Friday, July 10, 2009

Jason watches FOOD INC.

And yeah, as advertised, it puts me off highly processed foods. Although most of the revelations I already knew from reading Eric Schlosser's excellent Fast Food Nation (Schlosser is a co-producer and appears as a font of information for much of the film). Reading his book I already knew about the unsafe, unsanitary, factory "disassembly" line process for slaughtering meat and creating uniform (uniformly bad) food. And I knew how it has led to injury and death of workers and customers (there's an interesting line in the movie that asks if the companies have so little regard for the animals they raise, what makes you think they'll care about their workers or customers. A bit over-the-top, but interesting).

One new bit (or at least a bit I had forgotten if I ever knew it) was about the patenting of life. Monsanto Corp. won a case in the Supreme Court (majority opinion written by former Monsanto attorney Clarence Thomas) that it can patent a gene as intellectual property. For generations, farmers worked by saving the best seeds from previous years and planting them next year. This ruling rendered seed saving illegal--at least if you're using Monsanto seeds. Now here's the kicker. If you don't plant Monsanto seeds, but your neighbors do, and their seeds blow over onto your property, you've got Monsanto seeds in your fields. If you save your seeds, and don't (because you can't) filter out any Monsanto patented genes, you're breaking the law, and Monsanto will come after you. If you clean seeds for farmers who don't plant Monsanto (again, a practice for generations), you can be sued for promoting a technology that encourages law-breaking. This absolutely shocked me.

But overall, I found this more fearmongering than informative. It ends on a hopeful note, that consumers have more power than we think--Wal-Mart has a large organic section, and milk with growth hormone is almost non-existent. But it's remarkably short on specific actions you can take to affect the system and/or at least eat healthier yourself. When you say "read the labels", why don't you tell me what to look for (is all the information you want even on the label)? The movie is clearly pro-organic, but how big of a difference is there between the organic section in your supermarket vs. a farmer's market (for example)? And then there's my biggest question. In Fast Food Nation, In-n-Out was singled out as a rare example of a good fast food company. They use fresher ingredients, treat their employees better (higher wages and benefits), etc. Are they still one of the "good guys"? What I really want to know, would this movie regard me as part of the problem if I continued eating there (occasionally). Because if loving In-n-Out is wrong, I don't want to be right!

11 comments:

J708 said...

this one sounds interesting. will def check it out! thanks for the review!

check me out at

http://whatgiveshuh.blogspot.com/

puppymeat said...

Thanks. I'd definitely also recommend Fast Food Nation (the book, not so much the movie).

--Jason

J708 said...

i've already seen fast food nation. never knew there was a book. didn't really like the movie. man the stuff u sees is really hard to find on the net. nothing for the stoning with jim cav. and the moon. but i still like ur taste and would def consider the movies you give postive reviews on. thanks for englightening me about movies i never knew existed:) im a huge jim cav fan, never crossed my mind to see his latest work. thanks again

puppymeat said...

Yeah, the Fast Food Nation movie wasn't that good. The book is actually non-fiction investigative reporting, written by Eric Schlosser (co-producer and star of Food, Inc), and it has much more in common with Food, Inc than the movie version of Fast Food Nation (why they decided to make that a narrative I'll never know).

J708 said...

btw. question out of curiosity. do u get paid to watch movies? or is it just ur coke in life?

puppymeat said...

BTW, Sony Classics has done a really lousy job of publicizing MOON, but the list of places it's playing/opening today is here: http://www.sonyclassics.com/moon/dates.html

Similarly, the STONING OF SORAYA M. hasn't gotten much publicity, unless you frequent arthouse theaters (e.g., the Landmark chain). A list of where it's playing is here: http://www.thestoning.com/theaters/

puppymeat said...

Movies are my drug. I don't get paid, but some festivals have started giving me a press pass, so I can at least see movies for free.

J708 said...

thats awesome man! haha. i got this movie obsession over that past 4 or 5 months, cause i ran out of good tv shows, sitcoms and series to watch. so i had to look for the next thing. i think after that i'll start with books. got over 70 or 80 good movies left to watch that were produced over the past 100 years. so far reached the 60's. got a few recommendations on my sight on 30's, 40's and 60's movies. just do random recommendations depending on what i feel like talking about.


regarding the sites u had listed on where i can see these movies. i can bet my balls on it, it won't do me any good as i live in Dubai, UAE:)

puppymeat said...

Ah, fair enough. I've never really paid attention to what movies are playing outside the U.S. (or for film festivals/art house cinema, what's playing outside of the S.F. Bay Area). So you watch all these movies on DVD, then? What's in the cinema there now?

J708 said...

on dvd? yeah sure? lets just say all the movies i watch are bought from virgin megastore incase the RIAA has got ur blog bugged:) New releases in the cinema today are saving private ryan, American Beauty, American History X and the big lebowski. haha. kiddin. Ice age 3, transofrmers 2, largo linch, i love you man, and so on. the block busters take about a week to come here. the crappy ones sometimes take a month or 2 depending on demand

Cynthia said...

This entire conversation cracked me up, especially when J708 teased about which movies just came out in Dubai. J708 needs to come to California and see some movies with us!