Local Delicious

Here’s how I know the food revolution is going mainstream: I chanced upon an exposé foreign indie film at Blockbuster on the weekend, which isn’t where I typically go for that kind of thing.

Our Daily Bread is the Manufactured Landscapes of the commercialized food production industry. In its disturbing and enlightening travels from lettuce to chickens to peppers to salmon and beyond, the film moves from large expanse to large expanse detailing the vast reality of how our grocery store food is manufactured. And I do mean manufactured.

On the livestock issue, I was expecting some shock and horror tactics — anyone who’s gone vegetarian after some nasty film footage knows it can work — but the film didn’t sensationalize the reality and in so doing, made the reality all the more stark. What’s done with absolute mundane, unemotional repetition is all the more horrific.

Just as bad, though perhaps less obvious, is the wholesale spraying of toxic chemical vapour on factory farmed vegetables, and the massive greenhouses that protect the plants from bugs, fungus…and sunlight.

None of the trailers I watched after the fact did the film justice. Maybe it’s just too hard to capture the full impact, the magnitude in a 2 minute clip. Food is a living organism and somehow the nature of commercial food manufacture reduces it to much less than that. It’s a little depressing.

I do have the perfect antidote, though. When you’re done watching Our Daily Bread, check out Tableland.

If you do want to see a clip, I’ll just warn you, Babe the Movie, this is not…

Learn more about food issues, both locally and internationally, at this year’s Stone Soup Film Festival. Presented by the East End Food Co-op and the Grandview Woodland Food Connection, the festival will explore health and nutrition, food economics, agricultural worker rights, and urban agriculture over two days of great films.

October 17 & 18, 2009
Britannia Community Services Centre
1661 Napier Street, Vancouver
Purchase a pass for $15: 604.718.5800

The film festival is a part of the Stone Soup Fall Food Gathering, also taking place at Britannia Centre. Events will include:

• “DIY” Food Day on October 3, a day of sessions where participants learn the art of making and preserving food
• Community Potluck on October 15 from 6:30 – 8:30 pm
• Food Justice Forum & Discussion on October 8 from 7:00 – 9:00 pm

More information (pdf)

Planning to attend? Leave a comment and let us know how it went.

The documentary FRESH celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people who are working to re-invent our food system. Not just a demonstration of what is wrong with the current system, FRESH takes a look at how several people are forging healthier, sustainable alternatives, offering a practical vision for a future of our food and our planet.

The screening takes place Wednesday, June 10th at 7:30pm at UBC Robson Square (800 Robson Street) in Vancouver. Each ticket is $10 and includes the screening and a discussion panel following the show. Purchase tickets online.

Yeah, you read that title right, “Who owns our water?” If you think that’s like asking “Who owns our air” you’re onto something. Pretty crazy isn’t it? But the weirdest part is, people running big corporations already own some people’s water and are looking to own yours. Then they can sell it to the highest bidder. And, if that isn’t you, you may well be out o’ luck.

My switch to local tap water, even on the go, came just before I discovered two documentaries on global and local water issues. Blue Gold and Flow deal with the issue differently, but have the same underlying message — we need to know what’s happening with the water in our world.

Note to self: if it can happen in Paris, it can happen here and then some.

Not only do the folks behind Flow want you to know what’s happening with water consumption and privatization, they encourage viewers to take action. Whether it’s signing an Article 31 online petition to update the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ensuring access to clean water as a fundamental human right, or connecting with one of the many organizations focused on water issues, the necessary tools to become informed are provided.

I suspect like most people, I had a vague sense that water privatization doesn’t seem like a good idea. Now I know why.

Fresh, drinkable water as a diminishing resource is a global issue, but it’s also a local concern. More local than you may realize and more in jeopardy than you may be comfortable knowing. I didn’t have any more than a vague idea until recently.

I came across a couple of documentaries about water issues shortly after being taken to task for carrying around a case of bottled water in my trunk.

The first movie is Blue Gold, based on a book of that name by Tony Clarke and Maude Barlow, outspoken activists on the issues of water privatization. It’s a serious eye opener about how much water we have on the planet (97% is salt, 3% is fresh, and the bulk of the “fresh” is actually polluted), what’s happening with it, and how we all will be affected if something doesn’t change.

Forget Hollywood, this documentary has political corruption, class clashes, violence, bloodshed…and plenty of suspense and drama. Think the threat of other countries taking our fresh water is science fiction? I recommend watching the movie and getting a little more informed about what we will be up against in the not-very-distant future.

• Did you know that the large, multinational, drink producing companies (they are household names) are sucking out ground water around the world at an astonishing rate — for free — and seriously affecting water tables and local farming?
• Did you know there are (barely enforced) standards for bottled water contents, but none for soft drinks made from the same water?
• Did you know that soft drinks cost significantly less than bottled water in many developing countries?
• Do you know the abysmal track record of water privatization companies worldwide where costs have tripled for reduced service and the poor can’t pay so they don’t get clean water?
• Ever tried to live without clean water?

Having seen the movie, I’m even more happy I switched from bottled to local tap water, and I’ll be keeping an eye out in the media for any rumblings about privatizing or selling our incredible natural resource, the one we take so for granted every day and frequently complain about.

Now, what to do with that Dasani bottle in the fridge that came with last week’s bundled picnic lunch? I certainly don’t want to drink it…

First it was VIFF, then it was Projecting Change, and now Vancouver does it yet again with DOXA, an independent film festival stocked full of interesting, topical and timely documentaries.

DOXA runs May 22 – 31, 2009 at various venues, check online for a full list of films and show times.

A number of films caught my eye, but the must-see is The Garden, the story of inner city LA citizens who came together, became farmers, and in so doing, built a community. (Friday, May 29th, 9:00 p.m.)

Which of course is then threatened by greed and political corruption. Hmmm, why does this theme keep coming up? If this were a regular Hollywood film, we’d all be saying, “Come on, get an original plot, wouldya?!” Sadly, it’s a documentary. Here we go again…

Note: The DOXA online purchase option tacks on $2.50/tix which I think is a rip-off. Here’s the list of where you can buy them in person:

Bibliophile Bookshop, 2010 Commercial Drive – CASH ONLY
Videomatica, 1855 West 4th Avenue – CASH ONLY
Biz Books, 302 West Cordova Street