Rated G(reen): the Best Environmental, Food and Health Movies

It is Oscar time and we are all trying to catch that last movie everyone has been talking about. Whether at the water-cooler at work, on twitter, Facebook or even across the dinner table, we all love to talk about movies. Of the dozens of nominees this year, it appears that only two have green/public health themes -- WALL.E and the documentary The Garden.  But over the past few years there have been plenty of films that are truly worth taking a look at.  The following are a list of films my husband and I have watched over the past year or so (love Netflix) that I think you should watch.  They are listed in no particular order, just put them in your queue and enjoy.  Movies are rated from 1-3 green thumbs (1 is a watch, 2 should watch, 3 MUST watch.)

Story of Stuff with Annie Leonord 

Throughout this 20-minute online film, activist Annie Leonard, the film’s narrator and an expert on the materials economy, examines the social, environmental and global costs of extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal. The “Story of Stuff” examines how economic policies of the post-World War II era ushered in notions of consumerism — and how those notions are still driving much of the U.S. and global economies today. It is definately worth watching and forwarding to all your friends.

Flow The Film

What happens when you mix water with big business? Nothing good.  Flow shows when you combine the public health and private interest you get "pollution, scarcity, human suffering and corporate profit." Water is a $400 billion dollar global industry; the third largest behind electricity and oil. There are estimates that from five hundred thousand to seven million people get sick per year from drinking tap water. So you want to be freaked out?  You want to have horrible dreams?  Well this is the movie for you. Moving from the US to India, from small farms to "industrial" spring water, Flow will get you to look at your tap at lot differently, and will hopefully get you to make more conscious decisions about how you use water.  This movie was one of the things that got me to have my water tested in my home.

 

Two Angry Moms 

Do you have kids in school? Do you pack a lunch for them every single day? If not, they probably are buying what the school is serving. If so, you want to know what your kids are eating in school, well so did Amy Kalafa and Susan Rubin. These moms were fed up that their children were eating highly-processed food filled with additives and preservatives at school. Two Angry Moms, the film and the movement, address an issue of great concern to parents across the country. What is happening to the health of our children and how does school food factor in? The movie not only shows what is wrong with school food, it offers strategies for overcoming roadblocks and getting real food into school cafeterias. Kalafa and Rubin provide solutions to the problem that include the connection between the cafeteria and the classroom. The movie explores the roles the Federal government, corporate interests, school administration and parents play in feeding our school kids.  For additional watching head over to TED.ORG and watch Anne Cooper's talk on School Food.

King Corn 

If you're anything like me, you consider Michael Pollan something of a food guru. I hold The Omnivores Dilemma as the bible of the sustainable food movement. A core theme of Pollan's book is the impact industrial corn plays across the entirety of US, and now global, society. For those of you are interested in an introductory course on the corn, you must see this documentary by two college friends, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis. A great visual into to corn industry and the American food system, "King Corn" should become required viewing for all schools across the country to teach children to eat better. For a more indept review of this movie read my post titled King Corn: We are what we eat.

Greening of Southie

Want to know what goes into making a building green and what can go wrong? Well so did the filmmakers of King Corn.  Set in South Boston, The Greening of Southie is about Boston’s first residential green building, and the skeptical workers who are asked to build it. From wheatboard cabinetry to recycled steel, bamboo flooring to dual-flush toilets, The Macallen Building is something different––a leader in the emerging field of environmentally friendly design. But Boston’s steel-toed union workers aren’t sure they like it. And when things on the building start to go wrong, the young developer has to keep the project from unraveling.  An interesting look on the contrast between the ever changing green movement and an insular community resistant to change. 

Killer At Large

Killer at Large examines the startling details of the American obesity epidemic and why this issue has crossed from a public health crisis to a national security issue. The film starts with a clip from a press conference with Surgeon General Richard Carmona who when asked what is the most pressing issue Americans face today he planing states, “Obesity. Because obesity is a terror within. It is destroying our society from within and unless we do something about it, the magnitude of the dilemma will dwarf 9/11 or any other terrorist event you can point out. Where will our soldiers, sailors, and airmen come from? Where will our police and firemen come from if the youngsters today are on a trajectory that says they will be obese?” The movie provides a perspective on one of the most pressing health issue of our time and serves as a call to arms to take a stand and reverse this deadly trend – which is poised to cripple our nation’s health care system and bankrupt our economy within the next 20 years. Killer at Large will be available on DVD on March 31st, 2009.

