Day 201

Thoughts: SOUNDBYTES AND SUBJECTS

The voices of Food, Inc. are food experts, farmers, businessmen, government representatives and food advocates, all of whom have helped to reveal where our food comes from and how it is made. Here is a sampling of their key quotes from the film along with brief information about them:

“There is this deliberate veil, this curtain that’s drawn between us and where our food is coming from. The industry doesn’t want you to know the truth about what you’re eating because if you knew, you might not want to eat it.”

“Not only do they not want you to know what’s in it, they have managed to make it against the law to criticize their products … In Colorado, it’s a felony if you’re convicted under a veggie libel law. So you could go to prison for criticizing the ground beef that’s being produced in the state of Colorado.”

“You look at the labels and you see farmer this, farmer that. It’s really just three or four companies that are controlling the meat. We’ve never had food companies this big and this powerful in our history.” Eric Schlosser, author of "Fast Food Nation".

Food, Inc. was the brainchild of Schlosser and director/producer Robert Kenner. Schlosser, who is a highly regarded investigative journalist and author, was instrumental in the film’s research as well as providing his expertise and opening doors to his impressive list of industry contacts for the filmmakers.

“The way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000, but the image that’s used to sell the food … you go into the supermarket and you see pictures of farmers. The picket fence and the silo and the 1930s farmhouse and the green grass. The reality is … it’s not a farm, it’s a factory. That meat is being processed by huge multi-national corporations that have very little to do with ranches and farmers.”

“All those snack food calories are the ones that come from the commodity crops, from the wheat, from the corn, and from the soybeans. By making those calories really cheap, it’s one of the reasons that the biggest predictor of obesity is income level.”

“Cows are not designed by evolution to eat corn. They’re designed by evolution to eat grass. And the only reason we feed them corn is because corn is really cheap and corn makes them fat quickly … The industrial food system is always looking for greater efficiency. But each new step in efficiency leads to problems. If you take feedlot cattle off their corn diet,give them grass for five days, they will shed eighty percent of the E. coli in their gut.” -- Michael Pollan, author of “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto,” which bowed in January, 2008.

Pollan is an award-winning journalist and world-renown food expert who has
authored five books, including “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals.” The book, which was named one of the 10 best books of the year by The New York Times and the Washington Post, was used as reference material by the filmmakers for this film. His other books include “Second Nature,” “A Place of My Own” and “The Botany of Desire.”

“I understand why farmers don’t want to talk because companies can do what it wants to do as far as pay goes because they control everything. But … something has to be said.” -- Carole Morison, a courageous chicken farmer growing for Perdue in Maryland who – despite fear of retaliation – spoke out when no other farmer in the area would.



Morison brings the filmmakers inside a chicken farm so Americans can see first hand what antibiotics and high-tech breeding are doing to the nation’s chickens. It used to take a chick three months to grow into adulthood, but with the chemicals put into the feed by the big industrialized food companies, the chicks grow in only 45 days and develop oversized breasts. Morison shows how it has affected the chickens -- some of the chickens can no longer stand and die before they are brought to market.
Carole subsequently lost her contract and is now left with few options. She is considering the worst-case scenario: Selling the family farm. “We reduced funding for the FDA and rely increasingly on self-policing for all of these industries, and now we just have really lost our system.” -- Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-Colorado), one of the champions for food safety in D.C.

“We put faith in our government to protect us, and we’re not being protected at
the most basic level.” -- Barbara Kowalcyk, a heroic mother whose 2 1/2 year old child Kevin died from E. coli. She has since become a food safety advocate, fighting to give the USDA back its power to shut down plants that repeatedly produce contaminated meats.



Day 201 of eating only foods naturally provided by the earth and day 3 of eating raw vegan on the 21 Day Cleanse! Eating only raw foods I don't have to worry about whats in it, who made it, there are no labels, no ingredient list, the food is whole straight from the earth, no processing, and no cooking is required, so the meals are quick and easy to prepare (and fun!) and there is not cleaning dirty pots or pans!

For more information go to www.thegardendiet.com/21days

www.foodincmovie.com

Challenges: Life's things that I label as 'challenges' are not supposed to paralyze me, they're supposed to remind me who I am. ;)

Triumphs: I don't mind the failure of my performance but I can't imagine that I'd forgive myself if I didn't try. For that to me is living in hell - not trying - not doing.

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: OJ banana smoothie, I juiced oranges and a banana mmmmm!

Lunch: celery chowder! "Celery nourishes your cells, balances your fluids as well as your salt and mineral levels, rebuild damaged nerve cells, dissolves calcium deposits and much more!" says Jinjee from the 21 day cleanse. Blended celery, brazil nuts, little olive oil, dash of salt and spring onion. It is quite a rich creamy filling meal, if you like creamy foods add the meat and water from a coconut.

Dinner: Apple pie. I did not believe it and now I do - today I made raw apple pie from one of the cleansing recipes from the 21day cleanse. It was delicious! So sweet and so filling! And all raw?! Huh! Ingredients for the filling were blended apple, salt, olive oil and dates. Ingredients for the



Dessert: More apple pie later on! hehe

Snacks: 2 avocados.

Recipe: Recipes will either be in the earth diet book being released this November or www.thegardendiet.com

Exercise: A walk around my block! Dancing to my favourite music for 20 minutes! Breathing :)

164 days to go!!!