http://www.foodincmovie.com/

I watched this earlier today.  I walked out of the theater ready to murder people.

I thought the movie was pretty well done.  My one complaint is that they mentioned "unintended consequences" pretty early in the movie in reference to McDonalds.  I took issue with that for two reasons:
1. The mention it early in the movie, which sort of has the idea of "unintended consequences" in the back of your mind for the rest of the movie.  However, nothing they mention in the movie is truly "unintentional."  Which brings me to point two:
2.  The level of success the McDonald brothers achieved might have been unforeseen, but their actions were not unintended.  They chose to fire the car-side staff at their drive-in, homogenize the menu, and turn the kitchens into a factory.  They quite intentionally were willing to sacrifice the welfare of their employees and the overall quality of their food in exchange for larger profits.  That they were a factor in creating the factory farming process for cattle was probably unforeseen but I wouldn't call it unintentional when their explicit intent was to raise their profit margins and everything else be damned.

Heard a lot about this on NPR lately. Want to see it.

It's at the Charles Theatre through Wednesday.  I don't know where else in the area it's showing - maybe Annapolis?  Probably Bethesda and DC, too.

Well the first thing you should have done is explain WTF this movie is about. 

Umm its about fast food Duh.

when their explicit intent was to raise their profit margins and everything else be damned.

That is the problem straight up.

I was thinking about something like this earlier today. I watched Namu Killer Whale and considered the vegan equation and found it valid.
But I'm too old and meat tastes too fucking good and 'Im too old to change my tastes now. But seriously it must happen.

Umm its about fast food Duh.

Wrong. It's about the farming and food industries and how they are making money abusing animals, manipulating crops and poisoning Americans.

... that too

Now I wanna see it ...

I don't think we will see much change in these issues.

- The agriculture business corporations have made it clear that factory farms are their modus operandi for the foreseeable future (due to economics of scale and most possible profit).
- American consumers for the most part value cost above quality (at a baseline of basic freshness), there is no political will to increase the cost of meat to offset forced incentive structure changes in the agriculture market.
- The American consumer is largely blind to the process of how food is actually delivered to their markets unless they are actively participating in the work of preparing or harvesting that food.  I'm assuming most government policy workers are too.  The chances of actually having someone write an effective policy to fix this problem is pretty close to zero.
- The American consumer (aside from a religious minority maybe) does not value the lives and well-being of factory animals produced for meat slaughter, and to the extent that Emp makes the argument about the welfare of all employees in the chain of food supplying and preparing -- most Americans don't care much for them either.
- American consumers generally care only about what they consume, not about how their consumption choices effect others on a macroeconomic level.  The fact that it takes what could feed a village for a year in grain to feed one cow for slaughter for production of hamburgers does not really matter to most people unless the price of that beef increases and makes things more uncomfortable for them.
- I think a major problem which could come up in the future is the amount of feed required to produce factory farmed animals is pretty absurd, and that they are also injected with growth hormones and antibiotics and forced to give birth to unnaturally large and numerous offspring.  All of that stuff is pretty sick, and both these input, as well as the production output (large streams of polluted animal waste) are the major things which I could see drawing a change to regulations on how these farms are operated.  But even as we discuss this here, most people are either willfully or unintentionally completely ignorant of the process of how the T-Bone steak is delivered to their table.

It's also hard to seriously interject on these issues from an ethical standpoint when you frequently consume meat, and most people do.  Like I said, I think it's a perfect storm of inaction, and I doubt that anything will happen in US Food Policy unless there is severe crisis/famine which makes us fundamentally reshape the way our Agriculture in this country is conducted.

I agree with pretty much everything you said.  Food policy is another topic that's simply pretty disheartening to think about.  The movie ends on a note of trying to be optimistic and voting with your dollars...which is a load of bullshit.  They actually have the owner of Stonyfield farms going around at a food expo, talking about how all of the various companies like Kaishi, Stonyfield, etc. are owned by the big conglemerates now like it's a good thing.

Too bad the big conglemerates lobby so that "organic" doesn't mean the same thing anymore..."natural" doesn't mean the same thing...etc.  And so begins the decline of alternate food brands to the same mass produced crap, just with a different label.

I am always a little surprised (though I shouldn't be) about how few people seriously address the amount of meat we consume per capita.  It really plays into a pretty broad range of issues, from how much oil we use to runoff from the manure polluting our bodies of water to disease mutation/contamination.  I don't think you need to force everyone to be a vegetarian, but it might be nice to try to encourage people to eat meat at 1 meal a day instead of 3 meals a day as a starting point.

Watched a thing called 
Aftermath: Population Zero online last night, it is a theoretical prediction of the immediate effects and long tern effects of how the earth and it's animals would progress from this point on if every human on earth suddenly disappeared.

It was a little poor quality but still pretty interesting.

History Channel has a show exactly like that called "Life After People". Pretty cool.

I ordered the new James Lovelock book.

Mmm, end of the world porn.

1. "Organic" and "Natural" food is too expensive. The average consumer can not afford these products. I do not buy "Organic" and "natural" because it is simply not in my budget. Trendy Joe's and HipsterFoods is in no way cheaper than Acme. I can eat organic all I want, but what's the point of eating organic when I can't pay my water bills?

