Many people are familiar with the film Super Size Me (2004) in which filmmaker Morgan Spurlock subjects himself to 30 days of eating at McDonald's, leading to horrific results. Two other excellent documentaries about the food/beverage industry are the award winning Food, Inc. (2009) and Tapped(2009). Food Inc. explores the disastrous consequences of factory farming, and Tapped looks at the ills of the bottled water industry where consumers are being duped into buying tap water and water full of toxins leached from the plastic by the bottled water industry.
These documentaries are great introductions to how some American corporations manipulate, exploit, and distort the concept of our very definition of food. In general, many items containin artificial ingredients and fructose, are man-made, have toxic fillers, and overcomsumption leads to disease--but are sold under the nomenclature of "food."
The element of corporate "betrayal" is a thread that runs through almost every part of the food industry. The ugly truth is that many national companies who proclaim to be genuinely concerned with offering quality products are lobbying hard to manipulate laws, minimizing/hiding the truth of what studies show about toxic ingredients, and even making moves to stomp out healthier competition.
Netflix houses many expose films about the food industry: Ingredients (2009) examines the local growth movement, Food Fight (2008) entails a chef's effort to promote locally grown organic food, and Food Matters (2008) discusses obesity and food-related disease.
The vastness of corporate manipulation leads to the unfortunate but direct link between common foods and disease, including cancer. Questioning every sector of the food industry and being armed with information allows people overcome the habits and denial that cause powerful blocks to making change. Being able to unmask corporate hypocrisy and making peace uncomfortable truths is absolutely critical to walking through the gateway to holistic health and being open to new options in healthy eating.
Dr. Joseph Mercola does an excellent job of challenging the corporate status quo on his website Mercola.com. He often exposes corporate hypocrisy and sometimes has links to online petitions. Mercola often discusses GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) which are also detailed in the films The Future of Food (2004), Bad Seed: The Truth about our Food (2005), and Deconstructing Supper (2002).
Many of the issues Mercola's site will be discussed in this blog. However, not with the intensity and expose feel of a trailblazer like Mercola. This forum will involve ideas that are outside of the conventional box, especially the box advertising has put us in, but this blog is not an extreme blog. This forum will be more practical than activist in tone, as it assumes readers are generally aware of corporate manipulation in the food industry.
This blog assumes that the initial mental obstacle of overcoming denial about the food industry has been cleared. For a a birdseye view of how corporate entities function within the current system check out Media That Matters: Good Food (2006) includes 16 short documentaries showing how issues of free trade and sustainability affect what we eat.
Logistical matters will also be discussed in this forum such as overcoming the huge inconvenience in revamping how one shops, thinks about food, where to buy it, and, for some, how to deal with the potential cost of organic food.
Subsequent posts will be geared to sharing both information and my personal experiences along the holistic health path.
A Votre Sante (Here's to your Health), Alix
*Note: I have not seen every one of these films, but I will review them in future blogs.
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