and streaming it in its entirety online from April 22 – April 29. Check your local listings for television viewing.

• Even if you don’t eat at a fast food restaurant, you’re still eating food made for/within that system. [If you haven't already, read Fast Food Nation.]
• “Chickens never see sunlight. They’re pretty much in the dark all the time.”
• “This isn’t farming, this is just mass production.”
• “It doesn’t matter if the chickens get sick, all of the chickens will be sent for processing.”
• Learn about the industrial food system.
• 30% of the land in the US is used to produce corn.
• Farm-raised fish is eating corn.
• Average American eats over 200 lbs. of meat a year. Ugh. Do you know how long it takes for meat to leave your body??
• Reminder: there’s manure in your meat! Bon appetit!

• “We put faith in our government to protect us and we’re not being protected on a basic level.” <— this government protects highest bidders: the massively rich, corporations, and industries
• Consumer safety tip: FDA doesn’t protect consumers and was never designed to do so. Former FDA Commissioner Herbert Lay was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle of January 2, 1970 as saying, “The thing that bugs me is that people think the FDA is protecting them. It isn’t. What the FDA is doing and what the public thinks it’s doing are as different as night and day.”
• If cattle is taken off corn diet and put on [natural] grass diet, they shed 80% of e. coli in their stomachs.
• Hamburger meat filler treated with AMMONIA to kill the e. coli in the beef…in 20% of the market. Bon Appetit! [They project 100% in 5 years.]
• #foodinc is reminding me of why I became a macrobiotic practitioner and eventually a vegan.
• “Faster, fatter, bigger, cheaper!” is the motto of food industry.
• Being an adult who regularly eats fast food is like becoming a new cigarette smoker: way too much information out there to not know you’re asking for trouble. [But I'm assuming you care about your quality of life.]
• If you eat fast food because you don’t have time to cook: try slow cooking. Crock pots are AMAZING!
• I sincerely believe food/diet is responsible for [or a major contributor to] 95% of all health problems.
• Our current economic system KILLS souls. People doing menial, spirit-killing jobs for a wage. Shame.
• I was urged by @andrea_zak to read Kessler’s The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite to find out what happens to factory farmed meat and industrial veggies.
• Someone noted that it costs more to eat well than to eat poorly. Upfront, yes.
• Environmental, health, and social costs for “cheap” food are NOT cheap.
• No to US soy…90% of it’s Roundup Ready: can’t be killed by pesticide. [Roundup Ready products are "herbicide tolerant". To learn more about the effects of Roundup Ready products, check out Roundup Ready Nation: Dying for Profits.]
• Live by your principles. The law is not values-based, thus often lawfully unlawful. The prohibition of marijuana is proof of this. [Note: I am not promoting the use of marijuana, but I am in support of its legalization, especially alongside the legalization of alcohol and cigarettes, which kill an insanely large number of people annually.]
• Become a vegetarian, build an earthship and grow your own food. [Earthships are completely self-sustainable housing. Friggin awesome.]
• Genetically modified foods aren’t labeled. Meat from cloned animals isn’t either. Cheers!
• 70% of supermarket products contains some genetically modified ingredient.
• You can go to prison for criticizing beef in Colorado?!? What the…? [Yes, thanks to the veggie libel law, you can be sued by food producers for libel in thirteen states: Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas.]
• Some solutions are to support local food. Farmer’s markets. Communnity supported agriculture (CSAs). Plant a garden.
• (y)our diet can change the planet. and your life. see?

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