2. "but it might be nice to try to encourage people to eat meat at 1 meal a day instead of 3 meals a day as a starting point."
Emp, I'm sorry, but this is a fairy tale dream. Try telling this to someone who has to live a diabetic, protein rich diet, to give up the best source of protein... lean meat.
I live this life. Trust me, I would RATHER be a vegetarian. I tried it! It doesnt work.I got tired of passing out, the hunger headaches, shaking...  I need to eat a substantial amount of protein at every meal or I might as well not eat at all.
Keep in mind I can't live on nuts alone, am (hilariously) lactose intolerant and eating soy products even at one meal a day means ovarian cancer for me in 10 years. (and WTF fucking soy is EVERYWHERE ANYMORE)

I am not, in any way, defending the food industry. Serious change on the part of the government needs to happen so that healthier foods are more within reach of the lower classes. Germany has a better grip on food production with its purity laws. But there just isn't one blanket answer for all of us.

As a side note, what I ate for dinner last night: Hummus, chicken skewers with vegetables. What I really wanted? to pull all the chicken off and only eat the vegetables.

OH! As i was preparing lunch I thought of something... I have always wondered why so many of born in the 70s/80s are lactose intolerant. Why are so many kids born in the 90s allergic to peanuts?
I can only assume food production.

Growth hormones pumped into everything, including the turkey your gay pseudo-bacon comes from.

Dude I LOVE real bacon, but real bacon makes me fat.

You're too fucking beautiful to worry about the things you eat, you should concern yourself with the quantity of what you eat and eat what you like. Except dairy cuz you're a whiney bitch afterwards and you stink up the joint.

1. "Organic" and "Natural" food is too expensive. The average consumer can not afford these products. I do not buy "Organic" and "natural" because it is simply not in my budget. Trendy Joe's and HipsterFoods is in no way cheaper than Acme. I can eat organic all I want, but what's the point of eating organic when I can't pay my water bills?

2. "but it might be nice to try to encourage people to eat meat at 1 meal a day instead of 3 meals a day as a starting point."
Emp, I'm sorry, but this is a fairy tale dream. Try telling this to someone who has to live a diabetic, protein rich diet, to give up the best source of protein... lean meat.
I live this life. Trust me, I would RATHER be a vegetarian. I tried it! It doesnt work.I got tired of passing out, the hunger headaches, shaking...  I need to eat a substantial amount of protein at every meal or I might as well not eat at all.
Keep in mind I can't live on nuts alone, am (hilariously) lactose intolerant and eating soy products even at one meal a day means ovarian cancer for me in 10 years. (and WTF fucking soy is EVERYWHERE ANYMORE)

I am not, in any way, defending the food industry. Serious change on the part of the government needs to happen so that healthier foods are more within reach of the lower classes. Germany has a better grip on food production with its purity laws. But there just isn't one blanket answer for all of us.

As a side note, what I ate for dinner last night: Hummus, chicken skewers with vegetables. What I really wanted? to pull all the chicken off and only eat the vegetables.

I meant more as a general guideline.  Of course people would alter their diets as recommended by their doctors to deal with other conditions.  

Speaking generally, protein deficiency is not something that people in the industrialized western world suffer from - even the vegans, unless they're eating just fruit and other simple sugars.  The average American eats more than twice their required daily value in protein, so suggesting that people could cut back (again, in generalities) their meat consumption is pretty fair.  

It is a fairy tale dream, though, because the meat lobbies in the US are far too powerful to ever let that happen.

I ALWAYS burn a match after giving into dairy weakness!

And thank you!

I meant more as a general guideline.  Of course people would alter their diets as recommended by their doctors to deal with other conditions. 

Yes, I completely agree.

The best way to hurt the fast food manufacturers is to eat other stuff.

My wife and I are pretty frugal with what we eat, but we aren't forced to stick to a budget (DINKs) so I can't really comment on costs. We do cut a lot of costs by making 80-90% of our meals, making bread at home, buying stuff in bulk when it's cheap. We also order most food through a co-op which is pretty cheap, and you get nicer & healthier produce.

We're too poor to eat out more than once a month.

I eat out maybe 2-3 times a week, but it's generally with work colleagues, baseball etc & on nights when my wife is at work. Japan society is based on meeting people in public places rather than going to someone's house, so it's pretty normal and cheap to have dinner somewhere.

Yepaking on this ussies of alcohls, i can't feel my hanjpds frim rolling ealier,  I rpaed the poor fucker with my borhken fingers. and being a fat ass.

 vI 've dranked to the boint  i don't care abou t wokring tomorooroow.  I'll happpen wheverive I come in,  FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

Yepaking on this ussies of alcohls, i can't feel my hanjpds frim rolling ealier,  I rpaed the poor fucker with my borhken fingers. and being a fat ass.

 vI 've dranked to the boint  i don't care abou t wokring tomorooroow.  I'll happpen wheverive I come in,  FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

I have to quote this for posterity

Yepaking on this ussies of alcohls, i can't feel my hanjpds frim rolling ealier,  I rpaed the poor fucker with my borhken fingers. and being a fat ass.

 vI 've dranked to the boint  i don't care abou t wokring tomorooroow.  I'll happpen wheverive I come in,  FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

I have to quote this for posterity

Good work because I'm already sober enough to delete.

Dude I LOVE real bacon, but real bacon makes me fat.

No it doesn't you use real bacon to make yourself fat. bacon doesn't care.

Tru, man. Sarcasm sure is off YOUR radar.

Today I gave in and ate Soy. I had vegetarian sushi, cucumber roll and miso soup. It was so amazingly delicious.
i then had some frozen yogurt and why why why? My guts hurt so bad.

meatballs for dinner.
TURKEY meatballs. Wanna fight, Zoomie?


Cooking at home does save SO much money, and why I love the new kitchen, because i ENJOY cooking at home, now.

I got yer meatballs, bitch.

They are delicious FYI.