Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

"Beware of the sound of one hand clapping." That is, the first side of a story always sounds credible until you hear from the other side. I really enjoyed watching Food Inc. twice. Amazing cinematic production and very entertaining. Although I disagreed w/ 90% of the film, it did make some good points, and certainly promotes conversation. I think the movie misses the biggest point of all: Americans are hedonistic, pleasure-seeking folk who want their cake and to eat it too, and now we're overweight and looking for someone else to blame rather than practicing *self control.* My take? There's a lot they left out of the movie. I believe people should be given an *objective* view of the facts and then make up their own minds rather than being presented only one side. For example, consider the following. 1. First, let me say that in 2001 I converted over to organic food to become healthier. It didn't take me long to figure out that the large organic farming companies are just as greedy and deceptive as the conventional companies. Many false claims are made to promote their very expensive products. After a while, I realized I wasn't getting any healthier and didn't have enough money to keep buying the organic, which has never* been shown to be healthier than conventional produce. The moral of this whole story? "Follow the money trail." For example, the raw milk craze is based on people who stand to make millions of dollars. Raw milk is a highly lucrative business and people are dying from drinking it, unfortunately. 2. Everyone believes producers put hormones in chicken feed. . . if they did, the companies would go out of business because hormones *don't work* in chickens as in beef. It's throwing money down a hole. Chickens grow off bigger today because we've bred them to have larger breast muscles and have bred for faster growth, just like we've bred dairy cows to have large udders and small muscles. 3. The angry chicken farmer woman in the movie refused to retrofit her chicken house w/ a tunnel ventilation cooling system. She wanted to keep making her $25,000 per house profit ($100,000 for four houses) and not put money back into the system. The poultry companies cannot afford to let those old school people keep their contracts b/c the birds w/ open sided houses are much hotter and uncomfortable, and it takes more feed and more time to grow the birds off. Very inefficient. Tunnel ventilation-cooled poultry houses are like air conditioning. 4. The movie presents a false image of poultry farming as taking advantage of the farmers. Some of the richest people in the south are chicken farmers. Currently, you cannot contract w/ a poultry company unless you build (1) six chicken houses x $25,000 profit each = $150,000 profit/year, (2) ONLY a 15 year mortgage, so in 15 years, you OWN the place and all you have to spend is upkeep, and (3) the company brings you all the chicks, all the feed, a veterinarian, any medications you need, and then picks the chickens up after 4-7 weeks. There are hundreds of people who have left highly lucrative careers in the south to go into poultry farming because they could make more money there. Now get this. . . On top of all of that, most people w/6 houses hire a farm hand to run the farm for them, then the farmer only has to work 10 or 20 hours a week. 5. Remember the poor pitiful family that wouldn't cook their own food at home? They would spend $12 for hamburgers and sodas in their car, but said that broccoli was too expensive at $1.29 a pound.(??) For $5 they could have made 3.5 pounds of cheese broccoli. "But I don't like cheese broccoli" someone might say. "OK, well, that's why you're fat," I might say. Just because a person doesn't like eating healthy food, doesn't mean they should blame their health problems on others. Furthermore, the oldest daughter of that family had upper and lower *BRACES* on her teeth. So, the family could afford $6,000 to straighten her teeth, but couldn't pay $3.87 for three pounds of broccoli and now they blame everyone else but themselves for their bad choices and the father's diabetes.(?) Also, the oldest daughter had time to go to a psychological support group counseling session to help her deal with the fact that her father has diabetes, but she doesn't have time to cook her family some beans and rice.(??) Some Asian friends I went to college with claimed they could eat for $30 a month. How? They bought 40 lb. sacks of rice and cooked rice and dried beans. 6. A large part of the movie was related to GMO soybeans, which allows farmers to grow record levels of soybeans on very small pieces of land. Why do you think 90% of farmers use the GMO soybean seed described in the film? Because they have greater yields and make *more money* than with the old seed. Companies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing and promoting these products (which is why it is patented) but now the guy who cleans seeds isn't willing to respect the company's intellectual property rights and isn't willing to change with the times. Furthermore, GMO crops have never been shown to be harmful to us or the environment. 7. The American Meat Institute is the trade association (spokesman) for the meat industry. It speaks for the companies so they won't get in trouble and get sued. AMI has requested since 1998 to be interviewed by the producer of Food Inc. and to be included in the 2009 movie, but Food Inc. denied them this. An articulate, intellectual response to their ideas would ruin the whole show. 8. If America went 100% organic, we would have to deforest the country to grow enough food for everyone. Modern agriculture is many times more efficient than we were 100 years ago, meaning we are using less land than we would be using under the old system. Thus, modern farming is more environmentally-friendly with regard to carbon emissions, greenhouse gases, and land usage. 9. Some supermarket chains have been pressured into only selling milk from cows that have not been given hormones. The fact is that hormones *do not* enter the milk of the cow. The meat? Yes. The milk? No. What does this mean? It means the supermarket chains now use milk produced *less efficiently*, requiring more feed, more land, more money, and more natural resources. Reducing hormone usage in cattle reduces milk and meat efficiency which leads to a greater environmental burden. 10. The movie demonizes raising cattle in feedlots. The fact is, cattle are pasture-raised (grass-fed, hay-fed) for years and then for the last 5 months, they are fattened up in feed lots. It has never been proven that grass-fed cattle lead to lower cases of E. coli than feedlot cattle. Currently, there is an E. coli strawberry outbreak in Oregon. Guess where they traced the E. coli back to? DEER feces, from grass-fed deer. 11. Another myth is that hormones in conventional beef are causing girls to mature faster. The fact is, girls reaching puberty is contingent on the amount of *body fat* they have, because excess fat leads to excess hormone production in the body. That's why female olympic gymnists often don't reach puberty until they are in their 20's, because they have almost zero body fat. A fat adolescent who eats only organics is going to reach puberty BEFORE a skinny adolescent who eats conventional hormone-produced beef at every-meal. Why are girls reaching puberty faster today? Because our society is overweight. Weight problems are at epidemic proportions in grades 3-6, thus the situation w/ the girls reaching puberty earlier. 12. The world's population is growing at 1.2% a year. We can't afford to go back to the old inefficient system. 13. The current scientific data says that conventional vs. organic foods are equivalent in nutrition and safety (except for unpasteurized milk, which is more dangerous). Are there problems with the modern system? Certainly. We can go over those sometime, if you like. My Recommendations? First and foremost, hear both sides of the story. Beyond that: 1. Don't overeat. Don't get diabetes or heart disease. Excess body fat is also the single *biggest* predictor of contracting cancer (besides smoking, of course; also alcohol contributes to 7 known types of cancer). 2. Cut back on saturated fat and refined carbohydrates (e.g., sugar, white flours, breads, pastas, crackers, chips, potatoes). 3. Eat high fiber (buy the high fiber or double fiber bread, fiber cereal, etc.) including more fruits and vegies. 4. I take sugar-free generic brand Metamucil every night and with high-fat meals (fried foods, pork, beef, cheese, etc.) It contains soluble fiber that *sucks up* fat like a sponge so your body won't. It will lower your triglycerides and lower your LDL bad cholesterol and raise your HDL good cholesterol. In the past year, I've increased my good (HDL) cholesterol from 40 to 60 with fiber + 2,000 mg niacin a day, and have dropped my triglyceride levels from in the high range to the low range. 5. Remove *PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED* oils from your diet, which contain trans-fats - bad. 6. Exercise 30 min. a day.