Sequel to Food Inc.
I saw Food Inc.:
and am now coming out with my own independently financed and released sequel called, “Whom Do I Trust With What Goes In My Mouth?!”
Top 5 Things I Learned that Piss Me Off
- I now even have to worry about the fruits and vegetables I buy. How will I know if my fruit is a GMO? Oh, I won’t! I guess if it looks like an apple on steroids that’s an indicator.
- My beloved soybeans are highly monopolized just like corn and are, therefore, the devil. Ok, not the “devil.” But I ain’t smilin’, let’s just say that. By the way, did you know corn is in everything from charcoal to diapers to the meds you take?
- The FDA is pretty laughable when it comes to actually effecting change and watching out for the consumer. Here’s a great idea, let’s have an organization for the people’s interest and then staff it with people who have a vested interest in companies whose main motives are to make money off the people! That sounds impartial!
- Government subsidies of corn have made it so junk food is more accessible to the poor than real fruit and vegetables. Didn’t you know the “American Dream” includes eating Jack in the Crack 3 times a day?!
- Big Corp is behind most of my favorite brands. Dear Kashi, I did not know you were part of Kellogg. That makes my soul die a little, but I still love your cereal, not gonna lie! xoxo
Let me follow this list with a concession — I suffer from H.E.S. (hyperbole and exaggeration syndrome), so I am being more dramatic than may be called for, but I am rather annoyed. It’s not like I know enough science to know whether GMOs are going to make me grow an extra eyeball in the next few years or even if organic foods are really the answer. What I do know is this — I value KNOWLEDGE above everything else. I want to be informed if my food has GMOs — even if the sticker informing me is bigger than the fruit itself and merely says that there are GMOs but until further research is done no one knows what that means. That way, I am given the choice to say “meh, whatevs!” or “hmm, think I’ll stick to this tiny ugly organic apple.” I’m just sayin’…
Throughout the film, I kept asking myself: why, why is fast food so prevalent…still? It’s not that “fast” food is inherently bad. We all have to eat on the run and bananas are certainly “fast” to eat – peel, go and yum! But a large portion of us are not eatin’ bananas from a drive thru. Nope, they’re getting shit crap for food and not just once a week, but with such an insane frequency it creates a problem.
A friend said to me, “no one is a villain here.” I am hesitant to agree. The reason people eat McDonalds, the reason it’s so in demand is not necessarily because out of a state of nature we as human beings said “I want to take these potatoes from the Earth and fry them to a crisp and eat them every day.” Fast Food became widely available, highly advertised, cheap due to subsidies and assembly line mechanics, addictive due to fat & sugar content and an ICON and societal NORM.
The thing that bothers me to the core is this line, “the biggest predictor of obesity is poverty level.” This absolutely bites at my core. I have seen grocery stores in impoverished areas – they do not carry the same variety of whole foods or organic foods as the SAME store in a more affluent area. Some poor people simply cannot afford to eat healthy. And even if you balk at that statement, I’m pretty sure you can’t argue that a lot of impoverished people do not KNOW how incredibly awful they are eating. And I’ll be the first to admit that food ignorance is not isolated to the impoverished…
I could go on and on, but as you can see — I’m just cranky and confused. So, what do we disillusioned little souls do?
10 Simple Tips (as listed on the site here)
- Stop drinking sodas and other sweetened beverages. You can lose 25 lbs in a year by replacing one 20 oz soda a day with a no calorie beverage (preferably water).
- Eat at home instead of eating out. Children consume almost twice (1.8 times) as many calories when eating food prepared outside the home.
- Support the passage of laws requiring chain restaurants to post calorie information on menus and menu boards. Half of the leading chain restaurants provide no nutritional information to their customers.
- Tell schools to stop selling sodas, junk food, and sports drinks. Over the last two decades, rates of obesity have tripled in children and adolescents aged 6 to 19 years.
- Meatless Mondays—Go without meat one day a week. An estimated 70% of all antibiotics used in the United States are given to farm animals.
- Buy organic or sustainable food with little or no pesticides. According to the EPA, over 1 billion pounds of pesticides are used each year in the U.S.
- Protect family farms; visit your local farmer’s market. Farmer’s markets allow farmers to keep 80 to 90 cents of each dollar spent by the consumer.
- Make a point to know where your food comes from—READ LABELS. The average meal travels 1500 miles from the farm to your dinner plate.
- Tell Congress that food safety is important to you. Each year, contaminated food causes millions of illnesses and thousands of deaths in the U.S.
- Demand job protections for farm workers and food processors, ensuring fair wages and other protections. Poverty among farm workers is more than twice that of all wage and salary employees.
