Sunday 7 February 2010

Movie 38: Food, inc

A look at the American food industry, the big problems with industrial farming and highlighting the good side of old skool farming. Along with how big, nasty and powerful the companies are.

Our first documentary! I’m not actually sure how to review a doc. All they come down to is “interesting” “important” or “boring”.

This is one of the important ones. I didn’t learn all that much from it because…well I pay attention and most of us know that cheap food is generally crap food that doesn’t match the outside of the packet. I did learn some though. I had no idea the situation was as bad as it was, and it’s pretty fuckin bad. This isn’t a first term thing for Obama, I want him back and some of the results of changing the way food works will be unpopular to begin with. No one wants to pay more money. But it’s something he should tackle, at least a little, in a second term. You can’t come back anyway so just go for the big boys.

You read my blog right? I know I can’t vote for you, but I get others to.

Anywho, I like many of you have a diet that contains a lot of crap. It’s not entirely by choice. If I had more money I’d buy more of the good stuff. I’m not saying ALL the good stuff, I like drinking a Pepsi and I like some junk food. I’m not a hippy preacher. I did make some minor changes in my diet a couple of years back though. I used to buy a lot of frozen chicken things, like those Bird’s Eye coated breasts. I loved those, particularly the honey mustard one. Emphasis on loved.

I have no idea if they actually degraded in quality or not, though I’m sure I saw a “new recipe” label. Take note, new and improved on the box is probably directed at the shareholders more than at the consumer. They USED to be more of less a chicken breast. Processed sure, but it looked like a bit of meat when you cut in to it and it tasted like meat when you ate it. By this I mean that you could pull apart actual muscle.

I’m a carnivore and proud (well omnivore). I have absolutely no issues with knowing that what I’m munching on was once skipping about, or possibly stuck in a pen which I’m not all that happy about. I WANT to be able to nibble on small individual bits of meat.

Anyway at some point these chicken breast things started to be kinda mush. They were watery and tasteless. There was the occasional bit of what seemed to be actual meat, but that was like finding a triple monkey nut. So I stopped buying them and started just buying lumps of meat. Didn’t cost much more, tasted a whole lot better. It was still cheapish so could have been battery based, but at least it was food and not food product.

Without getting into details I think my digestion improved a fair bit too. I thought it was from eating too late at night, but I don’t think that was the cause of my dodgy guts. Btw, I haven’t eaten at McDonald’s in 3 and a half years either. I felt REALLY ill after eating there the last time and won’t go back (except MAYBE a drunken McChicken Sandwich. No burgers though). I’ll happily pay an extra 2 quid for something less ecoli flavoured.

Wow that’s a lot of rambling. So basically the movie message is it’s worth the extra couple of quid, everyone would still be able to eat fine and we’d be healthier. So buy better food and they’ll make more better food (more better meaning quantity, not bad grammar quality). And they’re right. Pick up some fucking broccoli and get an organic chicken dammit.

Btw, to balance the fact that it looks like I'm bashing Bird's Eye a bit, I picked up some New Southern Fried Bird's Eye Chicken Wings the other day. They're really nice and actual chicken so I can recommend those. The karmic scales are now even.

Next up: A Serious Man

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