The Real Dirt on Farmer John

If you are still debating if you should join a CSA then you must watch the documentary about John Peterson, a.k.a Farmer John, a midwest farmer whose life parallels the history of American farming in the late 20th century.  Peterson came from a family of farmers who struggled, like most farmers, to make ends meet. Peterson's father died when he was teenager, which forced him to be in charge of the farm. By the 1980's, when most farmers were trouble, so was Peterson who had to sell off most of his farm to make ends meet. Destitute and depressed, Peterson took time away from farming and returned in the '90s. Deciding to change his farm from a mono-culture, chemical dependent farm, to an organic farm and connect himself to the land, Peterson turned his farm into the one of the largest CSAs in the country.  Peterson is a truly unique individual and is interesting to watch.  To be honest, the movie is a bit slow, but is worth the time and effort to get through. 

Who Killed the Electric Car (2006)

Ok, now for the movie that will OUTRAGE YOU. This is one movie that will get you pissed off and probably make you call your Congressperson, Senator or whoever you want to rant to. Remember way back (last summer) when gas was $4 a gallon and looked to keep going up? When we all heard about how "the Electric Car was coming". Ford, Toyota, and GM said that a production ready electric car was only 5 or 10 years away. Well guess what? We already had a true electric car. Twelve years ago GM - the company that just got tens of billions of bailout money, launched the EV1, the world's first true production plug-in electric car. This film looks at the birth and untimely death of the EV1. This wonderful car required no petrochemical-based fuel and could be plugged in for recharging at home and at a number of so-called battery parks. The car was loved by just about everyone who owned it, including a number of celebrities. Who killed it? Watch this a prepare to get insanely mad.

Super Size Me (2004)

This is far and away one of the most well known of the food/green movies out there. If you have not seen this 30-day eating journey of Morgan Spurlock it is a must. Spurlock's month long McDonald's food festival explores the fast food industry's influence on the American consumer and how public health is put aside for corporate wealth. It is just another look at the obesity epidemic and how our industrial food industry is killing Americans. Prepare to throw-up in your mouth a little watching this movie. But also prepare to never, ever look at fast food the same way again.

Other movies which I have not seen yet but are on my list are Sustainable Table What's on Your Plate? (2007) Food, Inc. (2008), Bad Seed: The Truth About Our Food (2006) The World According To Monsanto (2008) and The Future of Food (2004).

All the above mentioned movies can be rented on Netflix or purchase on the films website. Check them out and let me know what you think. Also, if you are interested purchasing Two Angry Moms to screen at your child's school, the library or for a large group, Amy Kalafa (one angry mom) has offered a $10 discount for orders over $50. Use coupon code DD010 at check out.

Follow me on Twitter @Green_Luvin 

Recycling Does A Milk Carton Good

I was reading a recent issue of National Geographic's The Green Guide (Spring 2008) and on the last page of the magazine was an image hundreds of milk cartons lining a street to demonstrate how much milk American's consume. The image was taken from National Geographic Channel documentary Human Footprint.  

According to the movie, America consumes 989,985,594,240 half gallons of milk over the course of a lifetime and it takes more than one trillion kilowatt-hours of energy to produce, ship and landfill the milk cartons.  That amount of energy emits 740,674,244 tons of greenhouse gases.  Amazingly, only a tiny fraction of the cartons are recycled.   

That got me thinking.  How many milk cartons does my household go through over a short period of time, say a week? More importantly, why are milk cartons not recycled? They are made of paper aren't they? Even more puzzling is the fact that on the side of some of the cartons I buy, it says "please recycle".  I want to, but my town will not take them. So I decided to do some research on how to recycle a milk carton, and why my town won't do it.  I thought the information would be readily available.  I was wrong.

Initially I was going to save my cartons for one week, assuming this would be plenty of time to get enough information to write on the subject. Well, do a "Google" search on "milk carton recycling" and you will basically come up with... nothing. Four weeks and 30 cartons later, I am finally writing about it. 

This is what I discovered...

Milk cartons ARE recyclable, however, according to an EPA report of MSW (Municipal Solid Waste) provided to me by the National Recycling Coalition, in 2006, 510,000 tons of milk cartons were generated in the United States and less than 0.05% (5,000 tons) were recycled.

