Comments (9)

By kilax, August 22, 2009 4:21 pm

Well, this is QUITE overdue! I started this draft exactly a month ago. Oops.

Anyway, a month ago, we received free passes to see Food Inc., and since we hadn’t gone to the movies in quite some time, we thought it would be fun to go. Of course, I was worried about how graphic the movie would be.

It was a bit graphic. I saw things I didn’t want to see*. BUT, it was nothing I hadn’t seen before. If anything, it was just reinforced my decision to become vegan. However, I don’t think the purpose of the film is to persuade people to become vegan or vegetarian – it is just to get people to THINK about where their food is coming from, and the decisions they are making about what they eat/buy.

After thinking about the movie for some time, I really think one of the major points of it was to expose the greed in the food industry. I really think the desire to cut costs, become more efficient, and make a larger profit has gotten us where we are – cheap and unhealthy food, unsafe conditions for workers, a mostly overweight society, increased foodborne illness and so on. The film was set up with a few small segments around these sorts of topics.

I didn’t think this information was presented in a new or alarming fashion though. Like I said, it was all information I have seen before. BUT, I think that is because this is a topic I take interest in. For someone who doesn’t, this film would probably be shocking.

Either way, I recommend it, for a refresher or eye-opener, whichever applies to you!

*Chicken coops where the chickens NEVER see natural daylight and are forced to become so fat that they can barely walk a few steps. A natural farmer killing chickens by putting them upside down in a cone-like contraption with an opening in the end then pulling them through the opening and break their necks while they scream and the other chickens watch in crates nearby awaiting their fate

Comments (19)

By kilax, July 22, 2009 9:57 pm

The site:

My website went down on Sunday because my domain did not get renewed. I am  not sure what the mix-up was, because I normally get a bill for it, and I don’t think I did this year. I contacted my web host right away, who fixed and it said it would take “24-72” hours to come back up. 72 hours later, when it STILL didn’t work, they said they just had to point the domain name to the root folder to fix the issue. Why didn’t they do that in the first place?!?!

Thank you to everyone who asked me about it. I really appreciated your concern and inquiries! It was nice to know my friends wondered where I was… but frustrating that I could not do anything about it!

Update: Thanks to Lindsay and Etta for pointing out the comments were not working. Ugh. This is giving me a headache and making me really frustrated. I had to go back in and turn on comments and pings on EVERY post.

The Missed Blogiversary:

Yesterday was my four year blogging anniversary, and I missed it. Poo poo. Oh well.

The movie:

I am hoping to write a review of Food Inc. soon. I can happily tell you that I did not find it horribly graphic, but that I was disturbed.

The wrist:

I saw the orthopedic specialist on Friday. He pressed his fingers into my wrist, asking “Does this hurt?” until he finally got a “YES!!!!” or two out of me.

He told me that because the pain is more general, it is likely torn ligaments that are trying to heal, and have scar tissue on them that need to be stretched back out. He gave me a new brace to wear (with velcro straps THANK HEAVENS) for another month. He told me to wear it during the day, taking it off a few times to move my wrist back and forth. If I don’t gain full mobility in my wrist in a month, I need to go back to the doctor so he can try to pinpoint the exact ligaments (muscles?) that are still giving me problems.

As you can see from the photo, I cannot move my right wrist back very far. The doctor measured it, and I could only get it to go back 38 degrees. My wrist doesn’t hurt as much anymore, but I am a bit creeped out by how limited the motion in it is. I keep saying to Steven, “Maybe I could never bend my right wrist back that far…”

That’s as far back as I can get the right wrist to go, even when I push on it with my other hand.

Oh, and since I am talking about it, I just want to add a little detail to the story of how this all happened. Some people mentioned that this incident reminded them of the motherly warning, “It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.” Well, I want to let you know that the FIRST thing my mom said to me when I got to the beach (because she went on the first boat trip over) was, “Kim! I am surprised you didn’t go straight to that slide to try it out! Are you going to?!?!”

Comments (21)

By kilax, July 15, 2009 7:36 am

Steven and I received an invitation (okay, from Chipotle) to attend a free screening of the film Food, Inc. tonight. The only reason I know what this film even is (despite having read many books by its contributors) is because I’ve been reading about it on many food blogs (here, here and here). From what I’ve read, I get the impression that this movie is going to make me feel sick to my stomach. And possibly very upset. And disappointed.

Here is the description of the film that I took from their website:

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.

It feels silly to feel nervous about seeing a film. But when I see things like this, I never forget them. It’s like I have a special part of my brain that stores memories of bad/scary/disgusting/freaky things. That’s why I can’t watch films like Saw, or The Silence of the Lambs, or Se7en. That’s why I don’t look at the peta website. These disturbing images stay with me forever.

Who knows though. Maybe I’ll leave the film feeling inspired.