Food, Inc. and healthy eating

Last night, Jeff and I decided we'd like to educate ourselves together, by watching a movie recommended to us by SEVERAL people. The movie is called "Food, Inc." It's about how little we know about the food industry, ie. where our food comes from. In the movie, it shows us the conditions the animals we eat live in, how basically all farmers and food producers are controlled by 5 major companies in the US, and how most of the FDA and people in such leadership positions in the government were once really high up in those 5 food companies. It's not a "conspiracy theory" movie... it's facts presented by an investigative reporter. Quite frankly, it scares the hell out of me.

So we start the movie, and Jeff instantly regrets "letting" me watch it. Haha. He thinks he has a say.. it's cute, isn't it? After the first section about chickens, I was bawling like a baby. I can't seem to control the compassion I feel for animals in general. Perhaps it was my extremely close connection to my childhood poodle/best friend Muffin. Perhaps I view animals as helpless as children, and therefore feel the need to protect. Or maybe... just MAYBE I respect life, and feel as though just because I'm bigger and stronger, does not mean I have the right to cruelty and inhumanity to creatures smaller and less intelligent than I am.

These chickens... ugh. Chickens were once a wild animal that could fly. Birds. We have taken their ability not only to fly, but also to walk. They grow chickens abnormally fast by injecting them with hormones and unnaturally feeding them. Because of this, they grow so fast their internal organs, muscles, tendons, ligaments, etc. can not support their weight. They walk a few steps and fall back down. They are kept in such close proximity to the other chickens, they are pooping and peeing and eating all over each other. Most don't even get to see DAY LIGHT. They are kept in windowless dark rooms. Basically, they live and die in chicken hell. From the moment they hatch, they are manhandled, sometimes sent down shoots and tagged with stamps on their heads. Sick chickens aren't made better, they are taken to the slaughterhouse with all the others and end up in our food. It's not right. I feel that chickens should live the best life possible, the most natural life possible, until it is their time to become dinner. It made me sick. Physically I felt ill.

I could go on and on with this post. The chickens were actually not the worst of it. The cattle have it the worst in my opinion, and the pigs as well. The way this movie effected me is significant. I can't just sit here and let this happen. You know, after hearing from my sister the way the Koreans treat dogs, I was disgusted. They torture them before eating them, thinking that the adrenaline will somehow make the meat taste better. It's sick. But now I wonder, are we any better here in America? We let money and greed take over the food industry. We let people mass produce animals, intentionally making these animals overweight, living horrific lives, and then we eat them. Is this not, in a form, torture? I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS. How did I not take the time to learn about this before now? I have always been a proponent for Organic living. I've eaten organic for most of the last 2 years. I try to eat things in their "whole" and "natural" form. This to me, makes a lot of sense. I also had enough common sense to realize that pesticides that can KILL bugs, really probably aren't something I want floating around in my own body. I also realized that chemically altered corn was probably a bad idea (high fructose corn syrup... see my other blog) But now... now I see that it's not the only reason I should be eating organic.

This movie did have a few bright spots to it. It showed us a farmer, Joel Salatin, located in California. I've actually read about him before in a book called The Organic Food Shoppers Guide. He has several pastures, and rotates his cows from pasture to pasture, where they eat natural food and refertilize the soil themselves, in the natural way. He slaughters his chickens humanely, and they live outside and are able to roam about freely. His pigs are not overcrowded, in fact they look happy. And this man's food is not crawling in bacteria like the food coming from the top 5 meat companies. In fact, they tried to shut him down, because he cleans, guts, and packages his meat in an outdoor location. So he made them do a culture testing for such things as E. Coli, Salmonella, etc.. They compared it to one of the companies meatpacking plant samples. Where they found over 3,000 measurements of bacterium in the meat company's Petri dish, they only found around 150 measurements in this guy's Petri dish. Why? Because he's doing things the natural way. The way GOD intended. The way NATURE intended.

Another book I recommend, that I started to read was The Complete Organic Pregnancy. I've ordered both books already and plan to use the hell out them. No, I'm not pregnant. But I plan on getting pregnant in a few years, and would like to start preparing my body for it now. I want my child(ren) to have the most healthy, happy lives possible, and I owe it to them to make sure my womb is the healthiest environment I can make. It also gives you tips on baby food and nursing if I remember correctly.

I am not going to let this go. I am going to make it my mission to find a way to do my part for the health of this nation. I am serious. I love people. I want all of us to be healthy. When I see the line at the drive-through of McDonalds, it takes every ounce of self-control that I have not to run over there and stop these people. These people who are trying to eat and not break their budget. The dollar menu is tempting, people, but the cost... is not worth it. The cost to your health. The cost of the diabetes you may currently be creating due to the things you're putting into your body. Our bodies were not designed to deal with the massive amounts of sugar and unnatural CRAP that we continue to put into them. Thus we are seeing diabetes run rampant and auto-immune diseases cropping up like a plague. Some statistics that really disturbed me last night in the movie: 1 out of 3 children born after 2000 will develop Type 2 Diabetes. 1 out of 2 African American children will. HALF. THAT's HALF of our African American population born after the year 2000. ONE-THIRD OF THE CURRENT 10-YEAR-OLDS WILL HAVE DIABETES??? If they don't already have it, that is. SICK! What does that tell you? Perhaps that tells you our current food system ISN'T WORKING! Maybe if Obama would stop worrying about the health care and do a little to PREVENT this stuff from happening in the first place. I think I'll write him a letter and ask him to watch Food, Inc. lol.

Anyways, I'm done with my rant. I hope you guys will at least watch the movie. Sorry I didn't go more into detail, but I feel the movie tels it beter than I ever could have. Sure, some of you may think it's a load of crap, and that I'm really gullible. I don't care. If you are unwilling to realize the wrongs of this system, it will never be made right. So I choose to open my eyes and see. I will be eating differently from now on, I can promise you that.

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