Documentaries and Videos Archive

Fast Food, Fat Profits: Obesity in America

This amazing video gives an stunning and sobering look into the obesity epidemic in America, the complex causes behind it and some sensible solutions. It is rare that we have seen such a comprehensive, well composed and objective overview of the situation.

Obesity in America has reached a crisis point. Two out of every three Americans are overweight, one out of every three is obese. One in three are expected to have diabetes by 2050. How did the situation get so out of hand?

Fault Lines', Josh Rushing explores the world of cheap food for Americans living at the margins.

What opportunities do people have to eat healthy? Who is responsible for food deserts and processed food in American schools?

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GMO Labels Matter to Moms

Robyn O’Brien, mother, activist and founder of the AllergyKids Foundation shares her story on why she wants the FDA to label genetically engineered foods.

Join her — and over half a million Americans — in contacting the FDA to require the labeling of genetically engineered (GE) foods?

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Making a point about food waste

In a past article on Organic Connections, we covered food activist, Jonathan Bloom, and his book American Wasteland. The article and book talk about how America wastes a huge percentage of its food for a variety of reasons.

Daniel Klein is a chef, activist, and filmmaker living in Minneapolis. Daniel has been documenting his culinary, agricultural and hunting adventures on film in a series called The Perennial Plate, featuring long winters, urban gardens, ice fishing, slaughterhouses, foraging for wild edibles, and more.

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Why Twinkies Are Cheaper than Carrots

Why are Twinkies cheaper than carrots? Because we as taxpayers have already paid for the ingredients!

As we move into 2012, the subject of the Farm Bill and agricultural subsidies will again come to the fore. Here's a great video that makes the case against what has become the cash "cow" of the Big Ag world. We as taxpayers are paying for these subsidies, making these ingredients artificially cheap. About one third of the billions in farm subsidy funds go to corn alone, which is why high-fructose corn syrup is in almost any processed food we eat.

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Documenting the Realities of Farming

Graham Meriwether and Paul WillisAgriculture is often painted in simple, black-and-white terms. On one side there’s the evil industrial-agriculture meat farmer, raising animals with inhumane practices, polluting the environment, eating up fossil fuel, and tainting products with hormones and antibiotics. On the other side, we find the sustainable practitioner, letting animals roam freely and graze, as nature intended, using no antibiotics (as they’re not needed in this setting), and creating a natural cycle in which pollution is not an issue.

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Rapping for Organics

Ietef Vitaby Andrew Leonard, via Grist.org,

Three blocks from his old high school in the historic Five Points district of Denver, Colo., recalls Ietef Vita, stands a youth penitentiary where friends Vita hasn't seen since middle school are still locked up.

Gentrification is now starting to soften the hard edges of Five Points, but when he was growing up, says Vita, the neighborhood was "saturated by gang violence and police brutality."

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The Flavorists: Engineering Food Addictions

CBS 60 Minutes: The FlavoristsOn November 27, 2011 CBS 60 Minutes ran a segment called "The Flavorists: Tweaking Tastes and Creating Cravings."

This piece gives a wonderful view of some of the inner workings of Givaudan, one of the largest flavoring companies in the world. Here's the clip of this segment.

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Documenting Young and Passionate New Farmers

Greenhorns: Young farmers on the jobsIndustrial agriculture has left our soil infertile, has destroyed biodiversity, and has produced foods lower in nutrients and abundant with pesticides. On top of that, according to the new documentary Greenhorns, the average age of the American farmer is 57. Where is the next generation of farmers, and how are they going to usher in a new age of sustainable agriculture? Greenhorns documents the answer. They’re here, they’re young, their farms are sustainable, and they’re passionate about what they’re doing.

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SNL Takes on Pizza as a Vegetable: Commentary from Seth and Kermit

Saturday Night Live weighed in with excellent commentary about Congress declaring pizza sauce as a vegetable. With $5 million spent by the processed food lobby to get Congress "thinking"  this way, what could be more perfect that to have SNL show how lobbying can make logic disappear in D.C!