In 2006, only a little more than 550 towns across the country recycled milk cartons (source: Organic Valley).  To put this into perspective, there are 556 municipalities in New Jersey. Doing a non-scientific search on the internet of various towns across the country, I discovered you cannot recycle milk cartons in San Diego, DC, the entire state of Pennslyvania, Los Angeles and Austin but you can in New York City and Boulder, CO.

But why?

According to Ed Skernolis, Policy and Program Director for the National Recycling Coalition, "Milk cartons, because of the wax lining, are not universally recycled. Each locality is different, depending on their recycling processing capability. Some communities may allow milk cartons to go into composting/food waste bins if offered."

Boulder, Colorado's Eco-Cycle is the most progressive recycling program in the country. They do recycle milk and juice cartons. Dan Matsch, Manager for the Center for Hard Recycle Materials, Eco-Cycle, said that milk cartons are very good source for recycled paper because the fiber are long, however, they have a plastic coating which sometimes makes it difficult to recycle.  According to Matsch, the main reason that many municipalities do not recycle milk/juice cartons is that they need to be rinsed out which rarely happens.  Once the cartons get to the recycling center they get bailed and shipped (usually by truck, then boat) and by the time they reach their destination for recycling they are "ripe" or partially composted.  

Boulder has dedicated significant resources towards education to teach the community and kids in school the importance of recycling.  The city has been involved in recycling education in the school system for 21 years!  Students are involved...they even have milk carton monitors to make sure that the leftover is poured out prior to placing in the recycling bin.  

Most milk cartons, such as those sold by Organic Valley, are made by Tetra Pak. Tetra Pak manufactures two types of cartons: gable-top and aseptic cartons. The first ones are the chilled cartons, mainly for milk and orange juice. The aseptic ones are used for a variety of food products and have shelf life of up to 12 months without the need of refrigeration or preservatives. They rely on three things: packaging material (six layers of protection), UHT (ultra high temperature) food processing and aseptic filling machines. UHT, or Ultra High Temperature treatment takes place in optimised heat exchangers before packaging. This process minimizes heat penetration problems and allows very short heating and cooling times, at the same time minimizing unwanted changes in the taste and nutritional properties of the product.

One of the biggest challenges with carton recycling is generating volume enough for the recycling chain to make a profit out of recycling cartons. According to Tetra Pak, as recycling is a business, all players are looking for sustainable business: from the recycling facilities to the tissue mills. Tetra Pak has been working with cities and schools across the country to increase milk and juice carton recycling.

Ok, all of this is good and well right?  But, it begs an important question, which is better, milk cartons or plastic ones?  According to Organic Valley, "Plastic is easier to recycle, but is oil based. Paperboard is made mostly of a renewable material paper." Matsch of Boulder's Eco-Cycle believes that "Tetra Pak beats the pants off anything in terms of carbon foodprint. Tetra Paks are very space efficient, using less square feet for shipping, however, they do need to be refrigerated."

Where does the recycled paper go?  To one of the biggest paper companies in the world, Weyerhaeuser. Weyerhaeuser is one of the largest pulp an paper company in the world. In addition, the company collects and recycles wastepaper, boxes, and newsprint to make new products. According to Pete Grogan, Manager of Market Development for Weyerhaeuser Recycling, "We [Weyerhaeuser] accept Tetra Pak and gable top containers (milk) for recycling. In our case, we produce recycled content newsprint from these materials in addition to using old newspapers and magazines as a feedstock."

Ok.  This is a ton of information to swallow. So lets take a quick moment to put it all into perspective. We all consume a ton of milk.  If you're a mom like me, you're practically swimming in the white stuff. If you're reading this you care deeply about both the environment and a healthy, sustainable lifestyle. And, after reading all this you're probably a bit confused on what to do.

Here's my conclusions:

(1) Paper cartons are WAY better than plastic.  They are healthier for your you and kids, and have a much smaller carbon footprint to produce and ship than plastic ones.

(2) Paper can be recycled, so each one of us needs to petition, lobby and work to get out towns and cities to recycle these cartons.  If we each do a little, we'll all add up to a lot of impact.

(3) Read more, learn more and educate more.  Every little bit helps, and my month-long odyssey to learn about this issue has taught me a great deal.  But I have a lot more to learn.  As I do, I'll let you all know.

