There’s nothing they are leaving untouched: the mustard, the okra, the bringe oil, the rice, the cauliflower. Once they have established the norm: that seed can be owned as their property, royalties can be collected. We will depend on them for every seed we grow of every crop we grow. If they control seed, they control food, they know it – it’s strategic. It’s more powerful than bombs. It’s more powerful than guns. This is the best way to control the populations of the world. The story starts in the White House, where Monsanto often got its way by exerting disproportionate influence over policymakers via the “revolving door”. One example is Michael Taylor, who worked for Monsanto as an attorney before being appointed as deputy commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1991. While at the FDA, the authority that deals with all US food approvals, Taylor made crucial decisions that led to the approval of GE foods and crops. Then he returned to Monsanto, becoming the company’s vice president for public policy.

Thanks to these intimate links between Monsanto and government agencies, the US adopted GE foods and crops without proper testing, without consumer labeling and in spite of serious questions hanging over their safety. Not coincidentally, Monsanto supplies 90 percent of the GE seeds used by the US market. Monsanto’s long arm stretched so far that, in the early nineties, the US Food and Drugs Agency even ignored warnings of their own scientists, who were cautioning that GE crops could cause negative health effects. Other tactics the company uses to stifle concerns about their products include misleading advertising, bribery and concealing scientific evidence.

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For most Americans, the ideal meal is fast, cheap, and tasty. Food, Inc. examines the costs of putting value and convenience over nutrition and environmental impact.

Director Robert Kenner explores the subject from all angles, talking to authors, advocates, farmers, and CEOs, like co-producer Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma), Gary Hirschberg (Stonyfield Farms), and Barbara Kowalcyk, who’s been lobbying for more rigorous standards since E. coli claimed the life of her two-year-old son.

The filmmaker takes his camera into slaughterhouses and factory farms where chickens grow too fast to walk properly, cows eat feed pumped with toxic chemicals, and illegal immigrants risk life and limb to bring these products to market at an affordable cost. If eco-docs tends to preach to the converted, Kenner presents his findings in such an engaging fashion that Food, Inc. may well reach the very viewers who could benefit from it the most: harried workers who don’t have the time or income to read every book and eat non-genetically modified produce every day.

Though he covers some of the same ground as Super Size Me and King Korn, Food Inc. presents a broader picture of the problem, and if Kenner takes an understandably tough stance on particular politicians and corporations, he’s just as quick to praise those who are trying to be responsible – even Wal-Mart, which now carries organic products. That development may have more to do with economics than empathy, but the consumer still benefits, and every little bit counts.

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How and what we eat has radically changed over the past few decades with the all-consuming rise of the supermarket. But what price are we paying for the homogenized, cheap and convenient food that supermarkets specialize in? In a two-part programme, journalist Jane Moore investigates how supermarkets have affected the food on our plates and reveals the tell-tale signs that the food we buy may not have been grown in the way we think.

Using a combination of undercover filming and scientific analysis, Supermarket Secrets investigates whether the food on supermarket shelves is really as good as it looks, whether prices are as good as they seem and what happens behind the scenes in the production of supermarket food. (Excerpt from channel4.com)

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What could be simpler than a hamburger? Take a ground beef patty, throw it on a grill, wait a few minutes as the fat sizzles, maybe add some cheese, and stick it on a bun. It’s a thoroughly American operation that takes place countless times a day all around the country. The average American, in fact, eats three hamburgers a week. And with more meat available than ever before, today’s beef costs 30 percent less than it did in 1970, making it that much more attractive to consumers looking for a quick, cheap meal.

But in Modern Meat, FRONTLINE goes inside the world of the modern American meat industry and shows that this once simple product, the hamburger, is no longer so simple.

Nor can you assume that it’s safe. While sweeping changes in the meat industry — making it vastly more centralized, high-tech, and efficient — have led to the low prices, the transformation has also introduced new risks. In “Modern Meat,” FRONTLINE speaks with scientists and industry observers who say that pooling thousands of cows in feedlots makes it easier for bacteria to spread from one animal to another.

“Cows tend to produce feces [and] feces is primarily bacteria,” says Glenn Morris, a microbiologist at the University of Maryland and a former USDA official. “In the larger feedlots,” he adds, “there’s a greater chance for the passage of microorganisms back and forth. All of that contributes to the spread of microorganisms like E. coli.” (Excerpt from pbs.org)

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Wegmans Cruelty is a half hour documentary produced by a small investigative team from the organization Compassionate Consumers. Organization members contacted Wegmans Food Markets to try to hold some meaningful dialogue about the conditions at Wegmans Egg Farm, and were then misled and dismissed by Wegmans representatives. The team set out to capture actual footage inside the farm and create a film based on their experience.

