Food Inc was on PBS tonight, it's the first time I've seen it. Like Pollan's books, this stuff makes me so mad. As Nombly would have said: Meh meh meh! I'm not out for genetically modified foods in and of themselves, but it's the patenting, and bullying of those who don't have to use it, and the monoculture that results, etc etc that makes me mad mad mad.
Now they're showing a short piece about a dairy farmer who lets his cows just eat grass, they keep their calves, and they're only milked in season (cows aren't meant to produce milk in the winter--which of course is very logical when you think about it. They have babies in the spring!) Seeing these cows wandering around green grass, hangin' out, just being cows... it's so beautiful.
As I've said before, I don't think consuming dairy or meat is inherently wrong either, it can be an interdependent relationship--after all, you're taking care of these animals, feeding them, allowing them to breed, and ensuring the survival of their genes. It can be a durned good deal for animals to interact with humans. But treat them like animals, and not like frikkin' ... chairs.
Anyway, I'm glad I watched it. These things help to keep me on the straightish and narrowish.
Where would I be without you?
3 comments:
The CBC doc on the ocean is worth viewing too. In some places it may be a little too 'gloom and doom' oreinted -- that is, they spin things into the worst case scenerio when in truth we don't really know how much of the ocean's life cycles are things that "just happen" anyway. The only constant on earth after all, is change. But edukashunal and thoughtful overall.
one of my biggest pet peeves is sellers who advertise that they don't use rBGH. Ben & Jerry does this, and so does Chipotle (sour cream on their burritos). It's not that they refuse to use prodcuts from cows treated with BGH, but that they specify the 'r', which is for 'recombinant', ie, produced using biotech rather than from original sources. what do you think?
i haven't seen food, inc. what is the deal with the bullying? that is the part that sounds troubling. coming from left field of not having seen the movie, patenting is required to make the industry - without patent protection, the companies would never be able to recoup the cost of the research and would never do it in the first place.
What I've always had a problem with, re. Roundup Ready etc., is that you can't contain them to your own field. So it gets to be near-impossible for organic growers, or for people who don't want to use it, and want to continue doing things the Olden Way--where you save your seed and plant it the next year. The seeds contaminate other people's fields.
The two results of the contamination:
1. If you buy from Monsanto, you can't keep your seed year to year, and Monsanto has detectives on the lookout for this. Fine. But those farmers who DON'T use Monsanto still get their fields contaminated, and then get sued by Monstanto for keeping the seed. menowz! (That's what I meant by bullying. It's a wee bit harm for farmers to spend as much on litigation as Monsanto can.)
2. We're losing diversity in crops like corn, which could really hurt us one day.
* Re rBGH, I don't know enough. I mean obviously I just avoid dairy altogether. I think animals should only be used in small scale farming, feeding them the foods their bodies are meant to eat (grass for cows, bugs for chickens, etc.) ...Makes me saaad.
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