Food for thought...

The new movie Food, Inc. comes out this month and I'm eager to see it. I'm pretty sure I've heard most of it before...

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment.

...but you never know what you'll learn. (And, okay, I secretly hope that every movie like this will persuade my husband to finally make the switch to healthier, organic, local foods....a girl can dream.)






Along the same line of our food supply being controlled by a handful of corporations is the documentary The World According to Monsanto. We caught this by chance on either IFC or Sundance recently and it gave me a new outlook and understanding of genetically modified food.

Monsanto is a chemical company from way back -- 1901 to be exact. They're best known today for being the folks who make the weed killer Round Up, but they're also linked to Agent Orange, among other things.

Their crimes against food, people and the environment are atrocious, yet they've been successful and profitable over the past 100+ years because of their government connections and "revolving door" of employees that come from Monsanto and go to work for the FDA (or EPA or other government agency) and vice versa.

So (and let me preface this by saying that I know it will make me sound kind of dumb, but we all learn as we go, right?) I know that genetically engineered (GE) food = bad, but I always assumed it was because we lose diversity and flavors and other important properties that way. I learned from my adventures in canning last year that we've modified our tomatoes to be less acidic, so now we have to add the acid back in the form of citric acid, or lemon juice or vinegar when we preserve them.

The majority of this documentary is about how Monsanto has genetically engineered -- and patented! -- a huge number of seeds. I mentioned before that they are the company that makes Round Up. They've also GE'd a "Round Up resistant soybean". The seed is engineered so that farmers can spray their entire crops with Round Up, to prevent weeds, yet it won't affect the soybeans because they are engineered to resist it. They have also engineered a cotton that produces its own pesticide.

I can't deny that is a pretty amazing scientific feat but, before you go thinking that this is wonderful, you should know that 90% of the GE seeds planted in the world today are patented by Monsanto. In essence, they own food (and cotton and various other things). They don't allow farmers to save seed and they have their own team of "gene police" that go around to farms, testing samples to make sure that farmers growing their seeds have paid for it.

The problem in this is that crops can be "cross contaminated" (for lack of a better word on my part). So pollen in the air from a Monsanto GE crop can float over to a farmer's field who is growing organic seed and contaminate it. Along comes Monsanto demanding a cut of the action because it's supposedly their seed.

Now you're probably thinking "Okay, theoretically that could happen, but how likely it is really? How big of a problem is it in reality?" In the documentary, scientists went to Mexico to test remote fields of corn that should be pure and have zero chance of contamination by GE seed...only it was contaminated. So people who have no desire for GE food, those who employ centuries-old farming practices, like saving their own seed from year to year, are now being forced to bend to the likes of Monsanto simply because their crops have been contaminated by their seed.

I could go on and on, but I'll spare you because the documentary says it all so much better. Its quite an amazing story. I encourage you to watch it.