Editorial comments from Seth Meyers and Kermit the Frog just can't be omitted from the conversation about this!

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Michael Pollan’s Updated Food Rules

Michael Pollan is releasing a new hardcover edition of his 2009 book Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, but this edition is illustrated by Maira Kalman.

Pollan is an author most associated with the food movement, with best-sellers like The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food to his credit and his frequent contributions to blogs and food-oriented publications on topics like farming, health and eating.

In this new edition, Kalman’s illustrations are fun, light and personal—just the way eating ought to be.

Here's a video of Pollan reading a few of his food rules:

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Helena Norberg-Hodge: The Economics of Happiness

Helena Norberg-Hodge: The Economics of Happiness

 by Bruce Boyers,

Back in the early nineties, I had occasion to spend a fair amount of time in a Mexican village called Ajijic, on the shores of Mexico’s largest freshwater lake, Lake Chapala. Looking back, I can see now that I was there in the midst of a very pivotal event: the encroachment of a global economy on what had once been a thriving local economy. Daily, still making their way up and down the town’s cobblestoned streets were local merchants of all kinds, selling lake-caught fish, handmade furniture, ice cream, water and many other products. The weekly open-air market sold locally grown fruits and vegetables (the tastiest I’ve ever had to this day), meats, and handmade nonedible products as well.

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GMOs: Are We Experimenting on Our Children?

Just Label it!Ever wonder what the effects of pesticides sprayed on crops can be in our body's systems and those of our children? Jeffrey M. Smith, author of Seeds of Deception, lays out the chilling answers in this video.

We are posting this video as part of the Just Label It campaign.

Click the link at the right to help by adding your voice to the over 150,000 people who have so far joined the petition to the FDA—a petition demanding that the FDA do its duty by requiring the labeling of GMO foods and ingredients.

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Examining the Keystone XL “Pipe Dream”

Across the heartland of America, farmers and landowners are fighting to protect their land, their water, and their livelihood in what has become the most controversial environmental battle in the U.S. today: The Keystone XL Pipeline. Routed from Hardisty, Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast, this tar sands pipeline is set to cross the country's largest freshwater resource, the Ogallala Aquifer, and the fragile Sandhills of Nebraska, posing devastating consequences to human health, livestock, and agriculture.

Documentary filmmaker Leslie Iwerks traces the history and motivations behind the pipeline and examines its projected impact in her new documentary "Pipe Dreams." The film, which will be shown in states along the proposed pipeline corridor.

For more information, visit pipedreamsdoc.com.

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Just Eat Organic Music Video

Tell the FDA to require GMO labelingKnown as the "CE-Yo" of Stoneyfield Farms, Gary Hirshberg is also one of the driving forces that helped launch the Just Label It campaign to get the FDA to do its duty to label GMO foods for our safety.

Gary has a few "musical" points to make about GMO foods and the better alternatives: Organics!

 

 

 

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Just Say No to GMO Music Video

Tell the FDA to Label GMO FoodsProtest song Just Say No to GMO music video written and performed by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, editor of NaturalNews.com. The song takes serious issue with the biotech industry, specifically calling out Monsanto and genetically modified corn. It also features rap lines from Jeffrey Smith of the Institute for Responsible Technology, author of Seeds of Deception.

We're reposting this video here as part of the Just Label It campaign. Click the image at the right and add your voice today!

 

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The Other Inconvenient Truth: Agricultural Land Use

Many of us view climate change as the most significant environmental issue we face today. But the University of Minnesota's Institute of the Environment shows us another "inconvenient truth" in the form of the enormous, but seldom confronted, impact of world agriculture. With 7 billion people to feed (and falling short of that by about 1 billion), how will this small planet deal with another 2.5 billion mouths to feed in the not too far distant future?

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Click here to read more about this video.

