5 Movies to Nurture Your Eating Conscience

Being a conscious eater may translate, for some individuals, into a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle, for others it may mean buying less processed foods, or buying more organic foods, but whatever it ultimately translates to on your plate, it all begins the same way - someone starts thinking about food. If you've begun thinking about food, or are looking for reasons why you should be thinking about your food, here are five films you should watch that will nurture the conscious eater in you.

Food, Inc.
No conscious eater has missed this one. It received a lot of press coverage when it was nominated for an Academy Award, so most people, even if they have not yet seen it, have at least heard of it. The tag line on the official movie website is "Hungry for Change?" The fact of the matter is, you will be by the time you finish watching this movie. Here is the trailer for the film so you can see for yourself

Food Matters
Where Food, Inc. focused mostly on the food industry and the impact it has on our diets and culture, Food Matters comes back to looking at the actual food and its affects on our health. The film begins with a quote from Hippocrates that pretty much sets the stage, "Let food be thy medicine." While the message seems to be pro-Raw diet, which I am not 100% sold on (see my post on Vegetables: Raw or Cooked?), the discussions of the nutrient deficiencies in our diets, the lack of nutritional education for most medical students and the cancer studies were all equally fascinating. The official website of this film is packed with all kinds of resources and communities, so if you are intrigued by what you find in Food Matters, there is plenty of stuff to keep your curiosity satiated. Here's the trailer for you to check out:


Tapped
Do you drink bottled water? Do you think it is better for you than tap water? Do you think it is different than tap water? If so, here is a film to get you to start reevaluating some of your choices. I was first awakened to the true horrors of the water industry when I watched Blue Gold: World Water Wars last Spring (see my post here), but Tapped managed to take that global perspective and make it incredibly personal for me. Their official site is also jam packed full of information from the movie and beyond. This is a must-see film for anyone who carries a bottle of water with them. Cue the trailer!


King Corn
Two guys, friends in college, decide that, upon graduation they will move from Boston out to Iowa to farm an acre of corn crops. Why? Well, they found out that an inordinately large proportion of their bodily make-up was from corn! If you have read The Omnivore's Dilemma or been exposed to Michael Pollan in any way - other writings, interviews, etc, than this news is not terribly earth shattering, most of us in America would find the same thing. However, these gentlemen decided to explore it further - grow corn and follow it to see where it goes and what it becomes. This was a fun movie to watch with a serious message. Do they have an official website? Of course! Who doesn't - check out the King Corn official website, then check out the trailer:


No Impact Man 
An author and activist in New York City was thinking about what his next project should be, when he came up with a year-long endeavor for his entire family to undertake. This family of three went through an entire year, still living in the city, producing no waste, turning off their electricity, using bike and scooters, taking stairs instead of elevators, buying no new products and everything else in their power to make NO ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT on the world around them. This was a family that lived on food in packages before the project and then began to make use of the farmer's market, growing their own and eating in season. This is a compelling project that was documented on the No Impact Man blog and in a book No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process (holy moley! That is a LONG title!!). Take a sneak peek at the whole deal with this trailer:



There they are - five films to make you think. There are more, and there are books, too, but for today, we will stop with this early primer. By the way, if you have Netflix, then you are in super-luck, because ALL FIVE of these movies are availble for instant streaming (I just checked), so you can start watching them right now! Enjoy the movies, come back and let us know what you think and whether or not you feel these films have nurtured the conscious eater in you!

Blue Gold

I, unfortunately, have some familiarity with dehydration. Due to the medication I take and the conditions I have I am constantly reminded by doctors, "Drink plenty of water," or "You should ALWAYS have a bottle of water with you," and, finally, "Nicole, when you don't drink enough, you lose your precious electrolytes - it can be VERY dangerous for you." I heed their advice, of course, but there are times when I simply can not keep up with the chemical or physical imbalance my body presents on a particular day or two and those times I find myself thirsty, weak, dry and, most of all, fragile.

