Will YOU eat it??

I've watched bits and pieces of Food Inc. before in high school, and after watching it all the way through now, I was still left with that uneasy, queasy feeling. In the back of my mind, I've always known that most foods sold in multinational department stores (such as Walmart) are processed. Many of the lower class, and even now in the middle class, families in the United States, such as the Gonzalez family, are forced to undergo buying the cheapest foods, which just so happen to be the most unhealthy for you. The only option for them seems to be fast food. One of the narrators, Michael Pollan, brings up a good point about how "we've skewed our food system to the bad calories" (11:03). He continues to talk about how the healthy foods are so much more expensive in the grocery stores than the unhealthy, processed food. And why is that? I've often wondered the same thing. Growing up around Chapel Hill, and now living in Asheville, everyone always talks about going green. Eat "organic" foods. Eat healthy. But eating such as that can get pricey, and in this economy, it is difficult to find cheap, nutritious foods.

Watching the animals get slaughtered in the film was slightly unnerving. I grew up on a farm my whole life, raising our animals as pets rather than as food. We had goats, chickens, horses, pigs, ducks, dogs, cats, and many other farm animals. I remember the one time we tried eating one of our chickens. My parents caught it, strung it up on the back porch, and tried plucking out all her feathers. It was a tedious process, and I ended up not being able to eat the chicken when we cooked her up for dinner that night. Although knowing exactly where your food comes from is beneficial (so that you know whether or not it has steroids or pesticides or any other chemicals), I have a more difficult time killing my own food. My roommate is a vegan, but she will cheeses and eggs and dairy products if she knows exactly where it came from (eg. she worked and lived on a goat farm in Italy last summer and ate lots of cheese there). I believe that more people should be more conscientious about where there food is coming from. The director Robert Kenner did a decent job explaining the costs of the food industry and how disconnected humans have become from their food. Be more aware and your body will benefit.

Kenner has also recently started a new organization called FixFood which plans on educating the public and bringing change to the food system by using videos and social media. Here's one example of what FixFood is.

dolphins are whales too!

After watching The Cove, I was astounded and appalled by the vast number of dolphin slaughters going on around the world (23000 a year!), especially in Japan. Growing up, I had always heard about how intelligent dolphins were. It's one of the main reasons why they're so enjoyable to be around. I used to always want to swim with the dolphins or go see them at the aquariums. Now, all anyone should want is to set them free. Viewing them in those tight compounds makes me claustrophobic. I wouldn't want to be confined, so why should they? In the television series The Simpsons, one episode depicts humans as the cruel oppressors and the dolphins end up retaliating against them and taking back "their" land, while dumping the humans in the ocean. Even in a humorous light, the dark reality can hit and prove that dolphins are being harshly misinterpreted and misused.

When the director Louie Psihoyos interviewed people off the streets in Tokyo, I found it very surprising that many people did not know that dolphin meat was being sold in the marketplace. Especially hearing that much of it is labled as a much more prestigious whale meat... And to hear that it was offered to be sold in schools is sickening. Since mercury accumulates the higher up in the food chain, humans *allowing* other humans to consume an animal with 2000 ppm is murderous. These people should be imprisoned due to the fact that they're knowingly poisoning human beings. But with Japan's intense, and quite insane, laws, where they can jail anyone for anything, no questions asked, they pretty much have free reign to do whatever they want and can get away with it. If enough people stand up against dolphin slaughtering, then maybe one day it can stop. Organizations such as Greenpeace and people like Ric O'Barry hope so. And Ric used to support capturing dolphins until he knew what was really going on...

To learn more about how YOU can Save the Whales (and dolphins and such), click here.

Capt Paul Watson: "All social change comes from the passion of individuals." (23:00)