by Marion Nestle
Oct 22 2011

Food movement: Occupy Wall Street and Big Food: October 29

Thanks to Erica Lade for sending the poster and these links to articles connecting Occupy Wall Street to the Food Movement:

And in case you missed this week’s New Yorker:

Join the food movement!

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  • Aggie

    Dang! I wish I and the cows could march through Zucotti Park with you all. Hundreds of thousands of small dairy farmers have been removed from agriculture in the past 20 years. The share of the dairy retail dollar that finds its way back to us is less and less, while the consumers pay the same or more in the store. We see dairy products on the shelf filled with JUNK and fillers, but a SWAT team will kick your doors in if you sell raw milk. The Obama people made a big show of some dairy hearings about the rapidly concentrating dairy sector, but then we never heard from them again. Maybe Occupy Wall Street is the only way to go.

  • National Conference to End Factory Farming
    http://www.factoryfarmingconference.org/index.php
    Arlington Virginia
    Oct 27-29

    The Issues
    •Public Health: Disease and Contamination
    •Farm Animal Sentience
    •Waste Management, Mismanaged Resources and Climate Change
    •Inside the Industry: The Treatment of Animals
    •Economics of Factory Farming
    •Rise of Factory Farming Globally
    •Legal Advocacy and the Farm Bill
    •Creating Change in the Marketplace
    •Convergent Movements
    •Consumer Awareness
    •Plant-Based Living
    •Models for the Future

    Over the past few decades, the rise of factory farming has institutionalized animal cruelty, caused massive environmental destruction and resource depletion, and posed a constant threat to human and animal health. While there are a wide range of reasons to speak out against this detrimental system, it is clear that many experts and movement leaders today share a common goal: To end factory farming.

    Join Farm Sanctuary as we bring together experts from the environmental, public health, and animal welfare movements for our first-ever National Conference to End Factory Farming: for Health, Environment, and Farm Animals. This conference will be unique in its exclusive focus on factory farming and the problems surrounding it, and aims to reach a broad audience of professionals and advocates from the animal protection, health, and environmental movements to collaborate on these issues.

    The conference program boasts over 30 speakers from a wide range of backgrounds, including authoritative presenters such as Executive Director of Food and Water Watch Wenonah Hauter, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine director of government affairs Elizabeth Kucinich and leading researcher in the field of diet and disease and author of The China Study Dr. T. Colin Campbell.

    The conference program features a Thursday night welcome reception, plenary speakers and panel discussions on Friday and Saturday, and a Friday banquet dinner. Panels will cover a wide range of factory farming related topics, including climate change, public health risks, the emotional lives of farm animals, and a look at the economics of factory farming. There will also be Q&A sessions and exhibit tables showcasing healthy, sustainable, cruelty-free products and organizations.

    With factory farms causing damage to animals, our health, and the environment every day, and with the 2012 Farm Bill coming up for a re-authorization vote, now is a more urgent time than ever for anti-factory farming advocates from across the board to come together. Please join us at the National Conference to End Factory Farming to discuss the issues and learn how to take personal, public, and policy action to make factory farming a thing of the past!

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  • Rachel Styles

    Most people think they can just starve themselves to lose weight but you can’t do that because your body will go into something called starvation mode. What happens is your body will slowly eat itself. If you want to know why you can’t starve yourself to lose weight, this article gives a great explanation on it.

    http://explainlikeakid.blogspot.com/2011/10/why-you-cant-starve-yourself-to-lose.html

  • Anthro

    @Rachel Styles

    I don’t know anyone who “starved” to lose weight. I cut my calories roughly in half and lost 45 lbs., which I have maintained for five years now. While I was sometimes somewhat hungry, I was never “starving”.

    Your comment does not define “starving”, so I’m not sure what you mean, but I also know that weight loss requires reducing calories and that the odd hunger pang does not require a trip to the fridge.

    Whenever I talk with people about my weigh management, I find that they are looking for a way to magically drop the pounds–without actually eating less. Almost all diet scams are based on this kind of thinking. The other silly idea is that there are “types” of calories, or “good” fats. Yes, olive oil is better for you than lard, but the calories are the same and will make you equally fat if consumed in excess. And, yes, when you first reduce your total calories, you will feel hungry, but you will adjust.

  • Also, a good writeup on Epicurious’s blog, even with a few disclaimers at the front, there are still a bunch of funny comments by offended right wingers. It’s very obvious that many don’t understand this whole OWL, whether the misunderstanding is willful or real, I can’t tell.

    http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/blogs/editor/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-the-food-scandal.html

    And Rachel, as Anthro says, is talking nonsense. I’ve lost 50+ pounds, and haven’t starved a day of it.

  • Suzanne

    Ignore Rachel Styles, her post is Spam to sell a weight loss product. Completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.

  • Suzanne

    Incisive comment from the comment section in response to the Occupy Wall Street article on epicurious:

    “A list of Occupy demands:

    In response to those pretending not to understand the purpose of Occupy Wall Street, here’s a simple, and short list:

    1. Place a fee on all Wall Street transactions and tax capital gains the same as income
    2. End corporate personhood and overturn the flawed Citizens United decision
    3. Get big money out of politics through substantive campaign finance reform
    4. Jobs through investment in the public sector and infrastructure, not tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations

    I think this kind of eating is PERFECT for a movement trying to get away from the corporate hold on America. Stay away from mega-corps like Monsanto by eating local and organic. Keep your kids healthy by feeding them food, not processed chemical and hormone laden junk.”

  • Anthro

    Thank you, Suzanne! The demands sound like basic common sense for the common good. Kind of like the basic public health measures Marion works toward.
    ———

    How do you spot the spammers?–you’ve been right before with the trolls– I feel silly for falling for it.

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  • There is a movement in California to get an initiative on the ballot that would require labeling of GMO foods.

    labelgmos.org

    Check it out and spread the message!

    From California, onwards!

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  • Marion-
    In starting a movement I think it’s important to have strong media, so I’m offering my award-winning 30 minute doc SAVE THE FARM as a resource for you to use to gain awareness. It’s highly emotional and engaging advocacy piece for urban farming, it covers the activists’ 11th hour attempts to save the South Central Farm, which was an occupation itself. You can watch it here for free:

    http://www.cinemalibrestudio.com/savethefarm/watch.html

    Peas-
    Michael Kuehnert
    Director,
    SAVE THE FARM

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  • Aw, this was an exceptionally nice post. Spending some time and actual effort to produce a top notch
    article… but what can I say… I hesitate a lot and don’t manage to get nearly anything done.

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