Food, Inc. A Must-see Film for Anyone Who Eats

I'm not joking, EVERYONE needs to see the documentary Food, Inc., which I saw over the weekend during the 11th Annual Sarasota Film Festival. It was only by coincidence that my Saturday in Sarasota began with lunch at Veggie Magic, a raw food, organic restaurant, followed by the film about the contaminated and corrupt food system in the United States. After seeing Food, Inc., I've reached several conclusions:

• I need to continue buying local AND organic veggies and meat. My farm share from the local organic food ends soon, the farm doesn't harvest during the summer. What's a girl to do?
  
  
• Although I may be purchasing something grown locally and organic doesn't necessarily mean the seed wasn't genetically modified – an organic field could be contaminated just by the breath of Mother Nature blowing unnatural seeds into an organic field.
  
  
• I really need to try and go vegetarian. It was heartbreaking seeing how the non-organic animals were raised. From birth to death, they’re not treated like living creatures. I didn't expect to cry in a movie about food! (Suppose I should've read the movie description, I picked it because the start time fit into my schedule.)
  
  
• No wonder our country is in a financial mess. Big corporations are not only dipping their fingers in Wall Street, their rolling up their sleeves and playing and controlling farming fields across the country.
  
  
• Some food lobbyists are now in contradictory positions of power in D.C.
  
  
• Wal-Mart listens to what consumers want. Really. I'm serious Have you taken a look at your neighborhood Wal-Mart?
  

We need to wake up and smell the manure coming out of the grocery store, pay attention to labels and demand more natural food. Not GMO (genetically modified organism) or GEO (genetically engineered organism) food and not ones with corn or soy fillers. And, we need to get back to eating chicken, beef, vegetables with blemishes and not just food. Eating something that was engineered to look exactly the same as a million other things is not natural (i.e.: chickens raised to be the same size). Real fruits and vegetables are meant to have blemishes and occasional weird knots. I want to eat a hamburger with the beef from one cow, not a hamburger made with pieces from 1,000 cows.

I often wonder if the food industry could be an avenue for terrorism. Our enemies have the patience that we have no clue about. I especially thought that during the contaminated food from China outbreak. Or, our enemies can be sitting back and taking pleasure in outbreaks such as E. coli and salmonella and hoping we implode soon. I know, the conspiracy theorist is running wild!

But back to Food, Inc.

The documentary will hit theatres this spring but check out the film's Web site for a list of film festivals it’s being screened. The Sarasota Film Festival introduced the Green Cinema Now! this year, a collection of features and shorts surrounding environmental challenges on the local and global scale.