Review: Food, Inc.

Here's another movie we've been meaning to watch for a while now.

Food, Inc. is a documentary about how corporatism has ruined the food industry. It explores everything from the meat industry (as expected), to exploited workers, to patents on genetically modified seeds. The film itself is well executed and delivers it's message quite effectively. What's the message? Well, by trying to do everything bigger and cheaper, food quality suffers, everyday farmers suffer, and the environment suffers.

Even though I think everyone should watch this movie, be warned that there are scenes that are tough to stomach. Particularly, the scenes showing mistreatment of animals. Now, don't get me wrong I've always been a carnivore. Even though I don't eat as much meat as I used to, I don't think I could ever give it up entirely. However, I don't want to eat beef from a cow that has been standing knee deep in it's own feces; I don't want to eat a chicken that is so fat it can't walk and has never seen the light of day. It's repulsive and disrespectful to nature. On the same note, I don't want to support monolithic corporations that bully farmers who barely make enough money to support themselves. It's unethical.

It's strange to see the ugly truth behind the American food industry. Maybe I'm naive but I don't think this shit happens in Asia. Asians aren't tree huggers but I certainly don't think their food is nearly as mass produced as the US. I've never seen huge grocery stores in Taiwan, it's always been about farmers markets (well and Costco now). How did it get like this in the US? Greed. Greedy greedy corporations. Same as the greedy corporations in healthcare, same as the greedy corporations on wall street. Sigh.

So what's a normal citizen to do? Well, in addition to the CSA delivery we get from Seabreeze Organic Farms, we're going to try to frequent farmers markets more often. La Jolla has a big one on Sundays that we'd like to check out. When shopping at grocery stores, we're going to make an effort to buy local and organic. The same applies for meat. During our frantic online research following this movie, Badge and I found Homegrown Meats, a local butcher shop in La Jolla that seems worth checking out. Sure it might be more expensive but I think for us it's a cause worth supporting (no judgement on anyone else). Lastly, we'd like to start frequenting more restaurants that use local, organic, seasonal ingredients. We already eat at the Linkery (delicious) but there are many others in SD to explore. In particular, I've always wanted to try Market in Del Mar. Luckily they are participating in Restaurant Week next week so I've made a reservation for Thurs. Bring on the good eats! On a side note: I stumbled across Alice Q. Foodie's blog during my research. She seems to have done a lot of research on local sustainable foods. I've added the link on my Fun Links list on the right.

It's great that Badge and I are super motivated to eat right but at the same time it's easy to become complacent and fall back in the same routines. Thus, I'm adding some new year's resolutions on this topic. Cuz, you know, I always keep all of my new year's resolutions :).