New movie “Food Inc.” this summer

Thanks to the Kellehers’ blog for drawing my attention to this great new movie on the issue of industrial food, that’s coming out this summer. The trailer includes commentary from Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (In Defense of Food). And here’s an excerpt from that post on the Kellehers’ blog titled “One month until farmers market season”:

Help awaken your friends to what they're eating. Take them to this movie.

“..Recently I won a drawing for a free book on Goodreads.com (Great website, by the way! If you join, friend me!). The deal is that if you win the drawing, you get an advanced reading copy of the book you entered to win and you are supposed to review it. Out of curiosity, I entered the contest for a book called Real Food for Mother and Baby. And I won!

My book came in the mail a few days ago, and I am shocked at how amazing it is! I didn’t realize when I signed up for it, that it was a book about organic/natural foods. For years, I have tried to ignore any information about the whole controversy (again with pangs of guilt) because I figured that ignorance is bliss. But is it, really?

The deeper I get into the book, I keep thinking of the scene from The Matrix, where Cypher talks about his steak. I’m learning about the unnatural diets of cattle and other animals that we rely on for meat. I’m learning about the average American’s unnatural diet, that is somehow mostly made up of corn! And while I’ve been well aware of the unnaturalness of eating margarine instead of real butter, I’ve been buying margarine lately (pangs included) because it’s so much cheaper. In my reading last night, however, I found out that the hydrogenated oils in margarine (I think this includes any hydrogenated oils) have many adverse affects on people including infertility, and reduced natural cream fat in breast milk. Hmm. I quit buying butter some time in January, and added the far inferior substitute to our diet. And it’s been since that time that Nicolette has had her drop in weight gain. Could it be that my “economic” choice is causing her to slow her growth? I don’t know. But I know I will be buying butter and not margarine next time I’m at the grocery store.

Anyway, my favorite thing about this Real Food book is that it’s not coming from some kind of holier-than-thou virtuous food pedestal. The author is very matter of fact. She often encourages buying local produce because it tends to be better for you. But she says the more important reason is that it tastes better. Now that is an argument I can get on board with! (The author, Nina Planck, has also written a book, Real Food, that isn’t focussed on mother and baby, but real food in general.) The author’s approach is very accessible, entertaining, and moving. And the fun facts you’ll discover about the FDA, chemicals in our food, and the evils of the “low-fat” fad diets will shock and amaze you. She is a huge advocate of drinking whole unhomogenized raw milk, using lots of real butter, eating the chicken skin with the chicken, etc. That’s crazy, right? And yet, she’s found that by eating real foods like this, she stays trimmer with less effort….”

Talk about Animal I.D....

Read the whole thing here.