Page 62 - Winter2009

Tim’s DVD Reviews

can equal zero trans fat on the label. I seem to This short video on the web seeks to cor-
remember the USDA, one of many government rect that knowledge deficiency. There are a few
bureaucracies, saying that the only safe level of more details which make the whole thing even
trans fat is zero. I’m pretty sure when they said worse. The crops being planted are one of the
zero they meant zero, not half a gram. We live in factory farm favorites—soy. Of course it has to
a world of contradictions. How do they get away be Monsanto’s roundup ready soy (genetically
with this? They make the serving sizes extremely modified). These massive tracts of rainforest land
small. turned to soy fields primarily supply Europe,
We get a nice tour of Dr. Teeter’s lab as she whose local farmers can’t compete with the cheap
analyzes several food-like products that claim imports. But they are not really cheap.
to have zero trans fat. They all contained trans About ninety thousand families per year
fat. Promise margarine had the most, with 0.46 are “persuaded” to abandon their land when
grams per “serving.” Even Dr. Teeter manages the cloud of chemicals becomes too thick. Not
to slip a touch of humor in with her serious sci- everyone even survives to get out. We get an up
ence when she notes that it is inappropriate to close look at one boy who was paralyzed (they
assign moral characteristics like good and bad used to call it polio) and eventually died from
to inanimate substances like cholesterol. the chemicals. Almost all of this soy in Paraguay
Anyone who has any education on the sub- is controlled by the usual suspects—Monsanto,
ject knows that things like trans fat, aspartame Bunge, ADM and Cargill.
and MSG are trouble. So why does the food This film was a joint effort of Friends of the
industry insist on inserting ingredients that they Earth and Food & Water Watch. It was produced
know are toxic into their products? I don’t want to alert Europeans in particular to the true cost
to give away the ending but there is a clue in the of their supposedly cheap food. They also are
title. THUMBS UP. promoting political action to support more local,
non-factory farming and labeling of food from
Killing Fields: genetically modified sources. I wish them well
The Battle to Feed Factory Farms and give their film a THUMBS UP.
By Albert Villareal
http://www.feedingfactoryfarms.org/ Food, Inc.
A Robert Kenner Film
Anyone who When you need more room for more crops, Magnolia Home Entertainment

has any but don’t have it, what do you do? If you are a
education factory farm operation, you might start taking When you walk into a grocery store and look
over land on another continent. You could, for at the packaging on many food items, you will
on the example, use 2.6 million hectares of land in see pictures of old-fashioned farms and farmers.
subject knows Paraguay. If that land happens to be covered by When you look behind the pictures to where that

that things rainforest, you just mow it down. What about food really comes from, you see a very different
the indigenous people that live there? You sim-
picture.
like trans fat, ply dump toxic pesticides on the area until it It’s not a pretty picture. We see feedlots
aspartame becomes impossible to live there and the locals packed with cattle almost on top of each other
and MSG are leave “voluntarily.” How do you get away with and up to their ankles in manure. We see chicken
this atrocity? Well, it’s much easier if nobody houses full of chickens that can barely walk
trouble. knows what you’re doing. because science has found a way to make their
60 Wise Traditions WINTER 2009