Oprah’s show featuring Michael Pollan and “Food, Inc” has many of us ‘foodies’ CHEERING !
This is JUST what’s needed, the well known ‘Oprah Effect’, to kick the plight of small farmers vs pesticide-laden, genetically modified, antibiotic filled food — right into the limelight! THANK YOU, OPRAH!
People like me know too much. A trip through the grocery store for us, isn’t what it used to be. Where I never gave a thought about what I was buying, now I venture through the grocery store like I’m walking through a mine field! Certain aisles I avoid like the plague: snack food, soda, meat and dairy and the entire frozen food section. Forget about cereals, bread, lunch meats and anything processed. Ugh….
I use it as a people watching experience, or rather I should say, a grocery watching experience. I look at what people have in their carts. Most of it is crap: processed, frozen, sugary and full of chemicals.
Thank you, Oprah…. thank you a bazillion times. What you have done for the local food movement is momentous. When people see “Food, Inc” and hopefully, “Fresh, The Movie” then perhaps the food movement will get into high gear. Consumers - the REAL heavy hitters behind everything, will find out about Monsanto’s bag of tricks.
The lid will be blown off Pandora’s box containing the secrets of Tyson, Perdue, and their ‘chicken secrets’, Cargill, ADM, Swift, and many others. The veil over the food industry is s-l-o-w-l-y being exposed. Everything from the pesticides on your food, mysterious additives in processed food and stuff like soda. Our bodies were not designed to eat this way! The truth is coming out about artificial ingredients and what they are doing to us!
If every person who reads this (or something else on food) passes it on to another person, in time the chain will be so big; imagine the voice that people will have when they are educated!
Write to Oprah, foodies…. and get her to do more shows on this! There are lots of other visionaries such as Sally Fallon from the Weston A. Price Foundation, and farmers advocating grassfed animals.
Because I feel very strongly about supporting local food endeavors and educating people on environmental issues, I recently made an announcement of an upcoming showing of “Fresh, The Movie” and “Food, Inc.”
In my e-mail I stated: “Please keep this in the back of your minds to come to because these are two VERY IMPORTANT films that anyone concerned about our food supply really needs to see.”
I received an reply from a editor in the Charlottesville area:
“I question the validity of your statement that either or both of these films are important for everyone to see.”
Excuse me????
If you are truly concerned about our food system I would think that you’d want people to see these films.
If you feel that the public has been purposely kept in the dark by the FDA, USDA, the food industry, large corporations like Wal-Mart, chemical giants such as Monsanto, fast food companies and large agribusiness concerns, how can you ‘question the validity’ of my attempt to educate consumers?
Current health statistics cite rising rates of cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, food allergies, birth defects and a host of diseases from our modern diet. Consumption of food laced with pesticides, additives, hormones, antibiotics, artificial colorings and flavorings are making people sick. Society’s dependence on cheap processed foods, proffered by our ‘friends’ in the food industry and fast food chains, have led to a frightening rate of obesity, illness & premature death. With this in mind, can you honestly say that either or both of these films are NOT important?
Pending legislation threatens the very existence of small farms and farmer’s markets across this country. Passage, without amendments, will sound a death knell for small farmers and severely damage organic food concerns. If you support our farmers and local food initiatives, then I would hope you would be for the dissemination of this information.
If you are committed to preserving the right of citizens to get their food directly from small farmers, instead of corporate giants who put profits ahead of the health of their customers, why then do you not support this venue?
Are you at all concerned about Monsanto and their tactics of bullying, spying on and putting small farmers out of business through litigation?
Do you question Monsanto’s worldwide monopoly for Round-Up Ready crops? What about the environmental effect of farmer’s increasing use of pesticides on all GMOs? Are you unfazed about the environmental impact of pesticides on the health of this planet & ALL of its inhabitants?
“Fresh” captured many accolades in 2009. Among them were official selections from: Environmental Film Festival, Sustainable Living Film Festival, Newport Beach Film Festival, Maine International Film Festival and the Kerry Film Festival. It was reviewed far and wide, garnering praise for insightful views into the food world.
“Food, Inc” also was applauded in many circles last year. In addition to the Gotham Award, it also was on the list for Academy Award for Best Documentary, the 25th Anniversary Spirit Award, and is on the list for an Oscar Award.