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Cereal Crimes: Natural vs. Organic

via Cornucopia.org,

Cereal Crimes coverFederal law requires that organic food products be produced promoting ecological sustainability, without the toxic inputs and genetically engineered ingredients common in the conventional food system.

Increasingly, organic products are forced to compete with products that claim to be “natural.”

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Steve Jobs — In Memorium

We believe that it’s appropriate to join the many who have acknowledged the contribution Steve Jobs has made to our lives.

The impact that Steve Jobs and Apple have had on my creative and business life has been profound but it’s in our ability to reach out to each other that the tools which he designed become world changing. Certainly he did not invent the Internet and couldn’t have achieved what he did without countless others, but he simplified the process and made these new tools into art themselves.

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Farming: Back to the Start

Coldplay's haunting classic 'The Scientist' is performed by country music legend Willie Nelson for the soundtrack of the short film entitled, "Back to the Start." Download the song now available on iTunes. Label and proceeds benefit The Chipotle Cultivate Foundation. http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-scientist-single/id458479961

The film, by film-maker Johnny Kelly, depicts the life of a farmer as he slowly turns his family farm into an industrial animal factory before seeing the errors of his ways and opting for a more sustainable future. Both the film and the soundtrack were commissioned by Chipotle to emphasize the importance of developing a sustainable food system.

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Who Knew! Cows Respond to Dixieland Jazz

In this very cool video, one fact is plain: cows dig jazz. A group of Dixieland jazz musicians began playing for some cows. Almost instantly the cows responded and grouped together as an audience. You've got to wonder what the milk, butter and cheese are like from this farm...

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Greenhorns: a documentary about young farmers

The Greenhorns documentary film, completed after almost 3 years in production, explores the lives of America's young farming community—its spirit, practices, and needs. It is the filmmaker's hope that by broadcasting the stories and voices of these young farmers, we can build the case for those considering a career in agriculture—to embolden them, to entice them, and to recruit them into farming.

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For more information and to request a screening, visit www.thegreenhorns.net/

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Carbon Nation—A Climate Change SOLUTIONS Movie

carbon nation is a documentary movie about climate change SOLUTIONS. Even if you doubt the severity of the impact of climate change or just don't buy it at all, this is still a compelling and relevant film that illustrates how SOLUTIONS to climate change also address other social, economic and national security issues. You'll meet a host of entertaining and endearing characters along the way.

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For more information and showings, see carbonnationmovie.com.

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Your Milk on Drugs (Part 2)

Dairy products from cows treated with genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rBGH or rBST) may sharply increase cancer risk and other diseases, especially in children.

Already banned in most industrialized nations, it was approved in the US on the backs of fired whistleblowers, manipulated research, and a corporate takeover at the FDA. This important video includes footage prepared by a Fox news team—whose report was canceled after a letter from a corporate attorney threatened Fox with "dire consequences."

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See our full article on the concerns of scientists over the use of GMO and pesticides in our food supply.

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GMOs—the Movie

GMO cornMany users of natural products know something about GMOs—genetically modified organisms. But because mainstream media has refused to cover the subject, GMOs continue to be in mainstream food products and Americans, unaware of the dangers they present, go on consuming them as part of their diets.

Filmmaker Jeremy Seifert, currently in progress on an as-yet-unnamed documentary on GMOs, wasn’t particularly aware of them either—and it was a coincidental visit to Haiti, of all places, that ended up tipping him off.

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Your Milk on Drugs (Part 1)

Dairy products from cows treated with genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rBGH or rBST) may sharply increase cancer risk and other diseases, especially in children.

Already banned in most industrialized nations, it was approved in the US on the backs of fired whistleblowers, manipulated research, and a corporate takeover at the FDA. This important video includes footage prepared by a Fox news team—whose report was canceled after a letter from a corporate attorney threatened Fox with "dire consequences."

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Click here to see Your Milk on Drugs (Part 2).

See our full article on the concerns of scientists over the use of GMO and pesticides in our food supply.

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