If you want to know where I stand — like I said, I’m all about knowledge. That is what I fight for. I don’t believe in shoving vegetarianism down people’s throats or staunchly advocating the purchase of organic goods. But I believe people should know something as simple and important as what goes into their bodies as well as what options are available to them. The main message of the movie was that the consumer has the power to effect change. It’s true — we do vote with every purchase we make. But some people really don’t know they have choices and may, even if aware they are making choices they would rather not make, feel trapped and are economically cornered.
Books I’ve Read (or Plan on Reading) Related to This Topic
Trailer to the Movie
Now that I’ve blabbed on for way too long (congrats on reading this far, by the way — you earn an Extra Value Meal! j/k!), what do you think about these issues? Have you seen Food Inc.? Which of the 10 “tips” above do you already follow?
Tags: diet for a small planet, farmers market, fast food, fast food nation, FDA, Food Inc., GMO, omnivore's dilemma, organic food
18 People have left comments on this post
Oh my goodness, this makes me sad inside with some of the facts you posted. I want to see this movie but now I’m afraid to. Grrr…
Where do I start, where do I start…
1. We started using pesticides to increase crop yield and actually as an improvement to human safety. Lots of those bugs that die or leave their saliva, poop, corpses, etc. on our foods are not good for us.
2. GMO’s aren’t bad. Contrary to what this movie said, all plants are a function of their genes. There is no evidence that GMO’s are harmful to the environment or to our bodies. Think about it, when you eat a piece of broccoli, you are ingesting literally millions of strands of DNA and all the genes that are on them. Moreover, mutations happen all the time in plant DNA, just as it does in our DNA (for us it leads to aging, it can lead to cancer). When was the last time anything adverse happened to eating any plant that had suffered a mutation? When was the last time you incorporated and expressed a plant gene?
Most GMO’s have one of two purposes: (1) they provide the plant with a defense — i.e., pesticide resistance (p.s., the gene was already in nature) or (2) they provide humans with something beneficial (e.g., golden rice is rice that produces vitamin A and beta carotine).
In fact, certain countries from Europe have put such a stigma on golden rice, which could prevent up to 2 million deaths and up to 1/2 million cases of permanent blindness due to vitamin A deficiency in African children, that the African nations won’t use it. Meanwhile, U.S. boats filled with golden rice are turned away and French ships filled with regular rice pull into port and sell their wares. Meanwhile, the more and more children develop the deficiency and die or go blind.
3. Ask yourself a basic question? Why are corporations perceived to be bad? True, they are motivated by $$. But, they make money from their customers, who they need to make happy. Moreover, they create economies of scale so we can buy a tomato for $1.19 instead of $3.50. It is great to buy from Farmer’s markets. We do. I think the produce tastes better. But a farmer’s market cannot feed everybody in Orange County without somebody facilitating moving the food to centralized locations, storing the food so that there is stock, and so forth. Who will do that? How much will it cost, for example, without the negotiating clout of a corporation? Corporations have done more to facilitate cheap food (which closes the poverty gap) than any government, particularly ours, ever has.
When has the U.S. government every done anything efficiently? For example, we have had amtrak for over 50 years, and it still loses money. Medicare and Medicaid are rife with billing abuse (my buddy who is a hospital administrator says Medicare patients are complete cash cows for the hospital). The bottom line is that gov’t has no incentive to be efficient, corporations do. At the end of the day, that efficiency is what lets one corporation out compete another one and offer that tomato for $1.19. Are there corporate abuses? Yes. But by in large, they are the reason why our food cheap.
OK, I am going to stop for your reader’s sake.
Oooo! I haven’t seen/heard of this!! Off to my netflix que!
That really pisses me too how humans manipulate and play God with their natural food. Damn humans.
But really, when you nitpick everything, it will usually turn out that EVERYTHING in the grocery store is horrible for you. Might as well get your own garden and farm animals.
wow! I haven’t seen the movie yet and because of lack of time on my part, probably won’t for awhile but your recap is GREAT! Can’t wait to share this with my readers tomorrow – I love the bullet tip list you have!
Oh – and UGGGGHHHH…..I agree with everything you said! I’m not ready to devote my entire life to eating a raw or clean diet but holy crap, this stuff is scary! I have made small adjustments to my diet and noticed a HUGE difference and feel so sad for people who are clueless or don’t have the resources to buy any differerent or learn any other way. so so sad.
I think the pesticides have got to the second commenter’s brain! His/her points are laughable. Actually, it should come as no surprise that the food companies have set up blogs and websites “debunking” Food, Inc and I’m sure they target anyone blogging about it!
Another book you will most definitely enjoy is “The Food Revolution” by John Robbins.
My mission these days is to avoid all processed food. Corn and soy are in everything and I simply will not eat GMO, especially since the latest research shows that GM foods reduce fertility.
