Food Inc. to be shown on PBS 4/21/10

[mama1803]

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/food/...-meat-1298762/

[jillyofthevalley]

Cool! I just set my DVR to record this. I've been on the waiting list at the library forever for this DVD and I'm still like #70 in line.

[mama1803]

Originally Posted by jillyofthevalley

Cool! I just set my DVR to record this. I've been on the waiting list at the library forever for this DVD and I'm still like #70 in line.

Me too! But I admit I'm kind of afraid to watch it...

[MammaG]

If you have a netflix account, it is available there to watch on instant-watch whenever you want. Just don't watch it during mealtime.....

[MangoMommy]

I just watched it thru Netflix instant watch and it was great. I knew a lot of it but it still opened my eyes. The whole thing with the soy, wow...

[Sativarain1]

What did food inc say about soy? I watched it months ago but I somehow missed that.

[Sol_y_Paz]

Originally Posted by Sativarain1

What did food inc say about soy? I watched it months ago but I somehow missed that.

It has been awhile, let me see if I remember it as they said it. In a short time (began some time in the 90's) one large conglomerate company has taken over 90% of all soy in the fields of the United States. It is genetically modified strain and they "own" the seed. It used to be colleges/farmers experimented with seed strains and they were public and available to people.
This one big company genetically modified the soy seeds and took it private for profit. They modified the seed so it resists pesticides/chemicals, so they can spray the crap out of the fields and this one lone genetically modified soy plant will stand tall and alive. You will not find it labeled in products that consumers buy, as the company has enough money to fight that for now, but it is most products available on shelves in every supermarket.

It is not a public seed and they sue when wind/storms carries their seed to other farmers crops, putting many farmers out of business since that is out of their control. They have a legion of lawyers to sue people and investigate if someone might have a seed, driving out most all soy farmers in the US.

I eat non GMO soy, but I never really understood what that meant until this movie. I cannot believe one company has taken over almost ALL of the soy fields since the 1990's. It is a scary thought, but it is also reality.

[MangoMommy]

Originally Posted by Sol_y_Paz

It has been awhile, let me see if I remember it as they said it. In a short time (began some time in the 90's) one large conglomerate company has taken over 90% of all soy in the fields of the United States. It is genetically modified strain and they "own" the seed. It used to be colleges/farmers experimented with seed strains and they were public and available to people.
This one big company genetically modified the soy seeds and took it private for profit. They modified the seed so it resists pesticides/chemicals, so they can spray the crap out of the fields and this one lone genetically modified soy plant will stand tall and alive. You will not find it labeled in products that consumers buy, as the company has enough money to fight that for now, but it is most products available on shelves in every supermarket.

It is not a public seed and they sue when wind/storms carries their seed to other farmers crops, putting many farmers out of business since that is out of their control. They have a legion of lawyers to sue people and investigate if someone might have a seed, driving out most all soy farmers in the US.

I eat non GMO soy, but I never really understood what that meant until this movie. I cannot believe one company has taken over almost ALL of the soy fields since the 1990's. It is a scary thought, but it is also reality.

Yes! Monsanto I think is the chemical company that "invented" a soy seed that is resistant to Roundup (weed spray) so farmers can spray the crap out of their fields and not kill this special soy.

It is so scary...soy is in everything! And this one company is on it's way to OWNING soy and on it's way to owning corn too. At least in the US.

[Anna06]

This is not good. Is there anything we can do??

[MammaG]

Originally Posted by MangoMommy

Yes! Monsanto I think is the chemical company that "invented" a soy seed that is resistant to Roundup (weed spray) so farmers can spray the crap out of their fields and not kill this special soy.

It is so scary...soy is in everything! And this one company is on it's way to OWNING soy and on it's way to owning corn too. At least in the US.