King Corn: We are what we eat.

Corn, it is hot news these days. With crops at record prices and grocery bills rising everyone is looking at the corn industry. 

Corn is in almost everything we eat. Livestock is fed corn, farmed fish are fed corn, processed food are made of corn and the mighty sweeter, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), is made of corn. Corn is even used to fuel our cars in the form of ethanol thanks to a poorly thought out government policy.

Well for those of you are interested in an introductory course on the corn, two college friends, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, filmed a documentary on the industry called "King Corn." This pretty amazing film will air on PBS on April 15th. 

What's the story here? Well, Ian and Curt decided to move to Iowa in 2003 for a year to plant one acre of corn to follow it from seed to table. What they find out raises scary questions not only about what Americans eat but also how our agriculture is farmed. 

Their journey takes them first to have their hair carbon tested at the University of Virginia to discover that their bodies are made out of more than 50% corn! From Virginia, they venture to fields of Iowa where acres and acres of farmland are planted with corn and the grain elevators are overflowing with corn. Then to the grasslands of Colorado where cattle use to graze.  The fields are now cornfields that feed the cows in feed-lots.  Ian and Curt look at every part of the corn production cycle. They even speak to a high fructose corn syrup producer who thinks the liquid sweetener is the best invention since sliced bread.  

Corn is a commodity and Ian and Curt learn this very quickly when they taste their industrial corn for the first time.  It was inedible! They discover for their corn to become any type of food it must be processed.  

The film is in large part a homage to Michael Pollen, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma. In "King Corn," Pollan states, "If you take a McDonald's meal, you don't realize it when you eat it but you're eating corn. Beef has been corn-fed. Soda is corn. Even the French fries -- half the calories in the French fries come from the fat they're fried in, which is liable to be either corn oil or soy oil. So when you're at McDonald's, you are eating Iowa food. Everything on the plate is corn." 

The agriculture system today is a result of America's government subsidized farm program.  In 1973, Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz declared, "What we want out of agriculture is plenty of food."

 

Well, we have plenty of food but our nutritional supply has degraded. When Ian and Curt speak with one of the Iowa farmers about their crops, the farmer admits that they do not eat their corn.  As he states in the movie, "We aren't growing quality, we are growing crap."

Ian and Curt's acre harvested 10,000-pounds of corn which could yield 57,348 cans of soda or 3,894 corn-fed hamburgers.  Sixty-three percent of their harvest went into feed for livestock, 32% into ethanol and 5% into sweeteners like HFCS.

A great visual into to corn industry and the American food system, "King Corn" should become required viewing for all schools across the country to teach children to eat better.  

"King Corn" will air on PBS on April 15th at 10:00 PM.  You can also purchase the DVD on their website.  

Go Local...

Prior to using Door-to-Door Organics to get my organic produce, I was on the hunt for a local buying club or coop in my area that I could join. I was having trouble finding one that was close enough to my home, so when my friend introduced me to Door-to-Door, I thought I had found my solution. I figured I would use the deliver service until the summer when I would get my veggies from my family's garden and farmer's markets in my area.  However just last week I discovered that some mothers in my area were trying to put together a group to join a "Community Supported Agriculture" (CSA) farm.  

A CSA is a way for consumers in an area to support and create a relationship with a local farm. Members of a CSA pledge in advance to cover the farms anticipated costs.  By doing so, members receive weekly boxes of produce for the season.  Where I live the season runs from around May through November. Most CSA farms offer high quality produce that is grown organically, avoiding pesticides and fertilizers.   

So now I was in a quandary.  Stick with my original plan or join the CSA?  

Then I received in the mail, via Netflix, the movie The Real Dirt on Farmer John, a documentary about John Peterson, a.k.a Farmer John, a midwest farmer who life parallels the history of American farming in the late 20th century.  

Peterson came from a family of farmers who struggled, like most farmers, to make ends meet. Peterson's father died when he was teenager, which forced him to be in charge of the farm.  By the 1980's, when most farmers were trouble, so was Peterson who had to sell off most of his farm to make ends meet. Destitute and depressed, Peterson took time away from farming and returned in the '90s.  Deciding to change his farm from a mono-culture, chemical dependent farm, to an organic farm and connect himself to the land, Peterson turned his farm, Angelic Organics, into the one of the largest CSAs in the country. 