I don’t eat all organic, because in my country the availability is still variable. And I don’t push vegetarianism down anyone’s throat, since I’m not fully vegetarian myself. I know and believe that it’s a healthier option, but I still have meat about once or twice a week. In fact, I’m more concerned about avoiding dairy than meat.
I loved your review!
I remember when the hoo-ha about GMOs began (10/15 years ago?) and the argument by big seed companies at that time was that it would eradicate world hunger. Er – has it?
I hope the movie hurries up and comes to the UK – we need to see it!
Not brave enough to watch that movie yet…. scares me! I do a lot of your points but not all.. will have to make a point to be better!
Quote: the latest research shows that GM foods reduce fertility.
Hanley: Please produce a cite to this evidence from a peer-reviewed scholarly journal. I would love to see this evidence. (Also, if your are male and you get into a bath tub, you are reducing your fertility. Perhaps we should never bathe again… Just saying.)
Also, exactly which points are laughable? Please provide a counterargument.
P.S. the pesticides can’t addle my brain because I eat GMO’s (we all do — nearly all soy grown in the US is GMO… you say you like Tofu, I say you like GMO Tofu). Dunt Dunt Daaaahh!
I can proudly say my family is in the lower percentage of the money making bracket.
When you don’t even make $35000 a year… you’re pretty down right broke ALOT! And I do agree with pretty much everything you said. here’s the kicker. We as a nation, tell people your poor when you can’t afford to eat out… your poor when you can’t afford fruits and vegi’s unless they are canned. We let people think when you are poor, all you can afford is hamburger helper or some other boxed meal. here’s my kicker. I used the be that exact person!
Until… there is ALWAYS an until. hehhehehe!!
Now before I go ranting on… i admit… i don’t live in an impovershed neighborhood where getting to a bazillion different grocery stores and types of grocery stores aren’t available. I have every chain in my state all within 5 miles of me, 3 within walking distance (if i wanted to melt on the way)
BUT until i decided I HAVE to change my lifestyle and eating habits or die before my kid reaches high school. I HAVE to change. So I decided, everything on that grocery list… out the door. no more boxed meals. Damn it! If we can’t survive on meat and vegi’s. I’m destined to die. I quit making carbs as a side dish a LONG time ago. So no biggie there. Meals consist of chicken or fish (no red meat due to my cholesterol) and I buy fresh produce every week. If I don’t count the non-food items we buy. I’ve cut our weekly grocery shopping down to 35-40 dollars a week (that includes things like greek yogurt, salad dressings and other fun stuff that we JUST have to have… like… hhhmmmm cheese!)
. I buy meats in bulk every 2 weeks for no more than $30. I used to spend 100 easy EVERY week. Not any more. Now before I go buy ANYTHING i head to the produce department. Buy everything we can and want to eat in a week… and that is the bulk of our money. After I’m done, whatever is left over… buys the rest of the groceries.
No body i knows believes me when i say… It really isn’t expensive to eat helathy. But the question is… what’s your version of healthy? That’s the key. Change your mind set… antyhing is possible!! I love my new way of eating… I do throw in fun things when we have the money. We do eat out as treats. But in reality… we eat nothing like we used to. I sometimes get afraid of what if… and then i think damn it if what if happens we’ll move in with my mom. hahahaha!!
Change your mindset america!! it can be cheaper than what coporate america wants you to believe!!!!!!
There’s my rant and my 2 cents!
I love your blog!!!
i def. don’t know if i am feelin’ this movie.. i’ve heard mixed reviews and i just think it’s way to close minded… i don’t dig the sounds of it — thanks for the honest and thorough review, girl <3
I’m in the middle of reading Fast Food Nation, and also Jillian Michaels new book. I’m learning so much, and its been a HUGE eye opener for me. I’ll admit that it’s been a little overwhelming, but I’m realizing that I have to take responsibility for what I put in my body. If that means that i have to work a little harder to make sure that only good things go in, then I need to do that. I’m starting to realize that eating “Healthy” is so much more involved then I ever thought! But I’m up for the challenge. Can’t wait to see the movie…
Haven’t seen the movie yet but have seen interviews & excerpts. I agree with you about “whom do I trust” for real information – seems like most of the reports are heavily biased one way or the other. And studies are now showing that even the reported calorie/content information is incorrect if an individual portion is analyzed.
My family has been moving more & more to “eat real food, eat less of it”. My DH is a farmer with a college degree in Ag Science. We grew & sold veggies at a local farmer’s market for 5 years. We try to buy US-produced foods rather than imported, as the pesticide requirements here are much more stringent. We very rarely eat out, & then usually at real restaurants that don’t rely on pre-prepared heavily sugared/ salted/fatted-up items. I too have found that buying fresh fruits/veggies & limited meat/dairy (& preparing most of our food at home) has greatly reduced our food expenses.
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