Food for thought 30 000 up

Relieving the tedium on a long haul flight is a strong motivator for consuming the trays of food and, of course, watching movies. All kinds of movies.

I tend to watch movies which wouldn’t be my first pick off the local Video Ezy shelf. It’s something to do with my tendency to cry very easily when above the clouds (there is a physiological reason for that?). I cry at anything with a shred of emotion in it.  So, True Grit was up first on my playlist. No tears, but didn’t quite make it to the credits either. buy web domains . Dull. Next choice, a plane staple – Jennifer Aniston rom com. Just the right amount of sassy sweet to well up but not sob.

Then third choice (it’s 13 hours from London to Singapore) was Food Inc, a movie I’d heard about and seen trailers for. I pretty much knew what I was in for. The movie notes explain ‘Food, Inc. illustrates the dangers of a food system controlled by powerful corporations that don’t want you to see, to think about or to criticize how our food is made’. OK, it’s going to be gross.

The impact of this movie which interviews (or tries to) food corporations, farmers fighting back, parents who have lost a child to e-coli (prompting this passenger’s flood of tears) and dozens of interesting people involved in the production of food was long lasting and made me very glad:

1. I grow at least some of my own food, nearly always have done and love that we are experiencing a global mega trend (buzz buzz) of people gardening and growing
2. I haven’t bought a non free-range egg since the turn of the century and now have 3 brown shavers
3. That people like Joel Salatin, one of the farmers featured, exist. Here’s a man feeding his cows….god forbid…grass! Plus, he looks and sounds like a real American farmer looks and sounds in my head. I loved Joel.

It is a wholly US based movie. A country where just 7 food companies are responsible for  80% of all the beef products consumed and 13 slaughter houses ‘process’ that beef. Only 13? Isn’t the US enormous? How can that be right? It’s a country where cows feed on corn. (That’s a bit like feeding bread to ducks…hardly its natural diet and sure fire way to create problems down the line…think about it next time you offload your stale bread). A country where 1 in 3 Americans born after 2000 will contract early onset diabetes. Holy cow!

I do wonder how all of the statistics would translate to our green and pastured land of Aotearoa.

Filmmaker Robert Kenner did a fantastic job to get out there and give us some food for thought and fodder for action. We all have a choice what we buy at the supermarket.

I didn’t eat a thing for the remaining 5 hours of my flight.