Hungry for Change

by Analiese Paik, Founder, Fairfield Green Food Guide

After six long years of work, award-winning filmmaker Robert Kenner has released his film “Food, Inc”., an expose of the ugly underbelly of our nation's food system. Prepare to be shocked, disgusted, and jolted into reality. The film’s ads promise that “You’ll never look at dinner the same way.”

Food policy advocate and movie co-producer Eric Schlosser (remember “Fast Food Nation”?) along with food advocate and author Michael Pollan, best known for his books including “The Omnivore's Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto”, are the movie's stars alongside the entrepreneurs and farmers that make up our food system.

Robert Kenner and Michael Pollan were interviewed on NPR and the short but information-packed interview summarizes the movies main points including the dangers of factory farming, the hidden costs of cheap food and how the two relate to our national health care crisis. I was shocked to hear Michael Pollan say that 90 percent of Americans want food labeling to include genetically modified ingredients, yet Monsanto has successfully lobbied Congress and the government against it. Ninety percent of us! How can we make  informed purchases if we don’t know what’s in our food? The movie insists they don’t want us to know.

I've heard it said that “Food, Inc.,” will be to food what “An Inconvenient Truth” was to global warming. Well, yes and no. As Kim Severson of The New York Times astutely points out in her movie review, "After watching Al Gore explain the horrors of climate change, moviegoers can turn off a few lights, think about a Prius and call it a day. People who leave “Food, Inc.” still have to eat." And that leaves us with the daily dilemma of what to eat, where to buy it and how to prepare it so it's convenient, healthy, delicious and within budget.

I built the Fairfield Green Food site to help you become part of the solution by helping you find fresh, local and sustainably grown food. What can you do? Join the local and sustainable-food movement by voting with your dollars (and fork). Please allocate a percentage of your weekly food budget to shopping farmers' markets, farm stands, pick your own farms, and grocers and restaurants selling locally grown food. If you don’t already have a backyard garden, commit to starting an organic one in a container or raised bed (a true organic garden means organic seeds planted in organic soil grown without the use of synthetic fertilizers or pesticides).

My top picks for crops are strawberries, because they’re perennials and kids love picking and eating them, and mesclun greens, because you see and enjoy the fruits of your labor within a matter of weeks. If you don’t already belong to a CSA (community supported agriculture), get on a CSA waiting list for next season. I find it’s the most economical way to buy organic produce directly from a local farm. Please use the Fairfield Green Food Guide’s Buying Guide to search for resources in your town.

The film opens in Connecticut in Greenwich, Norwalk and New Haven today. I can’t wait to see this movie! Please see local details below and I hope to see you there! For more information or comments, please visit Fairfield Green Food Guide.

“Food, Inc.” is also showing in New Haven at Criterion Cinemas 7, 86 Temple Street, at 7:10 and 9:30 pm; Criterion Cinemas at Greenwich Plaza, 2 Railroad Avenue, at 7 and 9:15 and Garden Cinemas Norwalk, 26 Isaac Street,  at 7 and 9 pm.

Photo courtesy of Food, Inc.

Comments

[hemorrhoids from coughing]

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