New Years Resolution - Go Local and Organic!

I usually don't participate in New Year's resolutions because I know I most likely won't keep up with it. But after watching the film, Food Inc., I decided to make an exception.

I generally think of myself as someone who has a relatively good diet. I try to stay away from red meat and pork, and increase my consumption of fruits and vegetables. I try my very best to limit my fast food intake. From there, I thought I was doing a pretty good job. Then, I watched Robert Kinner's film and totally had a change of heart.

If you haven't seen this documentary yet, it is a must see!!! Thanks to campus organizer, T. Stewart, I am now a believer.

Filmmaker, Kinner, does a phenomenal job of revealing the secrets behind our national food industry. In this film, you will learn about the monopoly only a few corporations have over the so-called variety of food products we look for at our local grocery stores. What's really sad is the debilitating impacts they have on local farmers and immigrant workers who are, in most cases, recruited from Latin American countries illegally to work in very inhumane conditions. In addition, bacteria that was once considered foreign and rare, has infiltrated our food supply. Even the foods that we generally think about as the healthiest are often contaminated (remember the E. coli found in spinach leaves and salmonella in peanut butter?).

You would think the federal government would not allow this to happen. Think again! In fact, government agencies such as the USFDA employed top representatives who are or once were executives at these companies, leaving very little room for objective governance when it comes to our most sacred resource.

Today, Huffington Post had a very interesting article about most food purchased in the US are packaged and come from factory farms, the breeding grounds for deadly pathogens that are making their way to our dinner tables.

Well, with all of this in mind, I thought to myself, what could I do to reduce my health becoming impaired by what I eat and not participating in how these companies treat their workers and contracted farmers. Luckily, at the end of the film, there's a listing of recommendations of how every day citizens can make a difference:

• Buy locally grown foods
• Support farmers markets and ask them to accept food assistance programs such as EBT or food stamps
• Go organic (though costly, the higher the demand, the likelihood of prices to drop - your buying power is your vote!)
• Start a community garden

These simple actions also got me to think about how our current administration is approaching health care reform. I'm all for uninsured Americans to be covered under this possible new law (hell, I'm looking forward to the day when we'll have universal coverage. I'm still crossing my fingers). But I would really like to see our country take a huge leap forward and not only reform health care insurance, but also our very health and well-being, which is completely tied to what we eat and often our lifestyles. Though I don't expect nor want our government to legislate our lifestyles, more can certainly be done to give us healthier choices and incentives in both providing and making those choices.

In order to achieve true health care reform, we can not leave out the need to do a serious overhaul of our food industry. Because what's the point of promoting preventive care (though we should definitely continue to do so) if the veggies or eggs most Americans buy are covered with deadly bacteria?

Well, until we get it all figured out, I've made a commitment. I will try my very best to go local and organic! Wish me luck!

Exposing Fake Clinics Action Series! Step 6: Hold a Film Screening

The next step to exposing fake clinics is to hold a film screening!

We have two videos on our website that would teach people who aren't already familiar with CPCs a lot about their deceptive practices. The first is called, "Our Reality: A Look at Crisis Pregnancy Centers" and the second is called, "Crisis Pregnancy Centers: A special Report" Both were produced by FMF in conjunction with Stuart Productions and featured on RH Reality Check.

Our Reality: A Look at Crisis Pregnancy Centers from RH Reality Check on Vimeo.

1. Contact your Student Affairs or Student Activities office and see what the procedures are for screening a film for the public.

2. Reserve a space! Maybe it will be in a classroom, the women's resource center, or an auditorium. See what you need to do to hold the even in this space. Make sure there is a projector that you can hook up to your computer.

3. Make flyers and publicize the event. Make an eye-catching flyer announcing when and where the film screening will be. Post them on campus and hand them out when you tabling. Make announcement in classrooms and ask professors if they will give their students extra credit for attending the screening.

4. Buy some yummy snacks! Popcorn, chips, licorice, ice cream, pizza. Go wild, budget permitting.

5. Screen the films and then hold a discussion about it. How do people feel about about what they have just seen? What are the inital thoughts? Do people want to take some action on the issue?

6. Formulate a plan. Whats next? Have the people at the screening get involved with the campaign to expose fake clinics. What actions do they want to do after seeing those films? Don't know where to start, check out steps 1-5 on our action series!


Don't forget about the Video Contest!

Movie Time: Summer is Feminist!

SPOILER ALERT!

I love the movies. All movies. Even completely unfeminist "chick flicks" that are convinced women can only be happy when men find them attractive and men can only be happy with women who are incredibly and conventionally beautiful.

Tired stereotypes and old cliches still seem to make studios the most comfortable and rightfully so as movies like The Proposal and He's Just Not That Into You are consistent box office hits. While I admittedly see these movies and enjoy the experience of the theater and the Junior Mints I purchase, I can never rid myself of the nagging sense that the experiences being lived out on the screen are just not real.

Growing up in a US where the divorce rate seems to rise by the minute and my young The Little Mermaid viewings were immediately followed by lectures from my wonderful feminist mother about the unrealistic nature of Ariel and Eric's story, I am unable to accept the fairytale love that summer romances try to convince us exists.

Thankfully, our generation proved with the success of unconventional movies like Juno that young people today accept less escapist/romantic fairy tales and want more realistic versions of young love.

Hollywood has responded with the charming (500) Days of Summer.

(500) Days of Summer announces from the get go that "THIS IS NOT A LOVE STORY". The basic premise is Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt 10 Things I Hate About You) meets Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel) and is convinced he has found THE ONE. From the beginning the idea that men hide from commitment while women run to it is turned on its head with the commitment phobic personality of Summer and the one true love mantra of Tom.

Summer's character is everything women in most romantic comedies are not. Her top priority is not her love life. She does not go through some sort of makeover transformation. She does not swoon when men fight over her. She makes the first move without thinking twice. She does not engage in woman on woman competition or embrace jealously. She does not have to chose between her romance and her career, smarts, friends, or family.

Finally, my personally favorite, Summer does what no women of summer romances are ever allowed to do...She breaks up with the boyfriend and does not regret it (even Kathrine Heigl was not allowed to break up with the ridiculous Seth Rogan in Knocked Up). Summer is the first female lead I have seen who ends the relationship with the male lead and is not ultimately portrayed as the villain (ie Slut, bitch, uptight, too career driven...).

(500) Days of Summer explores a realistic and relatable relationship. Summer and Tom both turn stereotypes and cliches for "rom-coms" on their heads without being pretentious. While the film is not perfect and holds a fair amount of anti-woman rhetoric (Tom's little sister advises him "not to be a pussy" when interacting with Summer... REALLY? a little girl would relate acting like a girl to acting stupidly? I don't think so...) overall the movie is on point and a very enjoyable watch.

(500) Days of Summer is a truly refreshing take on the typical summer romantic comedy and definitely worth a trip to the movies (with a box of Junior Mints of course). Also get ready for an amazing dance number involving Joseph Gordon-Levitt, a cartoon bird, and Hall and Oates's "You Make My Dreams Come True" (I swear!). I will definitely be seeing this movie two or three more times just to dance in the isle with fellow movie goers... an inevitable side affect of the film and Gordon-Levitt's amazing dance moves.

picture courtsy of Flickr.com