Many times when I am working, I will play music, a podcast or a movie in the background to keep things moving. I haven’t really spent that much time on hulu.com and I thought I would go see if there was anything interesting. That is where I ran across a truly mind blowing documentary, The Future Of Food. My wife, daughter and I have been talking about planting a garden for some time now and recently we started getting the ball rolling. I know it’s late in the season, but there are still some things we can plant. My garden will be “organic.” I came to that conclusion after watching my gardener dump chemicals on my lawn for years and the “bug man” spray our WHOLE yard with a mystery “safe” chemical. For that reason and others, I canceled their services. The chemicals they could have been using, may have been safe, but I really didn’t know. I think that’s the point of this documentary. Some of the foods that have been coming to our table for years have been genetically modified. Do you know what that means? How do you think they get our corn looking so perfect, with no blemishes, full size and crunchy? The truth is, that corn that you have been eating for years has been genetically engineered to look that way and it’s happening all across the globe. The problem is that one company, Monsanto, is slowly gaining control of the foods we eat. They literally have the power to decide what we eat, when we eat it and how much they are going to produce. Do you really want one company having that much power over the worlds food?
Watch the documentary
Below is the full documentary on hulu.com. It’s long, a little over an hour, but very intriguing and very disturbing. I didn’t want to ruin the movie for some, so the last part of my review will be below the film.
The Future of Food review
After watching the movie you kind of wonder, how did we get to this place. Have you ever walked through the produce section at the supermarket and you see an employee going through the fruit and randomly picking up pieces and throwing them away? I wonder how many other people have done that before that was the employee’s job? I kind of look at the Genetically Modified (GM) food the same way. The companies are doing that job for us. The thing is, we didn’t ask them to.
It is no surprise that organic food in most grocery stores is usually displayed in weird places and looks damaged. The bananas are classic. They usually have organic bananas displayed behind the enhanced bananas. The contrast is incredible. The organic looks older and bruised, while the enhanced bananas are bright green and yellow. Which one would you select? As long as enhanced food is cheaper than organic, grocery stores will always sell it and people will always buy it.
I think the most disturbing section of the movie was learning that Monsanto’s seeds have been so genetically modified that they only germinated when activated by their companion product Round-Up. So, you could put all the water you wanted on the product and it may or may not grow, but if it did, it may not even bear the edible portion of the plant or fruit! What if Monsanto decided to not sell Round-Up to farmers who weren’t buying enough of their seeds?
Monsanto’s actions constitute nothing less than extortion. This corporation has become so large and powerful that they are influencing markets and politics. Ashcroft received the largest donation during his campaign from Monsanto. Later Ashcroft went on to endorse Monsanto. It’s clear we are dealing with a corporation that is performing sweeping acts of terrorism, under the guise of capitalism and world hunger. Why this has gone unchecked for so long is unfathomable. If this were the tech industry Microsoft, Apple or Google would be under an anti-trust investigation about now.
It’s time to grow and buy organic
We can minimize our exposure to GM’d foods, by buying and growing our own organic fruits and vegetables. The end of the movie seemed very optimistic about the resurgence of the importance of organic foods. The part that resonated with me the most, is that organic farmers seem to take a more holistic approach to farming. They are stewards of their own land and feel that their is a strong social component to what they are doing. Its almost as if there is a collaboration between the farmer and customer. What is happening is that food is special again. The value that is being created, is not quantity, but rather quality.
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