Books: Food, Inc.
March 31, 2010 | Advertising,Books,Economics,Education,Ethics,Family,Food,Health,Journalism,MSM,Politics,PR,Research,Safety,School,U.S. government
I just finished reading Food, Inc.: How Industrial Food is Making us Sicker, Fatter and Poorer — And What You Can Do About it, edited by Karl Weber and compiled as a companion piece to the movie, which I also just watched. I actually watched the movie (by Robert Kenner) first, not realizing that was the correct order of things.
I’ve read Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation
In any case, if you eat, you might be interested in this book and film. The film was done first. The book contains information from people who weren’t in the film. Schlosser says the film and the book are not just about food. They’re also about threats to the First Amendment and the corrupting influence of centralized power.
Contributors include (listed in order they appear in the book)
- Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal from 2001 and the movie in 2006
- Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit consumer organization that works to ensure clean water and safe food
- Robert Kenner, director of this and other documentaries
- Gary Hirshberg, president and CE-Yo of Stonyfield Farm, producer of organic yogurt
- Humane Society of the United States
- Peter Pringle, a British investigative reporter and foreign correspondent
- Ronnie Cummins, Organic Consumers Association
- Robert Bryce
- Anna Lappé, co-founder of the Small Planet Institute and the Small Planet Fund
- Cool Foods Campaign
- Arturo Rodriguez, president of the United Farm Workers; Alexa Delwiche, who worked as a researcher for UFW; and Sheheryar Kaoosji, a research analyst for Change to Win
- Pesticide Action Network North America
- Muhammad Yunus
- FoodFirst Information and Action Network
- Michael Pollan
- American Community Gardening Association
- Joel Salatin
- Sustainable Table
- Marion Nestle
- Sherri White Nelson, Heifer International
- Center for Science in the Public Interest
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
- Preston Maring
I think the information provided by this book and film is very important, though not half as fun as reading Barbara Kingsolver’s take on food issues in her book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which I’m reading now. In fact, her book was written before Food, Inc., and I wondered, hey, did they read Kingsolver? Because if they didn’t, they should. But sure enough. She was listed in the “to learn more” section at the end of the book.
March 31st, 2010 at 1:43 pm
I’ve read a lot of these, though I haven’t seen the movies. I remember walking through a grocery store with my husband, after we’d both read Fast Food Nation. He was waxing vitriolic about the meat…
March 31st, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Ya know? I interpreted for someone who went through new-employee orientation at a meat-packing plant, and I fainted. That was 20 years ago. I wonder if I could make it through today.
April 1st, 2010 at 11:05 am
Recently there was a documentary shown here in Norway about school lunches in America…I wasn’t here to see it but Stig saw it and was telling me about it. I’ve seen other documentaries on the same subject..I think what you learn watching these things is too much information can sometimes be a bad thing…sometimes it’s better not to know what you think you want to know…ya know? hehehe…