July 17th, 2009
Last night we saw the movie Food Inc. I thought it was great, and definitely recommend it: It’s about the industrialization of food production and how this impacts workers, eaters, and the environment. Also a bit about the animals, but not too much, and thank god, because I cry every single time I see cows being mauled by forklifts or pigs being shoved around by machinery while screaming. That shit freaks me out… which I take to be a sign that my empathy switches are all properly aligned, but it does make for some painful viewing moments.
Leaving the theatre, Husband said: “Once again I am so glad we don’t eat animal products. You know, I regularly come across material that makes me say things like that, whereas I never see anything about how animals are used for food that makes me say My god what have I done! Let’s buy some burgers!”
But it’s not a pro-vegan or even a pro-vegetarian movie. The sympathy group is clearly the workers, with farmers getting some billing. The hero of the movie spends some time on screen killing and gutting chickens, to give you an idea.
In any case, it’s really got me thinking about how I shop. I already, as you know, eat exclusively vegan food at home. But I still do buy some highly processed, prepackaged food – and I don’t buy from local producers or farmer’s markets. I am going to start looking more seriously into changing how I shop. I was quite moved by the movie’s message of voting with what you buy, three times a day. I don’t pay people to mistreat and kill animals, why do I continue to pay them to mistreat employees and control farmers and trash the environment?
But really what I want to do is buy a patch of land and learn to be a small scale subsistence farmer. I don’t know a damn thing about growing plants or preserving food or any of that stuff, but how amazing would it be if I learned! Who’s with me!
There’s a book that I’ve been meaning to pick up called The 100 Mile Diet, about trying to eat only food that’s been produced within 100 miles of where you live. The premise is that it will significantly decrease your carbon footprint.
I’ve been meaning to start ordering my groceries from SPUD, maybe either watching that movie or reading that book will inspire me to actually get my act together and do it.
And, while I fully support your self-sustaining farm idea, I know that I am terrible with plants and would therefore starve if I were to attempt it.
Hey! This is whizzy – http://www.spud.ca/catalogue/catalogue.cfm?op=C95&qry=***Vegan%20neq%200&S=4&CG=16
SPUD even filters their products for special diets like kosher, gluten free, and vegan. That’s quite handy.
Ha! Yeah, I sort of am too but I believe I could learn. Anything with flowers dies under my care. For now!
UBC agriculture program runs a CSA (community supported agriculture) program involving a yearly subscription price yeilding weekly boxes of veggies during growing season… not sure of all the details but sounds good in principle. I am planning to go to the UBC farmer’s market this Saturday and check out what they have, and see if I can get more information on the CSA. It might be too late to join up this year but who knows!
Checking it out now. the website is a bit jumbly wumbly but sounds pretty good so far!
Okay, I am figuring it out… looks really good!