As the movie, “Food, Inc.” makes its way to cities around the U.S., the blogosphere is all abuzz with posts about it – and this is a good thing because it is a film you need to see!
Thanks to Dan at the Corganic blog I found this YouTube video with Robert Kenner, the filmmaker of Food, Inc., and Michael Pollan. It’s amazingly powerful, just as it always is anytime Michael Pollan speaks.
You’ll want to take the time to watch the 8 minute video.
If you haven’t heard this information before, you’ll want to take notes. If you are like me and have heard it many times, you’ll want to cheer at how well it is said! (I never get sick of listening to Michael Pollan.)
A few of the extra juicy excerpts:
- “We’re spending less on food than anyone in history, only about 9% of our income, cheaper than anyone else in the world. So we’ve got lots of cheap and abundant food, but…it’s making us fat, we have this tremendous problem with obesity and Type II Diabetes, and as it turns out, cheap food has many many hidden costs.”
- “One of the most shocking things for me was when we went to one state legislative hearing and were discussing whether we should allow labeling of cloned meats. I didn’t even know there were cloned meats. The industry representative said she thought it was not in the consumers interest to have that on the label, and I realized that time and time again this kind of information is being kept from us. Whether it’s GMOs or trans fats and on and on… In our society, if we’re going to make good choices, it should be based on proper information.”
- “Right now we’re subsidizing the least healthy calories in the supermarket. The HFCS that comes from corn, the hydrogenated oils that comes from soy, the animal feed for the animal factories, this is what we subsidize. We don’t subsidize the health food. We don’t subsidize fresh produce, so we have to change the playing field so that the healthy food can compete with the less healthy food, and that is really a matter of changing the incentives built into our subsidies.”
- “People are very concerned about what they’re eating, there have been a number of food scares… I think it’s going to be mothers who are feeding their children who will help change this system.”
- “We’ve had these episodes, beginning with Mad Cow Disease, various food safety problems. Every one of these episodes is an opportunity to peer behind the curtain, and people see things they don’t like and they are moving for these alternatives.”
- “Hopefully this debate will lead to more public discussion and political involvement on what is absolutely the most important thing – our ability to feed ourselves everyday and stay healthy.”
- “The health care debate is going to drive the food debate, because you cannot address these health care costs without addressing the food system. More than half of what we spend on healthcare, of that 2.5 trillion, is going to treat preventable, chronic diseases linked to diet.”
Watch the video: The Truth About Food, Inc.
Watch the official Food, Inc. trailer:
Now go visit Cheeseslave for more Real Food Wednesday posts! Sorry for the broken record, but don’t forget that if you link to your Real Food post, you’ll increase traffic to your blog!
- Michael Pollan books
- What if SEX was bad for you?
- More Food movies to motivate you! If you’ve seen any, tell us what you thought!
- Trying to lose a few pounds? Check out these posts on dieting with REAL FOOD!
Photo credit, part of Works for Me Wednesdays. 
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Excellent post. Thanks!
Yoga Witch
Amen! Amen! Amen! Preach it Michael!!!!!
I really hope that this movie strikes a chord with those who haven’t yet become unplugged from the “food matrix”, so to speak
I’m wondering what the Obama administrations’ response to Food, Inc and all that Michael Pollan is saying will be?
Organic and Thrifty
We don’t see movies at the theater because it is too pricey. But when I see this at my local cinema I’m buying tickets for my whole family.
The majority of people I know don’t have any idea the dangers they we are all in if we continue down this path.
I’m praying a lot of people see this moviw and start to really think about the food choices they make.
To be perfectly honest, eating real food has increased our food “wedge” of the budgetary pie around here. But I’m not complaining. We made concessions, tweaked the budget and invested in our health. It hasn’t been easy, but then, that kind of radical change rarely is.
Local Nourishment
I think that we also have to pin part of this problem on the average consumer. If a shopper reads a food label it’s the front, not the back or side with the real ingredient information on it. That’s why food companies will print things like “Fat Free!” on the front of a bag of celery or “Cholesterol Free!” on the front bag of whole wheat pretzels to make it sound healthier when in fact, both of those items normally don’t have extra fats or cholesterol if you took the time to read the information on the back side of the label. Educating consumers to read the ENTIRE food label before they buy something will go a long way in changing things.
Condo Blues
Um, no offense, but it’s MY problem if I don’t read the back of labels… not yours
Homeschooling ensures that parents can pass-down important stuff like this to their kids, not govt programs, nor public school classes
Haha!
What happened to “My body, My rights”?
What I’m saying is that we as consumers have to take personal responsibility for what we eat and how it effect us, good or bad. Part of that personal responsibility is reading the entire food label to find out what’s in your food. I don’t want any government program telling me I have to eat something or feed it to my family either. I want that choice but I have to take the responsibility if my family developer a health condition if I choose feed them nothing but junk food (not that I do or would), not the company that makes the junk food. I can and do believe that you can feed your family healthy real food on a budget.
Oh definitely, I’m glad we’re on the same page!
It just sounded like you were implying we need to have govt telling us what to eat – which I know some people really believe should happen.
I think healthy habits begin eventually once people find a real purpose and meaning in life, which is what we need to encourage each other to do
I cannot wait to see this film!
niki
Hey I think us rich people should try to eat healthy, but it’s up to us PEOPLE to figure out what’s good for us to eat, not the government.
The methods they use may be pretty nasty, but we still have not treated the problem of Global Starvation. How can we if we ban super fast production methods? This “fast food” is only bad for us rich people who are ABLE to choose what to eat/not eat.
I’m sure a starving girl would not mind eating something that contains tiny traces of hormones in it – dying at 60 from cancer or obesity is a major improvement compared to dying at age 5 from nothing to eat at all.
Be careful what you tell the world to do, they might not care about such an opinion like this quite yet.
You’re right that it’s everyone’s own choice what they eat, and I don’t want the government telling me what I can and can’t eat either. But Michael Pollan’s point is that the government shouldn’t make it so easy for us to get fat and sick on crap.
As far as reading labels, honestly, once I know that someone KNOWS what kind of junk is in this or that food and they still choose to eat it…not my problem. What grinds me, and why I write this blog, is when they think something is “not so bad”, and they have no idea about how all the “little bit in moderation” adds up and really can make them sick. Does this matter to the 5 year old starving girl you mentioned? No. But it matters to my target audience.
Take care,
Kelly
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