This is part of a BBC series called The Truth about Food. It’s a bit cheeky, but informative, mildly entertaining, and potentially inspirational for eating healthier.
I previously posted a TED talk by James Howard Kunstler regarding his views on where suburbia has been and is headed, and I recently discovered this nice little documentary featuring him and covering much of the same topic. It starts out somewhat light-hearted but takes a dark turn when it gets into the peak oil stuff. I saw the full version though, I didn’t watch this abridged version, not sure of the differences. I love the Thomas Hardy quote in the beginning.
The Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium is the 2nd largest in the world. As I watched this vid it actually occured to me “where are the fat people?” Then I learned in the sidebar that it is in Japan and things became clear.
Some guy managed to film his cat grabbing a bat from mid air. I love how the cat looks a little surprised at first, then walks off casually. I’m surprised the bat wasn’t moving at all in its mouth, I guess it was killed/unconscious already at that point. And the crunchy chowdown:
YouTube has recently added new sections of which you may not be aware, here they are in case you’d like to waste more time than you probably already do there. There is a LOT of stuff available.
EDU: if you’re feeling cerebral. Boatloads of vids from various universities. Click Directory once there to see. There are entire courses available to view (e.g. @MIT)
TV Shows: impressive mix of classics and newer stuff.
I love this. I haven’t bought it, but its existence did lead me to dust off my copy of Myst Masterpiece Edition and get it working in Vista. The iPhone app takes a whopping 727mb of space, and requires 1.5gb to install. The price is $5.99. I love this trend of classics being resurrected to the iPhone for low prices. First Wolfenstein, now this. Next up, Doom and Riven please.
Some vids about just how terrible trans fats, MSG, and aspartame are. So much evidence is known of how bad they are, yet they’re all still legal. The whole of it just speaks to how sketchy the system is, and how we should be so wary of anything processed or artificial lest find ourselves guinea pigs of the FDA. Not just with foods either but all kinds of chemicals that we are poisoning the earth with.
Trans fats: The scary thing about trans fats is that even if it says 0g on the label, the FDA allows it to be up to 0.4g and it’ll be rounded down to 0 for the label. You very rarely see anything containing any grams of trans fat according to the label, but I’d be willing to bet that tons of products have it snuck in there and they get to round down to 0. They probably lower the serving size to accomplish this too. A person could eat 6 servings of such things in a day, that could be over 2g of trans fats all the while the label said 0. Again it could also come at a restaurant and you’d never know it. “hydrogenated” or “partially hydrogenated” oils. Avoid them! It’s a shame that whole cities (like NYC back in 2006) place bans before the FDA even thinks of it.
MSG: The scary thing about MSG (other than of course how bad it is for you) is how it’s disguised so innocuously as other things in ingredient lists. Like “hydrolyzed vegetable protein”, “autolyzed yeast”, “hydrolyzed yeast”, “yeast extract”, “soy extract”, “protein isolate”, even just as “spices”, or “natural flavorings”. Be deligent with your label reading, or better yet avoid that processed crap all together. But it’s ALSO served up in restaurants, you gotta be diligent.
Aspartame: This vid series is called Aspartame and MSG are Poisoning Us, but it’s really just about aspartame and how it causes brain tumors and various other things. It’s kinda long but near the end is a pretty sad story about how a woman was convicted for poisoning her husband who died of methanol poisoning, the actual suspicion being that it was from the component of aspartame. Stevia gets mentioned in the credits; it’s a joke how aspartame is still approved for food use but stevia isn’t.
This is a French documentary entitled The World According to Monsanto. It reveals how “the gigantic bio-tech corporation Monsanto is threatening to destroy the agricultural biodiversity which has served mankind for thousands of years.” Please watch the whole thing, and pass it on. And just say NO to GMO. Trouble is that Monsanto fought hard so that GM products don’t have to be labeled as such, so the only reliable way to know your food is GMO-free is to buy organic.
Support local farmers at farmer’s markets, join a CSA, start a garden. Stop drinking milk, cut way back on or eliminate your red meat intake, and stop being so fat. Wake up America!
Morgan Spurlock’s 2004 classic Super Size Me is up on Hulu for free right now. In it he eats McDonalds three meals a day for 30 days. The experiment is interspersed with tons of shocking documentary bits highlighting the growing obesity epidemic in America. It’s a must watch if you haven’t, and probably worth a re-watch if you have. Click here to go to the Hulu page, where it’s a little bigger, you can click HD, lower the lights, pop out, whatever. Love you, Hulu!
There’s a bill (H.R. 875) being moved swiftly in Congress right now about increasing food standards. But there are many who fear it could mean major problems for small organic farms, farmers markets, even your own backyard garden. The one in the Senate is S. 425. Read more for yourself, and call (202)-224-3121 or otherwise let your Congressman know you don’t like it. Contact the House Committee on Energy Commerce and House Committee of Agriculture. Do this too.
Thanks for the all caps megasized font in your header Greg. I had to size that^ down to 33%. God some of that stuff sucks. But some of it is just pure gold. Such as #61 little superstar.