The film features statements from Wegmans representatives, interviews with the investigators, and footage of what life and death is like inside of a battery cage facility. Approximately 98% of all eggs produced in the United States come from hens that are housed in battery cages. Often unknowingly, customers are supporting the practices of modern egg farming by purchasing eggs.

Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. is a 68-store supermarket chain with stores in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Virginia. The family-owned company, founded in 1916, is recognized as an industry leader and innovator. Wegmans has been named one of the ‘Top 100 Companies to Work For’ by Fortune Magazine for the last several years. In 2005, Wegmans ranked #1 on the list. (Excerpt from wegmanscruelty.com)

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Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days is an independent documentary film that chronicles six Americans with diabetes who switch to a diet consisting entirely of vegan, organic, uncooked food in order to reverse disease without pharmaceutical medication.

The six are challenged to give up meat, dairy, sugar, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, soda, junk food, fast food, processed food, packaged food, and even cooked food for 30 days. The film follows each participant’s remarkable journey and captures the medical, physical, and emotional transformations brought on by this radical diet and lifestyle change. We witness moments of struggle, support, and hope as what is revealed, with startling clarity, is that diet can reverse disease and change lives.

The film highlights each of the six before they begin the program and we first meet them in their home environment with their families. Each participant speaks candidly about their struggle to manage their diabetes and how it has affected every aspect of their life, from work to home to their relationships. (Excerpt from rawfor30days.com)

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What will our future look like? Floating cities, flying to work and traveling in cars capable of operating underwater? And how will technology advance to make use of our natural resources to help feed our growing population in such areas as food, water and electricity?

The era of smog-filled skies will be over, because fewer of us will be driving cars. There will no longer be the use for cars and roads as we’ll be piloting environmentally friendly personal vehicles between cities and under the seas. And we will never be lost again thanks to GPS-driven virtual mapping. Then again, with teleportation we will not need to travel at all.

And, best of all, we’ll all have more time to enjoy the astounding advances of our near future, because we’ll all be living longer. A lot longer. Find out what we can expect to see in the future in this well produced documentary.

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It’s every parent’s worst nightmare. One moment their child is perfectly healthy. The next, they’ve stopped breathing and are turning blue. For many children, the merest hint of nut is all it takes to send them into anaphylactic shock. Food allergies are on the increase and the number of children affected has more than doubled in the past ten years. Yet simple precautions could significantly cut the death rate. This week’s documentary, When Food Kills is a wake up call to the rising danger of food allergies.

It started out as just a normal day for Sophia Neou. Her seven year old son was at play camp; fun and games were the order of the day. Then she received a phone call from a teacher crying, telling her “He’s turning blue and has stopped breathing.” The paramedic witnessed his rapid decline. “He developed shortness of breath. He got very anxious and then his airways started to swell and that’s when he passed out.” When the helicopter arrived William was within 30 seconds of dying but they managed to bring him back.

Other families are not so lucky. “There’s a big hole in our family and his name is Johnny,” laments Cheryl Whitburn. Her 15 year old son died six years ago after accepting some rice from friends that had satay sauce on it. The tiny amount of peanut in the sauce was all that was needed to trigger a reaction. While cases like this are rare, the incidents of severe food allergies are increasing. “In the past ten to twenty years, the incidence of severe food allergies has doubled or tripled,” stated Dr Alyson Kakakios from Westmead Children’s hospital.No one knows why allergies are on the increase. Scientists still don’t know exactly what causes them.

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The Emotional World of Farm Animals is a delightful documentary for viewers of all ages about the thinking and feeling side of animals that are all too often just viewed as food.

Jefferey Masson, author of When Elephants Weep and Dogs Never Lie About Love, leads viewers through the personal journey he underwent while writing his latest book, The Pig Who Sang to The Moon.

This journey into the sentient, emotional lives of farm animals brings Masson to animal sanctuaries around the country where caregivers and the animals themselves tell their harrowing stories of rescue and escape.

Masson delves into the rich ancestry of these curious and intelligent animals and interviews top experts in animal behavior who offer scientific perspectives on these amazing creatures. (Excerpt from animalplace.org)

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