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Most foods that we purchase for every day consumption, and those that we eat a little less often, contain additives of various descriptions. In fact humans have been using food additives for thousands of years, including salt, spices, colourings and flavourings. This excellent program looks at food additives, including colours, flavours, emulsifiers, gelling agents and stabilizers, preservatives and antioxidants, and processing aids that gets added to our food s and why we use them. Lief Lundin, a food scientist discusses these additives, why we use them and what the impacts of their use on our food are.
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Food preservatives are commonly used in many foods we purchase and consume daily. While some food preservation techniques have been practiced for millennia, such as salting, drying and smoking, others have been made possible on a commercial scale by 20th century advancements in technology, such as freezing and pasteurizing. This film takes a look at why foods are preserved and the many advantages we gain as consumers, from the ability to store food for long periods of time to the causes of food spoilage; the differences between natural and artificial food preservatives; preservation techniques using temperature; and water and oxygen removal.
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One of the biggest challenges facing the farming industry today is feeding the growing world population while also caring for the environment. At the centre of this debate are industrial and sustainable farming practices. This presenter led program takes an in-depth look at the environmental issues caused by industrial farming practices and assesses the advantages and disadvantages of the sustainable alternatives. Interviews with vegetable farmer Peter Schreur, organic wine maker Darryl Soljan and Environmental Science lecturer Dr Terry Walshe discuss issues in environmental science, agribusiness and innovative ideas and technology changes in farming practices.
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Sustainable product design is the major focus of food producers across the world, as we head towards the limit of the amount of food we can produce with no slowing of our population. In this program we get to meet the producers who are dedicated to providing the best for consumers and the environment both now and in the future. This film takes students on a journey looking at each stage of the design process, identifying some of the key elements that have to be considered when looking at sustainable product design. The program also features examples of completed controlled assessment projects which demonstrate an understanding of a number of sustainability issues.
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Ensuring the quality and safety of food is one of the most vital aspects of our modern food industry. Leading the way historically and internationally, the UK makes a fascinating case study into the key elements in assurance schemes including food safety, environmental protection, animal welfare and other important global issues. Featuring comment from some of the world's leading food associations such as the Soil Association, Red Tractor, LEAF and Community Farm representatives, this program highlights a variety of baseline and higher level schemes, and encourages learners to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of assurance schemes to the individual consumer and within a wider context.
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What is the difference between food allergy and food intolerance? This program answers this question and more using engaging dramatised scenarios and expert commentary from Dr. Andreas Lopata, Associate Professor of Food Sciences at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. We discover that up to 2% of the population have a food allergy and learn how to respond to a food reaction - including when and how to administer an EpiPen. We also learn how to identify food allergies and intolerances and how the food production and hospitality industries are responding to the increasing incidence of food reactions.
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This is the story of a farmer who stood up against a massive multinational, and its right to claim ownership to a living organism.
One day representatives from the multinational company Monsanto visit Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser and demand he surrender his canola crops. They sue him for $200,000, claiming he had illegally used their patented genetically modified seeds.
Percy counter-sues Monsanto for environmental pollution and launches a nationwide campaign defending farmer's rights.
Modifying canola's genes makes the planet resistant to specific weed killers and, according to the makers, generally improves yield.
But Percy's campaign highlights popular questions about GM crops and food with GM products in. In particular there are fears of "terminator technology" and worries about the impact on farming communities.
Schmeiser also accuses Monsanto of using intimidating tactics against him. For days, according to the farmer, detectives with cars were in front of his driveway, following him onto the fields, observing his every footstep.
Finally, the case goes to Canada's supreme court. The court finds in Monsanto's favour - but he doesn't have to pay a big fine. Percy argues the verdict raises more questions than it answers - including the biggest of all - "who owns life?"
Blending seriousness and whimsy, filmmaker Ian Cheney explores the promise and perils of urban farming.
TRUCK FARM tells the story of a new generation of American farmers. Using green roof technology and heirloom seeds, filmmaker Ian Cheney plants a vegetable garden on the only land he's got: his Granddad's old pickup. Once the mobile garden begins to sprout, viewers are trucked across New York to see the city's funkiest urban farms, and to find out if America's largest city can learn to feed itself.
Blending serious exposition with serious silliness, TRUCK FARM entreats viewers to ponder the future of urban farming, and to consider whether sustainability needs a dose of whimsy to be truly sustainable. Featuring nutritionist Marion Nestle, chef Dan Barber, explorer Henry Hudson and a very lonely seagull.
