Dr. Mercola recently reported in the atrocities inherent in factory farmed animals, giving us graphic details about why grass-fed, free-range meat may be a more humane, ethical diet choice. Learn more on Dr. Mercola’s website, and then use Clean Plates to find all the restaurants in Manhattan using humanely-raised, organic, hormone and antibiotic-free animal products! Warning: the video on this site may not be appropriate for all viewers.
From the New York Times comes a startling article about the company Beef Products Inc.’s use of ammonia to eliminate pathogens in processed meat, and the response from the US Department of Agriculture. Sadly, the response is not the skeptical one you might expect; rather, the USDA praised Beef Products Inc.’s methods as extremely effective, and exempted the company’s products from routine testing. As you can imagine, dangerous meat contamination ensued…and found its way into school hamburger supplies.
Read more on the New York Times website.
Recently on the Huffington Post: GMO expert, author, and filmmaker Jeffrey Smith confronts the president of a major food company about genetically modified crops in his products, fearing the worst in ignorance and stubbornness. What transpires is magical – and bridges the gap between dogmatism and true understanding. Read about their discussion, and the mutual awakening it inspired at the Huffington Post website.
Smith also points toward a great resource for non-GMO produce at The Organic and Non-GMO Report website.
Nutrition expert Marion Nestle contends that the modern grocery store is a place where the giants of agribusiness compete for your purchases with profits-not health or nutrition-in mind. Her acclaimed book, What to Eat, helps readers navigate the supermarket aisles and make sensible food choices, from produce to packaged foods. Is organic food better? Are carbohydrates bad? What are “functional foods?”
At this event, Nestle will address the science of nutrition, explaining how hard nutrition science is to do and to interpret, and yet how easy it is for food marketers to confuse the science to sell products. Nestle will discuss the hot topics of sponsored science, functional foods, health claims, and self-endorsements.
Marion Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, which she chaired from 1988-2003.
What to Eat: Diet, Nutrition, and Food Politics
An Evening with Marion Nestle
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
6:30 – 8:00 pm
The New York Academy of Sciences
7 World Trade Center (at Barclay St.)
250 Greenwich Street, 40th Floor
New York, NY 10007
TICKETS:
Non-members: $25
Students: $20
Members: $15
Learn more and purchase tickets at www.nyas.org/whattoeat.
This Thursday, the Interfaith Experience, in partnership with Mercy Corps’ Action Center to End World Hunger, will present the Academy Award-nominated documentary Food, Inc., along with a discussion of food and faith with wellness advisor Dhrumil Purohit, and a book signing with Clean Plates‘ own Jared Koch.
About Food, Inc.
In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won’t go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.
Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield’s Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms’ Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising and often shocking truths about what we eat, how it’s produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.
Food, Inc. Screening and Discussion
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Discussion at 6:30 pm, screening at 7:00 pm
Action Center to End World Hunger
6 River Terrace
Battery Park City
New York, NY 10282
Tickets $10 from Brown Paper Tickets or call 800-838-3006
For more information, please visit theinterfaithexperience.blogspot.com
All proceeds will be shared between the Temple of Understanding and the Mercy Corps Action Center to End World Hunger.
An evening of excerpts from upcoming documentary films tackling food and agricultural issues will take place on December 15, 2009. A lively panel discussion and Q&A with the filmmakers, moderated by food activist and author Anna Lappé, will follow the screenings. Hungry Filmmakers is a not-for-profit event hosted by Anthology Film Archives and Jimmy’s No. 43 and curated by food writer Cathy Erway and filmmaker Shelley Rogers. Proceeds will benefit Just Food, a nonprofit working to promote access of fresh, seasonal, sustainably grown food for all New York City residents.
On view:
What’s “Organic” About Organic?”
by Shelley Rogers
Big River and Truck Farm
by Curt Ellis & Ian Cheney
The Greenhorns
by Severine von Tscarner Fleming
Grown in Detroit
by Manfred & Mascha Poppenk
Faces From the New Farm
by Liz Tylander, Kat Shiffler & Lara Sheets
Untitled Film by Sara Grady
Hungry Filmmakers
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Doors open at 7 pm, screenings begin at 7:30 pm,
after-party at 9 pm at Jimmy’s No. 43 (43 East 7th Street)
Anthology Film Archives
32 2nd Avenue (at E. 2nd Street)
New York, NY 10003
Admission: $10
Tickets available at www.hungryfilmmakers.blogspot.com
Are you concerned about where your food comes from? Do you care about the working conditions of farmers and food workers? Is it inconvenient to get to the store? Do you have access to fresh produce in your neighborhood? Are you concerned about meat and poultry packing conditions that threaten your health and that of the workers? Are you worried that corporate giants like Monsanto control a large share of our seed supply?
The U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are seeking our comments on consolidation in the food system by December 31, 2009 to inform an upcoming series of workshops on competition and regulation in agriculture (more info at www.justice.gov/atr/public/workshops/ag2010). Please take the time to e-mail your comments to agriculturalworkshops@usdoj.gov, or submit two paper copies of your comments to Legal Policy Section, Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice, 450 5th Street, NW, Suite 11700, Washington, D.C. 20001. All comments received will be publicly posted. Spread the word! Make your voice heard!
Thanks to the folks at Food First for alerting us to this opportunity!
Don’t miss a special screening tonight of Robert Kenner’s documentary Food, Inc. The film artfully weaves interviews and agribusiness footage to reveal the concentration of power in the American food industry.
Panel discussion to follow, featuring:
Peter Pringle, author of Food, Inc.: Mendel to Monsanto-The Promises and Perils of the Biotech Harvest
Bryan Walsh, staff writer at Time magazine
Marion Nestle, Professor, Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at New York University, and author of Food Politics and What to Eat
Jill Richardson, food activist and author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System is Broken and How to Fix It, moderator
Presented by the Center for Communication and the Departments of Food Studies and Media Studies and Film at The New School.
The High Cost of Cheap Food:
Food, Inc. Screening & Discussion
Thursday, November 19, 2009, 6:30 p.m.
The New School
Tishman Auditorium
Alvin Johnson/J. M. Kaplan Hall
66 West 12th Street
New York, NY 10011
Free; seating is limited
Reservations are required: www.cencom.org.