Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Food Inc update

In the past, TK has more endured than appreciated my efforts to change the way we eat. While he was generally supportive, there's been some eye-rolling and some comments that perhaps I was falling victim to propaganda. When he found out I snuck Food, Inc. to the top of our Netflix queue, he wasn't exactly overjoyed, though he did agree to watch it with me.

The next day, he came home from work and I asked what he'd had for lunch (there's an awesome cafeteria where he works). He had eggplant parmesan. Yum, I said. One of the other choices was pot roast, he admitted. That sounds even better than eggplant, I said. Yeah, but I kind of felt like I needed to eat vegetarian, he answered.

The Omnivore's Dilemma is now on his nightstand. He brought leftover bean soup for lunch today. I'm honestly shocked. I'd kind of resigned myself that he would never be really on board with trying to eat local and/or organic food. I'm pretty excited that he's becoming more aware of the problems with the food system.

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Green tip for the day: Can I recommend Food, Inc. again? Anyone who has seen it, I'd love to hear your opinion!

3 comments:

LauraC said...

Um, hi my name is Laura and I have been super neglectful about blog comments here.

First LOVE your book roundup post. LOVE. It is starred in my google reader to go back and really go through each review and add to my (neverending) to read list.

And I saw Food Inc in the theater, that's how excited I was to see the movie. From all my reading and research and years of being vegetarian, no information was new. It was shocking to see the images that have been described in books. And I cried a LOT harder hearing the e coli kid story than I ever did when I read Fast Food Nation before kids.

(Btw, did I ever tell you we went to see Eric Schlosser read when Fast Food Nation came out in paperback and freaking Ralph Nader showed up and the Chicago meatpacker who lost his fingers? ROCKING night. Turns out one of my friends in NC who I met THROUGH MOMMY BLOGGING was at the same exact reading in the same room at the same time.)

What struck me about the movie versus all the books was the theme of hope at the end. I loved the Wal-Mart story despite being anti-Wal-Mart: that if enough people make purchasing decisions, you can change our economy and our world.

So that's why I'm doing that Dark Days challenge. And so much more of our food is local, even in winter. Milk, cheese, meats, eggs, bread, veggies, all local. Our milk is a local farm that uses glass bottles. SCORE! While I only blog about one meal a week, as our pantry gets eaten down, I replace things with locally sourced goods. I'm focusing on local and from "good" farms not just the organic label.

Food Inc is on the queue for Jon to watch.

Oh and I will never eat ground meats again after seeing that manufacturing plant! Or rather, industrial ground meats. We're now eating local grass-fed organic ground beef and the taste difference is incredible.

Damn I could have just emailed you all this.

What A Card said...

Hi Laura! I agree, none of the info in the movie was new to me, but it hit so much harder to see it on screen. And I also agree that the Walmart stuff was great. I mean, it's all well and good to change what I do, but I'm only one person. A lot of people shop at walmart, and if walmart changes their buying habits, that's a big change! Walmart is often (rightly) vilified, but they also do some good. I remember reading about how they're supporting the change to organic cotton by purchasing transitional cotton from farmers making the switch to organic.

Green Gal said...

That's great that it made him really think about what he's eating! Food, Inc. is so powerful that I can't imagine anyone not being at least initially thoughtful when choosing what to eat.