By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
Food, Inc. could easily have turned our stomachs upside down. There’s lots of raw material – cows mired in manure, pig carcasses whacked about on conveyor belts, immobilized chickens locked in dark crowded coops – to make the point about how mass food production can be an unhealthy affair.
The film does dish up selected gross-out shots of slabs of beef, downer cows, dead hens and grimy CAFOs. There are a few gasp-aloud moments, such as when chickens are beheaded (inexplicably, this hard-to-watch scene is on a small sustainable farm operation). But the beauty of this wonderful documentary lies in its restraint. Rather than beating up corporate culprits Smithfield, Cargill and others with the big stick of blood and guts, Food Inc. strolls confidently and methodically into our packaged food wonderland, armed with words, telling anecdotes and revelations of corruption and greed that make its case more compelling.
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August 27th, 2008
By Catherine Girardeau
This coming Labor 
Day Weekend, San Francisco will celebrate the intersection of taste, sustainability and social justice that is the Slow Food movement. Non-profit educational organization Slow Food USA is throwing a four-day party they’re calling Slow Food Nation.
SFN’s Executive Director Anya Fernald hopes the debut event, expected to draw some 50,000 people, will reach out beyond the obvious coalition of foodies, health-nuts and environmentalists to, “build momentum and demand for an American food system that is safer, healthier and more socially just.” Highlights of the festival, which runs Friday through Monday, will include the:
- “Slow Food Rocks” concert, serving up not only Gnarls Barkley and the New Pornographers but gourmet beer and locally-grown and locally-produced food;
- 50,000 square feet of “taste pavilions” for which nationally-recognized regional food experts have hand-picked authentic gastronomic specialities from every state;
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Related Topics: · Alice Waters, Carlo Petrini, Michael Pollan, Organic Food, San Francisco, Slow Food, Slow Food Nation, Wendell Barry
