Food Fight - Childhood Obesity and the Food Industry; It sounds laughable to blame food manufacturers and fast food restaurants for children being unhealthily overweight. But Big Tobacco thought health-related lawsuits were a joke too—until they finally lost. In this ABC News program, correspondent John Donvan examines the food industry’s marketing strategies to see if and to what extent they are responsible for America’s epidemic of childhood obesity. Industry initiatives to make and offer healthier foods are also presented. Afterward, anchor Chris Bury speaks with Kelly Brownell, director of the Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders, and Gene Grabowski, of the Grocery Manufacturers of America. (23 Minutes)
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Meet Your Meat is a documentary about factory
farming created by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), narrated
by Alec Baldwin, and directed by Bruce Friedrich and Cem Akin. The documentary
explores the treatment of animals in modern animal agriculture (also known as
industrial agriculture or factory farming). (13 Minutes)
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This program asserts that ecological, organic, and ethical farming is a viable alternative to industrial agriculture, and offers a tremendous benefit to the environment while helping to preserve traditional rural life. Interviews with these modern farmers focus on the process and effects of raising animals, grains, fruits, and vegetables in a natural environment. In addition, scholars criticize what they call academic and government support of large-scale agriculture, arguing that the only true sustainable method of farming is nature-based and that more consumers are demanding food produced without the use of chemicals, pesticides, hormones, or antibiotics. (46 Minutes)
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Why do we overeat time and time again? Why do we make poor diet choices while we want to be healthy? What makes losing weight so difficult?
These and many other vital questions are addressed in "12 Steps to Raw Foods" in an open and sincere dialogue. Based on the latest scientific research, Victoria Boutenko explains the numerous benefits of choosing a diet of fresh rather than cooked foods. This book contains self-tests and questionnaires that help the reader to determine if they have hidden eating patterns that undermine their health. Using examples from life, the author explores the most common reasons for people to make unhealthy eating choices. Rather than simply praising the benefits of raw foods, this book offers helpful tips and coping techniques to form and maintain new, healthy patterns.
Written in a convenient 12-step format, this book guides the reader through the most significant physical, psychological and spiritual phases of the transition from cooked to raw foods. Embracing the raw food lifestyle is more than simply turning off the stove. Such a radical change in the way we eat affects all aspects of life. (180 Minutes)
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Filmed at the Wing Fong Farm in Ontario, this documentary follows the tilling, planting and harvesting of Asian vegetables destined for Chinese markets and restaurants. On 80 acres of land, Lau King-Fai, her son and a half-dozen migrant Mexican workers care for the plants. For Yeung Kwan, her son, the farm represents personal and financial independence. For his mother, it is an oasis of peace. For the Mexican workers, it provides jobs that help support their children back home. (42 Minutes)
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Life and Debt; Jamaica — land of sea, sand and sun. And a prime example of the impact economic globalization can have on a developing country. Using conventional and unconventional documentary techniques, this searing film dissects the "mechanism of debt" that is destroying local agriculture and industry while substituting sweatshops and cheap imports. With a voice-over narration written by Jamaica Kincaid, adapted from her book A Small Place, Life and Debt is an unapologetic look at the "new world order," from the point of view of Jamaican workers, farmers, government and policy officials who see the reality of globalization from the ground up. (76 Minutes)
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The Gleaners and I ; Voted the best documentary of 2001 by the National Society of Film Critics, Agnès Varda's universally acclaimed 'wandering-road documentary' focuses her ever-seeking eye on gleaners: those who scour already-reaped fields for the odd potato or turnip. Her investigation leads us from forgotten corners of the French countryside to off-hours at the green markets of Paris. (82 Minutes)
Website - Review - Rotten Tomatoes
