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Sunday, March 7, 2010

Food Inc. - Documentary (2008)

Where does your food come from?


I recently watched Food Inc., a documentary by Eric Schlosser. I heard about it during a visit to Chipotle (one of my favorite fast food places) - they sponsored a few free screenings of the film when it released. Chipotle is a great example of how a company can be both profitable and responsible; ironically, McDonalds, which is not known more for profitability and less for responsibility, had a stake in Chipotle till a few years back.

If you have read Fast Food Nation or Omnivore's dilemma, or are conscious of what/where you eat, then most of what you will see is what you already know. Despite that, I enjoyed viewing it.

The film reiterates how important the food choices you make are. I was lucky to grow up vegetarian, and staying away from meat comes very easily to me. That is just one half of the battle, I still spend hours reading labels at grocery stores – and then spend more time googling (real word - made it to the dictionary some time back) the ingredients. I wondered if other people just knew what xanthum gum and the other unpronounceable ingredients meant! Turns out that most of them were different versions of corn.

No matter how many times you hear it, it is astonishing that tracing the source of random items from the grocery store, leads you to corn fields in Iowa. Government subsidized, fertilizer rich, genetically modified, pesticide resistant soy and corn are in everything!! Welcome to CORNucopia!

Link to the documentary's official website

1 comment:

  1. I saw this last year too. We've already been organic consumers for a few users (mostly dairy, meat and eggs) and some veggies lately, but after that doc I realized I need to buy organic canola oil.

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