[OKC] Food, feces and more

[Shauna Lawyer Struby]

Excellent interview in The Observer with Joel Salatin and highlights from
Food, Inc., <http://www.foodincmovie.com/>  the film, which is premiering in
the U.K., and premiered in the U.S. last year. Now available on Netflix DVD
and Instant View. Hat tip to Peak Oil Hausfrau
<http://peakoilhausfrau.blogspot.com/>  for sending the article my way.

 

Interview:
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/31/food-industry-environmen
t>  Joel Salatin

Gaby
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/31/food-industry-environmen
t>  wood

The
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/31/food-industry-environmen
t>  Observer, Sun. 31 Jan 2010

Joel Salatin is America's most celebrated pioneer of chemical-free farming -
but if you want to taste his beef or chicken you'll have to move to
Virginia. He talks to Gaby Wood about why local is best and his role in the
documentary "Food, Inc" which attacks the giants of industrialised food
production.

Some highlights from a discussion of the film:

.         In the 1970s, the top five beef packers controlled 25% of the
market; now the top four control more than 80% - meaning that if ever meat
is tainted by bacteria or chemicals it has the potential to reach vast
numbers of people.

.         1972, 50,000 food safety inspections were conducted by the US Food
and Drug Administration, and three decades later that number had gone down
to 9,164

.         70% of all processed foods have some genetically modified
ingredient

.         In 2007, E coli from food affected 73,000 Americans - something
the film correlates directly with the increase in consumption of processed
foods and the scale and cleanliness of the country's huge industrial
slaughterhouses

>From the interview with Salatin:

 

"What happens is all these things we're seeing - campylobacter, E coli, mad
cow, listeria, salmonella, that weren't even in the lexicon 30 years ago -
that is the industrial paradigm exceeding its efficiency. So these Latin
squiggly words that we're learning to say - bovine spongiform encephalopathy
- are nature's language screaming to us: ENOUGH! And the question then is:
what will it take for us to listen? And my contention is that Wall Street is
still wearing conquistador mentality and uniforms, and nobody is listening
to the pleadings of nature saying: 'Enough.'" - Joel Salatin

 

Films like Food, Inc, Salatin suggests, are finally "exposing the kind of
corruption and evil that is the shortcut. What happens when you don't ask:
how do we make pigs happy? Well, you view the pig as just a pile of
protoplasmic structure to be manipulated however cleverly human hubris can
imagine to manipulate it. And when you view life from that kind of
mechanistic, arrogant, disrespectful standpoint, you very soon begin to view
all of life from a very disrespectful, arrogant, manipulative standpoint.
And the fact is, we aren't machines."

 

"Can I feed the world? That's a wonderful question, one of my favourites,"
Salatin smiles, having more or less asked the question himself. "Not only
can we feed the world, this is the only system that really can feed the
world."

 

>From Erich Schlosser, author of "Fast Food Nation," and co-producer of the
film, and the director of the film, Robert Kenner:

 

"We showed the film to the head of the US Department of Agriculture and he
seemed very sympathetic to it, but his argument was: 'Make us do it.' There
is so much resistance to change that you really need a movement. Of all the
sorts of reforms, the one that will be easiest to do in the US is food
safety, because there's not a big popular lobby for 'shit in the meat' -
Republicans, Democrats, if you ask them: 'Do you want faecal material in
your hamburger?', most people say no. - Eric Schlosser

 

"It was amazing making this film. I had no idea food was such a litigious
subject. Kevin's mother is asked how his death changed her eating habits,
but she can't answer on film because she fears she could be sued by the food
industry. I was dumbfounded. She mentioned Oprah [who was sued by Texas beef
producers for saying on her show that she would never eat another burger
after a segment on BSE in 1996] and I knew about that, but when you connect
the dots it becomes a lot more insidious - and in context it made me really
scared! We were certainly attacked on a regular basis - several websites
were set up to attack the film. We had every word verified three times. We
had to negotiate everything. I spent more on legal fees on Food, Inc than I
did on my past 15 films, times three." - Robert Kenner

 

Complete article here :::
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/31/food-industry-environment


 

Shauna, OKC

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