Review: "Food, Inc."
Dec. 28th, 2009 03:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebI finally saw "Food, Inc." even though it sounded like I had heard everything before. But I hadn't. When they said that the typical chicken farmer, with two of those big chicken houses, had $500,000 in debt and made only $18,000 per year, I cried.
(Note: even nowadays, college is way cheaper, and even if you almost completely waste your degrees like I do, you could probably make more than 18K per year doing less demoralizing work.) (Of course you might not want to work in a cube, either, or live in a city.)
The movie was pretty well done, with good footage and mostly well-spoken intellectual types doing the talking. It looks like they tried not to do anything stupid that would scare off Republican types like having fluffy-headed hippie freaks or even many minorities doing the talking. They did a good job of prioritizing facts and pictures over emotionalism.
The movie makes me want to start buying more things organic. I used to be annoyed that organic things don't cost just 10% or 20% more than conventional things, but double, triple, or even worse. But the movie showed that so many ways of reducing costs have built up over the years, many of them nefarious, that the price difference does make sense. I don't buy much meat, but I'm going to start buying a different kind of ground beef (than HEB's 97% fat-free ground beef) and start buying more organic dairy products (I was already buying organic milk). And food is so cheap that even if my grocery bill tripled, which it won't, I could still afford that.
The movie also makes me want to quit paying any of my money to Monsanto, just like I make sure none of my money goes to Bill Gates. However, that's not so easy. First, I like corn and soy. (Mmm, corn tortillas and tortilla chips, cheese puffs, popcorn, corn bread, cheesy polenta, fake meat made out of soy mixed half and half with beef, Aunt Margaret's amazing chocolate recipe involving tofu.) And I like going to restaurants (most of which cook with conventional food). I guess there's such a thing as non-GMO labels, but I'm not sure I've ever seen one.
At least I could try to quit buying corn and soy in things that don't need corn or soy. For example, in the past, I didn't worry about whether some foods had corn syrup instead of sugar, but now I will. But corn is in almost everything. It's even in the gas I bought today.
One of the extras on the DVD is kind of a little history of Chipotle. (Their chicken and pork and most of their beef comes from the better kinds of farms shown in the movie.) I learned that the guy who opened Chipotle did it to get some quick money so he could open a real restaurant because he is a trained chef.
(Note: even nowadays, college is way cheaper, and even if you almost completely waste your degrees like I do, you could probably make more than 18K per year doing less demoralizing work.) (Of course you might not want to work in a cube, either, or live in a city.)
The movie was pretty well done, with good footage and mostly well-spoken intellectual types doing the talking. It looks like they tried not to do anything stupid that would scare off Republican types like having fluffy-headed hippie freaks or even many minorities doing the talking. They did a good job of prioritizing facts and pictures over emotionalism.
The movie makes me want to start buying more things organic. I used to be annoyed that organic things don't cost just 10% or 20% more than conventional things, but double, triple, or even worse. But the movie showed that so many ways of reducing costs have built up over the years, many of them nefarious, that the price difference does make sense. I don't buy much meat, but I'm going to start buying a different kind of ground beef (than HEB's 97% fat-free ground beef) and start buying more organic dairy products (I was already buying organic milk). And food is so cheap that even if my grocery bill tripled, which it won't, I could still afford that.
The movie also makes me want to quit paying any of my money to Monsanto, just like I make sure none of my money goes to Bill Gates. However, that's not so easy. First, I like corn and soy. (Mmm, corn tortillas and tortilla chips, cheese puffs, popcorn, corn bread, cheesy polenta, fake meat made out of soy mixed half and half with beef, Aunt Margaret's amazing chocolate recipe involving tofu.) And I like going to restaurants (most of which cook with conventional food). I guess there's such a thing as non-GMO labels, but I'm not sure I've ever seen one.
At least I could try to quit buying corn and soy in things that don't need corn or soy. For example, in the past, I didn't worry about whether some foods had corn syrup instead of sugar, but now I will. But corn is in almost everything. It's even in the gas I bought today.
One of the extras on the DVD is kind of a little history of Chipotle. (Their chicken and pork and most of their beef comes from the better kinds of farms shown in the movie.) I learned that the guy who opened Chipotle did it to get some quick money so he could open a real restaurant because he is a trained chef.