Reviews
"Alternately giddy and pragmatic, Truck Farm makes the best sales pitch for grow-your-own I've ever seen. A must-see for anyone interested in agricultural empowerment and diversity." - Dr. Warren Belasco, Professor, American Studies, University of Maryland, Author, Food: The Key Concepts, Editor, Food, Culture and Society
"Truck Farm illustrates a rebirth of interest among young people in agriculture. With passion and ingenuity, you can find a way to farm anywhere." - Dr. Joseph Heckman, Professor, Department of Plant Biology and Pathology, Rutgers University
"This film is so mind altering, you will never look at an empty space the same way again, no matter how small!" Laurie David, Author, The Family Dinner: Great Ways to Connect with Your Kids, One Meal at a Time, Producer, An Inconvenient Truth
Awards
Audience Award & Jury Award, Green Film Festival, Seoul
Most Uplifting Film Award, Cinema Verde Environmental Film Festival
Jury Honorable Mention, Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival
Classroom version of classic film about how two friends uncover the devastating impact of corn on the environment, public health and family farms.
KING CORN is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation.
In KING CORN, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the East Coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America's most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat - and how we farm.
Features Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, and Earl Butz, former US Secretary of Agriculture.
This disc also includes the new companion film, BIG RIVER, on the environmental consequences of industrial agriculture.
Reviews
"An excellent introduction to any course on food and agriculture in the United States." - Lawrence Busch, Director, Institute for Food and Agricultural Standards, Michigan State University
"Excellent job...Highly appropriate for courses on the culture and politics of food, health or agriculture." - Deeadra Brown, CUNY, Anthropology Review Database
"Easy to watch and interwoven with quirky animation; recommended for any library, but especially those in areas with a high interest in sustainability and environmentalism." - Library Journal
In Episode 1 of the The Great Food Revolution, find out how in just 30 years North American diners have gone from "Yuk! I'm not eating that!" to "Guess what I ate last night!" Our penchant for the exotic has buoyed a booming global food trade and a modern food-processing industry. Yet despite all this passion for food, fewer and fewer of us can actually cook. Eating out and ordering in have become so common, we've almost done away with a once-sacred ritual: family dinner.
DVD (Closed Captioned) / 2008 / (Grades 7-12, Adult Education, Post Secondary) / 43 minutes
What will we be eating in the next five years? Pay a visit to the assembly lines of the world's biggest food company, the cutting-edge kitchens of "molecular gastronomists," and laboratories where scientists cook up petri-dish steak. Provocative, edgy and even surreal, the finale of The Great Food Revolution series ventures into the great unknown to see the future of food. Our guides are scientists, foodies, fishermen, bloggers and one of the most popular chefs in the world, Jamie Oliver.
DVD (Closed Captioned) / 2008 / (Grades 7-12, Adult Education, Post Secondary) / 43 minutes
This programme looks at where our food originates, examining what we can grow in the UK and when. The issue of 'food miles' is debated in terms of how it affects the planet, impacting on our food carbon footprint and influencing consumer decision-making. The emerging need for 'food security' is analysed in the wake of increasing costs and depleting supplies, and interviews are given by a range of people involved in growing and consuming food, and making decisions about where our food comes from.
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There is a revolution happening in the farm fields and on the dinner tables of America ˇV a revolution that is transforming the very nature of the food we eat.
The Future of Food offers an in-depth exploration of several important developments in agriculture today including the diminishment of biodiversity, patenting of life, loss of family farms, consolidation of seed companies and the globalization of our food system. Using genetically engineered crops as a primary cause and result of these new developments, the film delves into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled the world's grocery stores for the past decade.
From the prairies of Saskatchewan, Canada to the fields of Oaxaca, Mexico, The Future of Food gives a voice to farmers whose lives and livelihoods have been negatively impacted by new, patented GMO seeds. The film uses animation to explain the process of recombinant DNA technology which allows "genetic engineering", the movement of DNA from one species to another. The legal foundations for, and consequences of, patenting life are explored in depth. The health implications, government policies and push towards globalization are presented as some of the reasons why many people are alarmed by the takeover of our food supply by corporations and their genetically engineered crops. The global battle over agricultural genetic engineering is as fierce now as ever.
Shot on location in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, and contrasting local trends with global realities, The Future of Food examines the complex web of market and political forces that are changing what we eat as huge multinational corporations seek to control the world's food system. The film also explores alternatives to large-scale industrial agriculture, placing organic and sustainable agriculture as real solutions to the farm crisis.
This 2-Disc Educational Edition DVD features a stunningly comprehensive University level Curriculum, tailored for use in a variety of course settings and durations, as well as numerous bonus features and action resources. The curriculum was created by Dr. Joshua Muldavin who has put into this course the wisdom and knowledge gained over 25 years of international fieldwork and teaching about food and agricultural issues.
DISC 1 includes The Future of Food feature presentation as well as a supplemental web-enabled toolkit on DVD ROM, which provides the viewer with a wealth of information and educational utilities: essays, bibliographies, web resources, charts, tables, lesson plans, discussion questions, even nearly an hour of additional video content comprised of interviews with scientists.