It seems to me, especially tonight, that I would be remiss in my search for true sustenance without taking at least one blog moment to discuss that from which all life spews from: WATER.

Why tonight, you ask? It began with a thunder clap, then I heard the downpour. This was in the middle of my husband and I searching through Netflix to find something to rent. This did not matter to me, though, when I hear a deluge, there is only one thing I can do: run to the front door, with my two dogs to watch. It is a wonderful sight, smell and experience at this time of year. When the rain hits the cement a small fog evaporates, only in the first minutes of the downpour, then the smell finds you - a clean, fresh smell of the earth getting a clean rinse. Then, finally, I love to watch the trees sway in the wind, rocking back and forth ensuring every leaf gets a shot at its very own raindrop, they look just like the ladies in the shampoo commercials. And, then, shortly after, it quiets. Not that the storm ends, but the water is calmer now, the winds have slowed, because the tempest is tamed and falls into a rhythm. At that point, my show is over...

As I get up from sitting in front of the door I think to myself, I wish I had some buckets out there - that was so much water! I have been reading the special edition of the National Geographic on Water this week and, needless to say, it has raised some concerns.

And so, it was with this on my mind, that I came back to the couch, where my husband had a movie suggestion, "What about this one?" on the screen was, Blue Gold: World Water Wars. Does this man have the ability to read my mind? I instantly start spewing facts that I had read from the National Geographic, "Did you know that 97% of the water on Earth is salt water and, therefore, undrinkable? Did you know that of the remaining 3% of water only 1% IS drinkable?!" I pulled out my iPad, "You have to see these pictures of people buying baggies of water! Or spending FIVE HOURS A DAY walking to get dirty water!" He insisted I stop and we watch the movie, but there was one more thing I wanted to show him, one page of the National Geographic that just struck me - not a picture, but a few statements, here they are:

(National Geographic, April 2010)

"Wow, that's scary," he said, I agreed and we watched the movie. And, as for the movie - Wow, that was scary. This is another MUST SEE. Put it on your list with Food, Inc. This is a very important movie to see (or maybe you would rather read the book?). While Food, Inc. opened my eyes to the sins of industry, Blue Gold slapped me (HARD) in the face with them. I am forever in awe of the world created in the post World War era. I pray that we are not too far gone to grasp some semblance of sanity (or at least my version of it (: !!) again.

I am still processing much of what I saw in the movie, but I know this: water is not free, fresh and sent to us from the skies - it has been privatized on a scale so much larger than I ever imagined. Water is being traded on the stock market. People are dying because of water, not just because polluted, diseased water, but because of assassinations, suicides and gunshots in a water wars all over the world. I know that bottled water is a joke, but that joke is no longer funny. I know that we won't see ads about this problem, we probably won't hear anything on earth day about this... The powers that be have already begun their game of chess - strategies have been made, pieces have been placed, pawns will be sacrificed and too many of the players are still living by the mantra, "the man who dies with the most toys wins" without a care in the world about the devastation left in their wake. What does it mean when a dollar is more valuable than water? In other words, what does it mean when a dollar is more valuable than life?

So here's your homework:

1. Warm yourself up by watching The Story of Bottled Water. This is a short film on the Internet made by The Story of Stuff people (you should probably watch all of their videos if you haven't already!)

2. Check out the April 2010 Special Issue of National Geographic on Water. As usual, the pictures are breath taking, but the articles are also worth the time. Barbara Kingsolver wrote one article on water that I truly enjoyed (I always like her writing).

and, of course,

3. Watch Blue Gold: World Water Wars. It was originally aired on PBS, so you might actually find it re-run on there. We got it through Netflix, but you may find it in the library, too!

AND THERE"S AN EXTRA CREDIT ASSIGNMENT!!!

Extra Credit: Take the time to stop whatever you are doing to watch the next rainstorm you hear!

Drink up, enjoy, satiate your thirst, but be mindful. Appreciate your blue gold. :)