My (limited) uinderstanding is that these big companies (Monsanto, ADM) are really evil entities but the real villian in the apparently untouchable Farm Bill (perticularly the agricultural subsidy mandated by the bill). I think it was originally drafted to help families stay on their farms decades ago, but has since become a monster that actually subsidises huge mega-farms that grow one crop, usually corn or soy. Since they're subsidised to grow tonnes of these crops...way more than is needed for our food supply, scientists have had a field day inventing new 'foods' from this surplus...corn syrup and other food additives. If the Farm Bill were eliminated (or modified so that it DID in fact help only small, sustainable and diverse family farms), we'd go a long way to restoring our food integrity, our environment and break the agribusiness grip on food monopolies.

Not gonna happen, though. Those lobbies are HUGE.

ETA. As bad as the Farm Bill is for us here in the US, as a sidenote, it also wreaks havoc on the livelihoods of small farmers around the globe, particularly in developing nations who could never compete with the vast wealth we throw at our agribusinesses. Yup, EVIL.

[wife&mommy]

It was really eye opening to see.

[caiesmommy]

I watched it last night, and cried..and cried...and cried some more. Im a vegetarian and the meat scenes killed me...the Monsanto scenes were nothing I didnt already know but still sickens me to see

[MangoMommy]

I think something else that bothered me was the number of popular "organic/natural" companies that have been bought out and swallowed up by the mega-giants...Kashi=Kelloggs, Cascadian Farms, Toms of Maine,etc. The very giants we are trying to avoid.

[wife&mommy]

Yes I agree about the larger companies owning the smaller ones. I wanted to look into that more and I found this link that had a chart showing it.
http://www.cornucopia.org/who-owns-organic/

[5gifts]

I've seen Food Inc & already learned about monsanto, their seed monopoly Ect....scary crap! Well I just had to research Chlordane. Look it up - nasty stuff! And found out monsanto developed it in like 1947!!! They have been doing nasty stuff for a long time!!

Chlordane was sprayed on crops & directly on fruit/vegies until the 70's. It was banned for all uses except termites. Then completely banned in 1987 (which is when it was used on my house ) The stuff can still make people sick 30 years later! and its not water soluable - it sticks around forever. 75% of all houses built before 1987 (either drilled & treated - or as new construction had foundation sprayed) are still testing with harmful levels in the inside air. (it is making my 8 yo sick with sinitis non-stop for going on 9 mths) It has been proved that there was absolutly no safe way to apply this stuff! Monsanto is evil!!!

[momofPL]

I just watched the movie recently along with reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food. Honestly, who do you trust anymore? Then entire movie just made me sick.

Thanks for the chart wife&mommy.

[savyjoel]

The movie is an eye opener. Many people I've asked to watch it said no--they didn't want to know!! Blows my mind that some people have no interest in where their food comes from and how it's treated. I've found a local farm to buy grass feed pastured beef from and am in search of pastured chicken. The animal scenes in the movie are gross. Know your food!!

[raksmama]

We just saw Food Inc last night. DS 12 was very touched. Every now and then he used to ask for fast food because many the kids from school eat it. Now I don't think he will ever ask again and he understands better now why we eat organic.

[MangoMommy]

Thanks for the link to cornucopia.org, that's a great chart. Pretty much most of the "brands" I buy at the commissary are those brands. Sigh...

[Sarah W]

Originally Posted by savyjoel

The movie is an eye opener. Many people I've asked to watch it said no--they didn't want to know!! Blows my mind that some people have no interest in where their food comes from and how it's treated. I've found a local farm to buy grass feed pastured beef from and am in search of pastured chicken. The animal scenes in the movie are gross. Know your food!!

Honestly, this was me a year ago. I could not care less where my food came from, I loved FF every once in a while, etc. DH once mentioned buying organic and I "phsaw-ed" him. Where we lived before (Key West) really didn't have local food options so we were really limited with what we bought to eat.

I started reading Omivore's Dilemma several months ago, but didn't really get into it. A little while ago, I re-read it. I'm not sure what changed, but it fascinated me. My god, there is so much going on with what we eat and how we eat that no one really knows about! I was so ignorant on the subject.

We watched it last night. A lot had been discussed in OD, which makes sense since Mike Pollan was one of the main contributors.

Another thing I noticed was how lax the definition of "organic" is. The kind of company people envision that they are buying from and what the company really is can be very different.