So after seeing the story of Farmer John, I have decided that it is important, not only from my families health perspective, but for community support, to join the CSA.  I might be overflowing in veggies this summer but my husband loves to entertain.  Just hope our friends like veggies!

To find CSA farms in your area go to Local Harvest and Eat Wild, or a buying club go to United Buying Clubs. In addition, Local Harvest also lists farmer markets, coops, restaurants and farms.  

The Whole is More than the Sum of its Parts.

So I finally finished Michael Pollan's most recent book In Defense of Food: An Eaters Manifesto, a follow-up to  The Omnivore's Dilemma. In this new book Pollan explores what we should eat now and sums it up in seven words -- Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.

However, more important than his conclusion of what to eat are Pollan's discussions of "The Age of Nutritionism." Nutritionism, coined in 2002 by the socialist, Gyorgy Scrinis, is a reductionist look at food -- understanding food in terms of its nutritional content.  

Many years ago I saw a movie called Mindwalk, one of the most philosophical and thought-provoking movies I have ever seen. The movie is based on the teachings of Fritjof Capra, a physicist and system theorist, and his book The Turning Point where he discusses the flaws of reductionist, Cartesian dualism, Newtonian paradigms and shows how modern society needs to develop holistic theories to solve today's problems. Basically the movie shows us that the way society looks at everything (global warming, deforestation, water pollution, etc.)  is by taking the issues apart piece by piece, mechanistically, and that we need to look at social issues as a whole rather than the sum of its parts.

Well, we are seeing this type of thinking with the rise of 'nutritionism' in the food we eat, and the way food science is trying to get us to think.  For example, walk down the aisles of the supermarket and you will see hundreds process food packages touting some nutrient or lack of nutrient claim -- now with antioxidants, vitamin rich, calcium added, low fat, no sugar added, low carb, no carb, low sodium, no trans fats...the list goes on.   (For a great commentary on these claims, read Mark Sisson's Daily Apple post on Ridiculous Health Claims, Mark's Daily Apple goes to the Grocery Store.) 

As Scrinis states, "Processed foods are often fortified with vitamins and minerals, or stripped of some of their fat, to enable such nutrient-content claims to be maid.  Nutrient claims on the labels of processed foods and drinks conceal the fact these foods are typically high in added fat, sugar, salt, chemicals, additives and reconstituted  ingredients, and have often been stripped of a range of beneficial micro-nutrients and food components. " (Sydney Morning Herald, Op-Ed, 2006) 

Our society has completely reduced the way we look at food into the nutrients or micronutrients -- whether good or bad.  Doing so has blurred the distinction between whole foods and processed foods.  A perfect example is Diet Coke Plus, diet soda with added nutrients.  Come on, diet soda with nutrients?  Who are they trying to fool?  So now we are getting our nutrients from a no-calorie drink?

We are now looking for processed foods for our "nutrients!"  Have we have completely forgotten how food grows?  Why fresh food, from the ground, grown without petroleum-based pesticides, petroleum-based fertilizers is better for us than processed junk?

We need to remember the lessons of Capra and systems/holistic thinking.  Its connectedness and relationship to the earth, soil, sun, water, humans, etc.  It's a system that works as a whole and cannot be reduced to its smaller parts. Humans, plants, animals and the environment are a community that all work in concert with each other.  When we change one part, we change the perfect system. 

As Pollan state, "...food reveals itself for what it is: no mere thing but a web of relationships among a great many living beings, some of them human, some not but each of them dependent on the other, all of them ultimately rooted in soil and nourished by sunlight. ...the relationship between the plants and the soil, between the grower and the plants and animals he or she tends, between the cook and the growers who supply the ingredients, and between the cook and the people who will soon come to the table to enjoy the food.  It is a large community to nourish and be nourished by." (In Defense of Food, pp. 200-201)

So the next time you go to the supermarket and are about to buy Baked Lays or Kellogg's Whole Grain Pop Tarts, think about it for a moment before putting it into your cart.  Think about the provenance of the pop-tart.  Think about its components.  How they got there, how they were processed.  Think about all the energy needed to make something that's not "natural."  And finally think about if you want you, your family, your kids and your community to to be eating this stuff.

If have not had a chance to read In Defense of Food, read The New York Times Magazine, Unhappy Meals by Michael Pollan that is basically an overview of the book.