Day 23: The More I Read, The Angrier I Get

I'm currently reading Christopher Cook's Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis, in which he takes a hard look at the food industry.

It's seriously insane, the power that the industry wields versus how impotent the federal government regulatory agencies are. What's so troubling is how in bed the U.S. Department of Agriculture is with entities like the U.S. Cattlemen's Beef Association, Monsanto and the meatpacking industry (to name but a few). It's like an interlocking directorate of conflicting interests.

Add to this the legacy of deregulation starting with the Reagan and Bush administrations and zero enforcement of the Sherman anti-trust legislation, and you have a taxpayer-subsidized juggernaut devastating the environment which also affects our health in so many ways from levels of obesity which the CDC has now termed epidemic, to the outbreak of food-borne pathogens that sicken thousands every year.

I wonder if this is the issue which will spur me to activism.

The thing is, this is not a vegan issue. It isn't an animal rights "fringe" issue. This issue affects anyone who eats anything grown, raised, bred, manufactured or processed anywhere: in short, it affects everyone.

We are, all of us, being fed poison, shit, drugs, diseased tissue and pathogens, all of which has been stamped USDA-approved.*

What the fuck?


The trailer for Food, Inc.

This could be the food revolution for all of us, vegans, vegetarians, flexivores, frutitarians, unabashed omnivores, or I-only-eat-fish-on-Fridays-in-Lent-ivores.










*Don't believe me? Check out my abbreviated reading list:

• Diet for a Dead Planet, Christopher Cook



• Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser



• Food, Inc: A Participant Guide: How Industrial Food is Making Us Sicker, Fatter and Poorer, and What You Can Do About It Karl Weber, editor (companion guide to the upcoming documentary Food, Inc. The Movie)



• Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect and Inhumane Treatment Inside the U.S. Meat Industry, Gail Eisnitz



• USDA Inc.: How Agribusiness has Hijacked Regulatory Policy at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Philip Mattera (pdf document)

Day 9: I think I've come down with something

I think that the stomach thing from the other day may have been viral. I feel a bit better than I did yesterday afternoon, but my throat is still sore. I am going to keep a focus on fruits, vegetables and lots of water today and see if that does anything.


Also, I am re-reading Fast Food Nation before I start the companion book to Food, Inc. The Food, Inc movie is coming to a city not far from me in July and I'd love to see it. When I was at the bookstore yesterday I also bought Vegan With a Vengeance and Diet for a Dead Planet. I can't wait to get into those too. There's nothing better than some good, old-fashioned muck-raking journalism!

Also on my eventual reading list are: In Defense of Food, Stolen Harvest, the Hijacking of Our Food Supply, and Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatments inside the US Meat Industry.

My reading wish-list includes several more books by Shiva Vandana and Peter Singer's writings on ethics. There's also a book on raising vegan kids that I'd like to get my hands on: That's Why We Don't eat Animals.

I've started up my subscription to Vegetarian Times and Yoga Journal. I used to get both of them a few years ago, but dropped them. I think it's time to start them up again. I'm breaking out one of my yoga tapes too.


Breakfast:

1 banana
1 cup of coffee with soy milk and stevia

Morning Snack:

Green Smoothie:

• 1 banana
• 2 rings of pineapple
• 1 oz baby spinach
• 1/4 cup of pineapple juice
• 1 cup water
• 1 scoop of Michael's Super Defense Food

Lunch:

2 flatbreads with crunchy peanut butter and sunflower seeds

Snack:

1 fresh apricot

Dinner:

1 garlic portobello veggie burger
1 tomato, 1/3 English cucumber
sprouts
gucamaole
1 glass of water

Notes:

• I really have to get back to drinking more water.

The Future of Food

There is a revolution happening in the farm fields and on the dinner tables of America -- a revolution that is transforming the very nature of the food we eat.

THE FUTURE OF FOOD offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade.

We all should watch The Future of Food.

I watched it this weekend immediately after re-watching Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me, and it made me even more conscious of the fact that most people don't think a great deal about what they are putting into their bodies. Eating has, by and large, become a mindless, automatic activity, and food preparation even more so with the preponderance of boxed mixes and frozen meals. I've always enjoyed cooking from scratch, and although I am a lousy gardener, I appreciate the flavors and benefits of the freshest produce possible.

After watching The Future of Food, I am even more determined to be mindful of what I am using as fuel for my body and why. Vegetarianism & veganism have always interested me both for health reason as well as ethical ones. In my love of meat, I have been able to eat it even though with each bite I have felt guilty about all the nameless cattle who walked into the abbatoirs to provide us with those delicious steaks.

For some reason, I have an easier time of it if I tell myself that I am doing this for health reasons. I guess you could say that I take my health more seriously than animals' health. For now, anyway.