DISC 2 is a treasure chest of special features; including a series of short films about family farmers, CSA's, seed saving, farmer's markets, and food in schools.
Reviews
"One of 2005's must-see documentaries!" -San Francisco Chronicle
"This stylish film is not just for food faddists and nutritionists. In the end, this documentary is a eloquent call to action." -The Telluride Daily Planet
"Quietly inflammatory. Unsettling." -Stephen Holden, New York Times
Awards
Best Documentary - DeadCenter Film Festival, OK
Best Documentary - Empire Film Festival, NY
Audience Award: Best Documentary - Ashland Independent Film Festival, OR
By growing an acre of corn in Iowa two friends uncover the devastating impact that corn is having on the environment, public health and family farms.
KING CORN is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation.
In KING CORN, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America's most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat-and how we farm.
Features Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, and Earl Butz, former US Secretary of Agriculture.
Reviews
"If we are what we eat, we are corn -- the modern staff of life. In a gentle but extraordinarily subversive narrative, King Corn skillfully takes us through the industrial food chain, from field to plate. All actors in this story receive compassionate treatment -- from Iowa farmers and Colorado cattlemen to diabetic New Yorkers and an engaging Earl Butz, the former USDA Secretary who advocated maximum production, damn the consequences. There are no 'bad guys' here. And yet, the net result is a devastating sketch of a food production system that is economically, ecologically, and medically unsustainable. How did we ever get into such a fix?" - Warren Belasco, Professor of American Studies, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Author, Meals to Come: A History of the Future of Food
"King Corn not only describes the debilitating industrialized agriculture system in which farmers are caught, it also reveals a food system that is not serving us citizen-eaters well. The 'cheap food' provided by our industrialized food system may turn out to be very expensive when all of the costs are considered. This film will encourage many citizens and organizations to become engaged in the food debate that has already begun in many sectors of our society and to join with others who are already part of that debate, to change the policies which, as the film points out, helped to create this food system in the first place. Everyone should see this film." - Frederick Kirschenmann, Distinguished Fellow, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture and President of Kirschenmann Family Farms
"In this well-crafted film Ian and Curt set off to fulfill their 'dream of fields,' by farming one acre of corn in Iowa. They use that experience to explore the entire corn commodity chain from inputs all the way through to final consumption. Along the way they discover the many successes and failures brought about by the dominance of corn as the basic feedstock for most of the foods we eat. Thus, in a straightforward manner the film displays the tapestry that weaves together overproduction, farm payments, ever-growing farm size, rural depopulation, animal antibiotic use, obesity, and diabetes. I would recommend this film as an excellent introduction to any course on food and agriculture in the United States. Indeed, anyone interested in understanding the problems inherent in corn farming in mid- America-in fact, anyone who eats-should see this film." - Lawrence Busch, University Distinguished Professor, Dept. of Sociology, Director, Institute for Food and Agricultural Standards, Michigan State University
"The molecules in most Americans' bodies come more from corn than from any other source; at the same time that it has made us fat, corn monoculture has impoverished the American landscape more than any other organism. And yet, until the filming of King Corn, few Americans had a means to understand why their addiction to high-fructose corn sweeteners is the greatest threat to their health and to the health of rural communities and their landscapes. This film should be seen by every farmer, consumer and student who still believes that America has been made beautiful by our 'amber waves of grain.'" - Gary Nabhan, Author, Coming Home to Eat, Founder, Renewing America's Food Traditions initiative
"The somewhat goofy premise of two East Coast 20-somethings heading to Iowa to farm a single acre of corn actually works, and it works well. Students will be pulled in by Ian and Curt's curiosity and doggedness on their mission to understand how corn becomes us. Along the way, we learn quite a bit about the current realities of Midwest crop farming, decline and resilience in rural America, and the contradictory and disturbing implications of U.S. commodity subsidy policy in shaping the options and outcomes of our food system. King Corn presents a compelling mix of experts and regulars with clarity and compassion. It generates enough laughs to be fun, while also stimulating serious thinking about the important topic of how farm practices and policies influence the food we eat." - Clare Hinrichs, Associate Professor of Rural Sociology, Penn State University
"No doubt inspired to some degree by Super Size Me this equally engaging, slightly better-crafted docu deftly balances humor and insightˇKarresting factoids are delivered by helmer Aaron Woolf and collaborators in a package that's as agreeable as it is informative. Subjects' low-key antics, their affectionate regard for the small-town milieu, some delightful stop-motion animation and an excellent rootsy soundtrack by the WoWz all make "King Corn" go down easy, even if you might regard your burger, fries and Coke with suspicion afterward. Handsome lensing and Jeffrey K. Miller's sharp editing are also worthy of note." - Dennis Harvey, Variety
