Jane and I went to see Food, Inc. this weekend.  It has a limited release, so if you are interested in seeing this film here is a list of its scheduled showings.  (If you are in the Los Angeles area, it is playing at the NuArt in Santa Monica through Thursday, and will be at the Landmark in West LA starting the 19^th.)

UPDATE: CLICK HERE to reserve your very own copy of Food, Inc. now:

Since we went vegan, we've been doing a lot of reading about food.  Sometimes it feels like all we do is talk about food: the way we eat, what we eat, why we changed our diet, where we get our protein, etc.  So much of the information presented in this film was familiar to us, but still, it was a worthwhile experience.  And some of the things we learned were truly shocking to us.  For instance, there are laws in place in 13 states which protect food manufacturers from people making "disparaging comments" about their food products.  Manufacturers are allowed to sue under libel laws.  Colorado takes things even further by making veggie libel a criminal rather than civil offense.  Frightening!  I guess I'm just a little naïve here, but I would expect my government to protect me against the big corporations.

Robert Kennar does a good job touching on most aspects of the food industry.  For example, the movie starts out by pointing out that the average supermarket sells 47,000 items but this is truly an illusion of diversity since 90% of the items contain corn and/or soy products, and there are only a few companies at the top level that manage agri-business in the United States.  One farmer comments that the farmer's decision making process has been outsourced to the corporate boardroom.  It's all about the bottom line, as opposed to good stewardship of the earth or animals.

Kennar takes you through a tour of what farming means today in America.  And here we were feeling all good about ourselves for being vegan.  What this movie says Monsanto does to the soy farmers makes me want to give up tofu entirely. Monsanto, the manufacturers of Round-Up, have modified and patented "Round-Up" ready soybeans.  As of 2006 90% of the soybeans produced in the US carry that gene.  Monsanto aggressively protects their patent going so far as to prosecute farmer's who's crops have been cross-pollinated by neighboring farms.  The people who were interviewed claim to have been persecuted by Monsanto, these include "seed cleaners" - Seed cleaners allow farmers to clean and store the seed from their fields to be replanted.  The reason is that, according to patent laws, Monsanto owns the seeds since they own the genetically modified gene.  Yikes!  If you're interested in learning more about Monsanto, check out this video:  The World According to Monsanto.  (Here's a link if you'd like to buy The World According to Monsanto.)

The CEO of Stonyfield Farm, Gary Hirshberg, talks about how many of the eco-conscious companies are now owned by mega conglomerates.  Tom's toothpaste is now owned by Colgate.  Stonyfield is now owned by Groupe-Danone (that's Dannon to you and me). He also defends Stonyfield's decision to sell their organic yogurt to Wal Mart by pointing out that the positive pesticide impact can be measured in tons rather than pounds. So while many people decry Wal Mart as the evil empire, Hirshberg points to the environmental impact, and the fact that this allows more people access to organic foods at a lower price.

Although we don't expect this movie to be as successful as Super Size Me," Morgan Spurlock's McDonald's expose, we hope it will get some additional exposure.  This message really needs to get out to the general population.

The movie doesn't touch on veganism at all, which was kind of surprising to me.  I guess they were concerned their movie might be played in one of the 13 states with veggie libel laws.  There is some exposure to CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations).  However, the "natural" farmer's method of slaughtering chickens didn't appear all that humane to me or Jane.

We give the movie two thumbs up.  See it if you have any interest in food.

For Further Information:

• You can read more on the Veggie Libel Laws here:
• If you'd like to read more about Monsanto, Vanity Fair had a great article in February, 2008, called Monsanto's Harvest of Fear.

And there are plenty of interesting videos on YouTube.

• Bad Seed: The Truth About Our Food
• How To Monopolize Food - Monsanto Style Part 1
• How To Monopolize Food - Monsanto Style Part 2

For Christmas this year, Jane received a subscription to bon appetit magazine.  She received the gift because the giver knew that she was always cooking and looking at recipes.  Unfortunately, the giver did not pay particular attention to the kind of recipes that Jane was looking at, but it's the thought that counts, eh?

So every month, before passing it along to a friend who does appreciate this kind of cooking,  Jane's been looking through bon appetit for ideas.  Clearly, the magazine is not geared towards vegans, but there are some interesting spice combinations and some hints of ideas of things that could be veganized.  There is even the occasional article that we'll read.  But overall, the magazine is definitely slanted towards omnivores.  So you can imagine our shock, when Jane found a clearly marked vegan recipe in the June issue. It's on page 40 and the recipe is for "Grilled Veggie and Tofu Stack with Balsamic and Mint."  And right above the recipe, highlighted in green, it reads "vegan main dish."  You could have just knocked me over with a feather!  It even sounds good!

They also promote the recipe by indicating  that it "isn't just vegan -- the main course is also high in fiber and low in calories and cholesterol.  Of course, the recipe immediately following is for grilled lamb chops.  But still... bon appetit featured a vegan recipe.

Yesterday was Memorial Day, the unofficial start to summer here in the US.  We hope you all had a good holiday weekend (if you had the day off).  One of the joys of summer is the ability to grill your food.  Of course, living in southern California we can pretty much grill year round, but we tend to grill a lot more over the summer than we do in the winter.

If you're looking for some vegan recipes to try out on your grill, Amy over at VegCooking (PETAs cooking blog), has a whole bunch of great recipes.  Our favorite is the Grilled Peaches ala Mode.  Generally, we skip the ice cream and use plums instead of peaches.   But this is yum!

And just in case your family or friends give you a little grief over the idea of vegan grilling, you may want to tell them about the five worst foods to grill.  Happy Summer!

Lightlife Tempeh-Tations

Jane has never been a huge fan of tempeh. We've tried it a number of times. I like it, but we both much prefer seitan. Recently, Lightlife came out with a new Tempeh product, Tempeh-tations. It comes in three varieties: Zesty Lemon, Classic BBQ, and Ginger Teriyaki.

Last night we tried the Ginger Teriyaki. The package is 6 ounces and makes two servings - 160 calories each. Jane sauteed up a bunch of vegetables and made some brown rice to go along with it. She also added some chicken vegetable stock to the sautee pot to make a little sauce, otherwise it would have been a tad dry.

The verdict: I thought it was delicious. Jane thought it was better than other tempeh she'd tried and would have it again, but still had a hint of bitterness. What she loved most about this product is its ease of preparation. It's another option for a quick and easy dinner, and I will happily consume it.

Next time we'll try the BBQ I think.

Earlier last week, the New York times published "The Hot Spots for Organic Food" in which they provided maps of farms in the United States.  The data was compiled for the 2007 agricultural census.

I've published the map of all vegetable farms, as a vegan that is the most interesting to me. The rest of the short article has maps of all farms, the organic farms, orchards, and dairy farms. It's an interesting look at where our food comes from. You may even be surprized.

Vegetable Farms as of 2008