Are You Too Scared To Eat?
Do you like scary movies? I normally stay far....far away from the scary stuff as possible.The other night however, I found myself in front of my computer with Legend, watching the scariest movie I've seen in the past decade. It had all the makings of a horror flick: wickedly powerful bad guys, gruesome innocent deaths, a citizenry unaware of the disaster just around the corner and just a handful of helpless good guys standing between us and them. The haunting movie? Food Inc.
Food, Inc. is powerful documentary that lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing how our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers, and our own environment.
The Revolution of Food
The world's food chain is built mainly on heavily subsidized and, therefore, cheap corn. And because supermarkets have become a cornucopia to us as consumers, we have become accustomed to eating whatever we want whenever we want it, in quantities we don't need. I'm guilty. But realize all my life I've been following different experts( books...the media,again!) as they tell me what to eat, what not to eat and what to look down on others for eating. This food is good.That one is bad.Those over there will KILL YOU. Even those of us who avoid junk food, with many sighs of relief and self-approval, may still be eating junk a good deal of the time.
(Just A Side Note)
This reminds me of the popular cartoon series Scooby Doo. Where we as consumers are on many quests to solve (food) mysteries. As we buy, each mystery is new (to us) and unusual, and involves each of us from stopping someone from wreaking certain havoc on the world. And then the mystery becomes solved by the end of each show (in our case, it would involve our health) with the villain proclaiming, "And I would have gotten away with it if it hadn't have been for you kids (consumers)"!The Result When We've Had Enough
Our health has paid the ultimate price.
Where The Real Change Begins
Companies respond to our buying choices. As one supplier says in the film, “People have got to start demanding good, wholesome food of us. And we’ll deliver, I promise you.” Even a small change can result in more equitable practices.
Disturbing as it is, "Food, Inc." doesn't present some doomsday scenario. People can make a difference, it says: After all, look what happened to Big Tobacco. There are changes we can make. The industry has been slowly taking over our country. Let’s take it back! If you care about your health, or the environment; if you care about human rights, or justice, if you care about food safety, national security, animal rights, sustainability, nutrition, integrity, fairness, or doing what’s right, you (the person reading this blog right now) should see Food, Inc.
I certainly recommend watching the whole documentary - you can even see it for free on Milledrive - but I'm warning you: you will never look at your food the same way again.-Seriously!
