Audience reaction was strong at the March 13, 2011 showing of the film Food, Inc. at First Parish Church in Needham. The film, difficult to watch at times, is meant to “lift the veil” from the American food industry, showing the appalling conditions under which much of our food, especially meat, is produced. One of the points of the film is that consumers have power to influence this situation by carefully selecting what they buy. At the end of the film, a list of actions was shown. They are reproduced below, with a link to the movie’s website, which gives more information about each.
Do you have your own tips to share about local sources of food that is healthier or more humanely produced? Please give your comments.
Actions suggested on the Food, Inc. website:
1. Stop drinking sodas and other sweetened beverages. You can lose 25 lbs in a year by replacing one 20 oz soda a day with a no calorie beverage (preferably water).
2. Eat at home instead of eating out. Children consume almost twice (1.8 times) as many calories when eating food prepared outside the home.
3. Bring food labeling into the 21st Century. Half of the leading chain restaurants provide no nutritional information to their customers.
4. Tell schools to stop selling sodas, junk food, and sports drinks. Over the last two decades, rates of obesity have tripled in children and adolescents aged 6 to 19 years.
5. Meatless Mondays—Go without meat one day a week. An estimated 70% of all antibiotics used in the United States are given to farm animals.
6. Buy organic or sustainable food with little or no pesticides. According to the EPA, over 1 billion pounds of pesticides are used each year in the U.S.
7. Protect family farms; visit your local farmer’s market. Farmer’s markets allow farmers to keep 80 to 90 cents of each dollar spent by the consumer.
8. Make a point to know where your food comes from—READ LABELS. The average meal travels 1500 miles from the farm to your dinner plate.
9. Tell Congress that food safety is important to you. Each year, contaminated food causes millions of illnesses and thousands of deaths in the U.S.
10. Demand job protections for farm workers and food processors, ensuring fair wages and other protections. Poverty among farm workers is more than twice that of all wage and salary employees.