Everyone that I’ve talked to who has seen either (or both) agrees that these two films are important.
Methinks, dear scribe, that you are outnumbered!
A recent study in the International Journal of Biological Sciences, has linked organ damage in mammals (rats) to consumption of Monsanto’s GMO corn, NK603, MON 810 & MON 863. Closely monitoring each animal within set parameters for 90 days, effects were noticed in the kidney, liver, heart, adrenal glands, spleen and haematopoietic system (formation of blood). The study goes on to say that there is a potential toxicity relating to the pesticides specific to each species of corn. It was noted by the scientists in the IJBS:
“Effects were mostly concentrated in kidney and liver function, the two major diet detoxification organs, but in detail differed with each GM type. In addition, some effects on heart, adrenal, spleen and blood cells were also frequently noted. As there normally exists sex differences in liver and kidney metabolism, the highly statistically significant disturbances in the function of these organs, seen between male and female rats, cannot be dismissed as biologically insignificant as has been proposed by others. We therefore conclude that our data strongly suggests that these GM maize varieties induce a state of hepatorenal toxicity….These substances have never before been an integral part of the human or animal diet and therefore their health consequences for those who consume them, especially over long time periods are currently unknown.”
In another GMO report, Greenpeace reiterated that Monsanto’s methods were not intrusive enough to detect inconsistancies in the parameters used in its testing. In other words, the whole testing process is flawed.
Monsanto obviously complicates the test data by testing with unrelated groups, therefore there can be no clear conclusion.
GMOs have been linked to bee colony collapse and butterfly deaths. Why wouldn’t this be so? After all, the plants on which the bees and butterflies feed will kill them. Between GMO crops and the use of pesticides on them, it is a death knell for pollinators.
GMO corn is in all of our food, be it from the U.S. or imported in food from China or other nations.
Forbes has even bought into the lie that Monsanto is ‘The Company of The Year”. Read on and get sick!
We need to push for more organic food. Consumers have a voice against GMO products.
Are you for the Earth? What about buying & eating locally produced food?
Are you REALLY for these things or do you just have bumper stickers on your vehicle that say so?
Step up to the plate, America. Don’t just SAY you’re ‘for’ the environment:
DO for the environment, BE FOR the environment, get out in the trenches FOR the environment.
What about food? Do you SAY you’re for good food…, do you SAY you’re for the small farmer? Do you DO anything FOR the small farmers?
….. or do you do all your shopping at Wal-Mart because it’s cheaper?
….. or do you come home from work and feed microwaveable crap to your kids because its quicker?
….. or do you pack their lunches full of fruit juices with HFCS (high fructose corn syrup), food laden with chemicals, artificial ingredients and salt?
….. or do you go out to eat at fast food establishments like McDonald’s who serve ‘food’ that really isn’t food but nothing more than artificial ingredients, flavorings? The meat comes from animals who’ve been raised in factory farms and pumped full of hormones, steroids and antibiotics? You’re ‘lovin it’ all the same, right?
It’s lonely out here in the vast food fight arena. Mainstream America is still too brainwashed by commercials that says Mickey D’s really serves good food; that the Healthy Choice meal you’ve nuked is good for you (READ the ingredients - if you can’t identify it, it CAN’T be good for you!)
Visit your local farmer’s market. Ask questions. Ask to come for a farm tour. Fellow VICFA member, Joel Salatin in Swope, Virginia WILL let you tour his farm. Read Michael Pollan’s “Omnivore’s Dilema” for a lot more info on Joel and the food industry.
Bumper stickers make us feel good - like we’re doing something. For far too many of us, though, we’re just not into doing, but are into just being.
We’re not going to get anywhere unless everyone who has read this - and more of you - actually get out there and voice your opposition to the food industry. Monsanto has been getting away with murder (literally) between poisoning the Earth with Round-Up, getting PATENTS on SEEDS - that’s right - which force farmers to use perticides and herbicides. The U.S. government has been bought by the food industry and now wants to pass a sweeping food ’safety’ bill and NAIS that will just about be the end of many, many small farmers, organic farms and farmer’s markets all across the country!