An important film
I’ve got lots of friends who can’t go to the movies or theater with me.
My tastes tend to run to the serious. Don’t get me wrong, I love someone who can make me laugh, but in books and films, I more often love something that moves me, challenges me, makes me think.
Many of my friends go to a movie or musical or play to escape reality, not confront it. Nothing wrong with that, but I have found a movie I really do think we all need to see.
I was fortunate enough to grow up overseas, in Malaysia, where all of my food was fresh. When we had chicken for dinner, we went to an open market, picked out a live chicken, and the guy killed it, threw it into a huge vat of boiling water, plucked it, chopped it into pieces for us, and we took it home and cooked it.
And I’ve been fortunate enough to work in France for many years. I’ve seen the French Paradox with my own eyes. The networks I consult are in the 16th arrondisement, an upper class residential district, really, and I used to watch the same little old French ladies walk with their small grocery carts from their apartments to the supermarket each day.
They have to shop daily because their apartments and homes are much, much smaller than ours in the US. They don’t have huge pantries and gigantic double-door refrigerators and freezers. So, this morning, they buy the food they will eat tonight. Their bread is freshly baked. Their vegetables were picked that morning. The food they put into their bodies is fresh — not processed with preservatives and chemicals — and I have come to believe that makes a huge difference.
I believe Food, Inc. is an important film that needs to be talked about and shared with those we love.
Sometimes smaller is better.