Happy Book Club Monday Tuesday!

Every week I review a book and share that review with you guys. To see past books, check out Badger Girl’s Book Shelf.

Last week I promised an awesome book on Paleo-like style eating.  I am breaking all of the rules this week. Last weekend, I watched a movie that seriously touched me. But unfortunately it was not the touch in the sense of a feel-good-warm-and-fuzzy kind of touch. More like the touch in the sense skin-crawling-shudder-inducing-creepy-guy-on-the-subway kind of touch.

I watched Food, Inc.

I don’t think I will ever be the same. 

Food, Inc.

 

I have had the book sample on my Kindle for weeks. I started it a few times, but just didn’t get into it.

After the Writer’s Institute on Saturday, I decided I needed a bottle of wine and a movie. For some reason, I was determined to get this one.

Manatee and I settled into the couch and pressed play.

If you would have taken our picture while we watched, you would have seen wide eyes and trembling hands.

Without tearing my eyes from the screen, I asked, “Are we agreed that we are never buying meat from a grocery store ever again?”

Manatee’s whimper was answer enough.

Overview

Next time you go to the grocery store, try to separate yourself and really look at the store.

Aisles and aisles of food.

Brightly covered packages, meat that magically appears without bones or skins, shiny packages of beef that look identical to each other. It’s a little creepy, isn’t it?

Do you know where that food came from?

Our food industry is an industry and food has changed into a commodity.

We are taught not to take candy from strangers, but we have no idea where our main sustenance actually comes from or who is responsible for it. 

Where did the chicken come from and how did it get here? How was it raised?

If it is winter in Wisconsin, then where are we getting the strawberries and tomatoes?

Food, Inc. forces you to think about these questions.

It tracks down meat processing plants and reveals the not so pretty truth. It not only uncovers what happens behind closed doors, it also points out how hard it is to get in to the back room. 

Doesn’t it make you nervous that big business wants to hide this from us?

Food, Inc. Clip

 

This is the clip that had the biggest effect on me.

Watch if you dare.

Believe it or not, I am not being melodramatic.

Life After the Movie

 

As much as I would love to go totally local, I know myself well enough that I will still buy un-seasonable produce in the winter and occasionally will buy produce at a grocery store. Judge me if you would like, but I am being realistic.

The produce stuff alarms me, but there was a more pressing issue. There were scenes that keep replaying in my head and to be honest, I think I may have missed parts of the movie because they hit me so hard.

 I will not buy a package of meat that was not raised on a local farm. Period. End of sentence.

Manatee and I have talked a lot about becoming vegetarians. To be honest, we just don’t want to make the commitment. We rely a lot on vegetarian and vegan meals, but we like our meat every once a while and we are both in professions where it helps us to have a more open diet and have the ability to be flexible in what we eat.

We know there are things out of our control and we accept that. We can control what we buy for our home and that is where we are going to begin.

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Have you seen Food, Inc.? What did you think?


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