does this strike anyone as pro-vegetarian?

[Guest guest]

Hi all,

At the risk of sounding self-promotional, no one mentioned having read

my review so I'll assume no one did (there's so much to read!). My

brother wrote back and said he liked it but from his other comments it

appears he thought my review or the movie or both were promoting

vegetarianism (maybe he remembers my long-ago vegetarian phase and

thinks I'm still stuck in it?). Does anyone else get the same

impression? Has anyone seen the movie yet? Obviously, I recommend it!

From

http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2009/08/ok-last-one-on-food-inc-and-its-a-good-one\

..html

.. Thanks

OK, last one on “Food, Inc.”, and it’s a good one!

AUGUST 21, 2009 · 9 COMMENTS

I know I said last week when I wrote about going to see “Food, Inc.”,

that I wouldn’t go on and on about this movie, since many bloggers

have already done so…BUT, then I read Jeanmarie’s movie review, and

had to share it with you! Thanks, Jeanmarie!

This movie fully lived up to my hopes and expectations for being fact-

based, fair, even-handed, and thoroughly though-provoking. Food, Inc.

presents a comprehensive view of our food system, how it got this way,

and what we can do about it. The producers pulled back the veil the

agribusiness producers and factory farmers try to keep between us and

our food. If too many people ask to see “what’s going on in the

kitchen,” as Pollan put it, business may have to change. Oh,

let it be so.

Viewers of The Future of Food and Fast Food Nation, and readers of The

Omnivore’s Dilemma won’t find that much new to them, but the stark

reality of how our food is produced is still stunning, and has only

worsened since those other works came out. The movie weaves in jaw-

dropping facts and figures with compelling personal stories and

straight-faced presentation of the other side by agribusiness, at

least those that would consent to be interviewed. If I were them I

wouldn’t talk publicly either. I’d be too busy packing for my new life

in the witness protection program. The audience applauded Carole, the

sole chicken farmer who had the guts to talk on camera and let us see

her operation, which is not even the worst of its kind. Of course,

she’s now a former Perdue chicken farmer.

We also meet a seed-cleaner who was sued for allegedly encouraging

soybean farmers to save their seeds, in contravention to their

contracts with Monopolisto I mean Monsanto. We meet a food-safety

activist whose 2 ½ year-old son died 12 horrible days after eating an

E. Coli 0157-contaminated burger. We go into food science labs and

peer into the rumen of a cow and watch it digest grass. We listen to

Salatin talk about his run-ins with the FDA over sanitation as he

eviscerates just-killed chickens in his open-air processing station.

Contaminant levels of his chickens: 133 coliform units; factory-farm

chickens: 3600. And the FDA wants to shut HIM down, while the grieving

mother can’t even get an apology from the billion-dollar company whose

contaminated beef killed her child.

We see how the poor undocumented workers at meat-packing plants are

arrested for immigration violation while the meatpacking conglomerate

that lured them to the U.S. is left alone with a workforce too

vulnerable and afraid of deportation to complain about conditions. We

see the revolving door between industry and the FDA (even the Supreme

Court!) in a particularly memorable way.

And so much more. I was enthralled the whole time.

While there are moments that are difficult to watch (not limited to

the slaughterhouse scenes), it’s not because of gore but rather the

enormous implications and the dawning realization that greed has so

warped the system that it’s all but too late to turn things around.

That’s when the filmmakers remind us that in a consumerist, capitalist

society, consumers actually do have considerable power, if we educate

ourselves and make deliberate choices and make our demands known,

rather than passively accepting whatever swill the food industry

dishes out for us.

Food, Inc. may take the real food revolution to a new level. It isn’t

an anti-capitalist screed, nor a an argument for vegetarianism —

though vegetarians may well feel it further justifies their choices.

The solution is to use the system to compel change. As endnotes to the

movie put it, we can all vote to change the system, three times a day.

Every choice we make of how to spend our food dollars, of what to put

in our mouths, is a chance to say, this is what I value, this is what

I want more of, this is what nourishes me.

And maybe, this is what I’m willing to fight for.

As I consider my own recent food choices, I feel pretty good about how

far I’ve come. Over the years I flirted with vegetarianism, was

macrobiotic for awhile, tried to do Atkins at another point. I fasted

in Thailand (twice!) and ate with my hands, squatting on the floor, in

India. I lived in Japan for 13 years and ate food from around the

world. Now I grow some of my own food, shop at the farmers market,

patronize several food co-ops and give my grocery store budget to a

local two-store chain that sometimes showcases locally produced foods;

I’m certainly on the lookout for them. In my freezer are a quarter of

a grass-fed cow, from a local farmer, and a whole pig raised locally

on pasture. I buy my friend ’s eggs at the farmers market if I

get there early enough; they always sell out. When I drink milk, it’s

raw, an act that would be illegal in many U.S. states.

I buy fewer and fewer prepared or processed foods of any kind, even at

the health-food store. I read labels, and have been doing so since I

was a kid eating cold cereal. Now I know what to look for. I cook

dinner.

Uncharacteristically, I stopped at a Burger King the other day, I must

confess. I was on the road, I wanted meat. I got some kind of big

burger and fries combo with unsweetened iced tea (I draw the line at

high fructose corn syrup, even on a “binge”). I ate half the burger

and fries and felt a bit sick. It didn’t even taste as good as I

imagined it might. I threw away most of the bun and gave the rest of

the meat to my dogs (sorry, puppies). I wish I’d never stopped there,

but I think I minimized the damage, and it will be a cold day in hell

before I go back, especially after seeing Food, Inc. I do not want any

part of a system that commoditizes and brutalizes animals and workers

alike, that is increasingly controlled by the likes of Monsanto and

that has turned much of the great American rural landscape into a

monoculture ghost town.

Let’s take back our food system.

Jeanmarie Todd is a former health-care industry and science editor for

Bloomberg News. She currently lives on a farm in Mendocino County,

California, with three dogs, two cats (the third went feral) and

billions of friendly microorganisms in the kombucha, kefir and lacto-

fermented vegetable cultures that share her home.