"The press materials for "King Corn" trumpet it as a cross between "Sicko" and "Super Size Me," but the film's protagonists, Mr. Ellis and his college friend, Ian Cheney, come off as genial searchers rather than driven interrogatorsˇKIn the film, Mr. Butz is treated as respectfully as Iowa's plain-spoken farmers, and the golden fields of corn are shot to evoke their majesty. If the filmmakers are going to point any fingers, they say, they will start with themselves." - Joe Drape, The New York Times
"King Corn is as relevant as Super Size Me and as important as An Inconvenient Truth in the recent rash of documentaries that challenge our perceptions of daily life in America." - The Austin Chronicle
"An enormously entertaining moral, socio-economic odyssey (and statistical bonanza) through the American food industry. Ellis, Cheney, and Aaron Woolf's documentary is clear-minded and fair, but just damningly descriptive enough to leave you distrustful of everything on your plate." - William Morris, The Boston Globe
"Gorgeously filmed in digital video and Super-8, using clever stop-motion corn kernel animation and a lyrical score by the "anti-folk" band the WoWz, "King Corn" takes what could be a tiresome agri-civics lesson and delivers a lively, funny, sad and even poetic treatise on the reality behind America's cherished self-image as the breadbasket of the worldˇKIt should be required viewing before going into a supermarket, McDonald's or your very own refrigerator." - Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post
"Where this documentary distinguishes itself, however, is in the unusual amount of warmth it lets into the mix. Cheney and Ellis are both funny and completely unthreatening, which does not mean toothless. Like his stars, Woolf treats both friend and foe (including farm-subsidies inventor Earl Butz) with respect, refraining from sarcasm, superiority, or ambush. "King Corn" insists that we recognize the Corn Belt's beauty and intelligence along with its somewhat self-induced plight." - Janice Page, The Boston Globe
"A deceptively intelligent new entry in the regular- Joe documentary genreˇKa graceful and frequently humorous film that captures the idiosyncrasies of it
Terminator Tomatoes is a five minute animated film about the dangers of biologically altered seeds and produce. Shot on 35 mm color film, and using stop-motion animation puppets and miniature sets, the film tells the story of a small time farmer who gets too involved with a chemical corporation's idea of a tomato.
The purpose of the film is to raise the public's awareness of genetically modified foods and to speculate where this technology is headed.
Reviews
"Recommended . . . Should libraries purchase this film? Absolutely!" - Educational Media Reviews Online
"Recommended . . . This thought provoking fable should provide solid grist for the discussion mill." - Video Librarian
Award
Winner of Highest Honorable Mention, Earthvision Environmental Film and Video Festival, 2001
Organic food is the fastest growing segment of the food industry in Canada. The use of pesticides, genetically modified foods, and antibiotics in animals are a few of the reasons people are choosing organic. But is it really better for you, and is it better for the planet? When you buy organic food, what does that label really mean? Which method of farming is safer - organic or conventional agriculture? Why does organic food cost more than regular food, and will this trend continue? These questions are investigated in this MarketPlace special report
DVD / 2000 / (Grades 7-12, Post Secondary, Adult Education) / Approx. 22 minutes
Do you know that many of the foods on our supermarket shelves - including most of the corn and soy and canola products - are genetically engineered? Did you know that scientists are crossing species that would never breed in nature, such as tomatoes and fish, or toads and potatoes? How do you feel about eating genetically altered food that actually is a pesticide?
None of these genetically engineered foods are tested or labeled by the government, yet many of us are unknowingly eating them every day. European countries are resisting what many people are branding as "Frankenfoods." Here in the U.S. the situation will only get worse until the American public demands the right to know which foods have been genetically altered.
Review
"Highly recommended!" - Educational Media Reviews Online
Genetic Time Bomb is an excellent introduction to the little-known topic of genetic diversity of food crops. As high-yield hybrids replace traditional food crops worldwide, thousands of heirloom plant species have become extinct. Irreplaceable genetic material is being lost that may one day be needed to ward off the effects of devastating pests, diseases, or droughts.
Featuring leading scientists and activists, Genetic Time Bomb looks at historic changes in agriculture, the importance of maintaining biodiversity, and the growing worldwide network of "seed savers."
Reviews
"The genetic diversity that is critical to the long-term survival of food crops is now at risk. It's one of the most critical environmental issues the world has ever faced." - Former Vice President Al Gore
"I was very moved and inspired by the production. It reveals a dangerous situation, a real but largely hidden crisis that continues to go unnoticed by the vast majority." - Timothy Vos, Eco-Ag Program, Evergreen State College
This presentation explores the basis and purpose of various food handling and storage practices in the industry, as well as in home kitchens. Food spoilage, food intoxications and infections, along with food pathogens, food microorganisms and food additives are also discussed. The application and importance of proper storage methods, such as freezing, vacuum packaging and dehydrating, are introduced and explained.