By Anand Ramayya
Terrified that his favorite food, hamburgers, will kill him, filmmaker Anand Ramayya embarks on a journey that reveals shocking connections between the mad cow crisis, the farm crisis, and the global food crisis. He realizes the contradiction between the cow that provides his favorite meal and is the livelihood of his Canadian in-laws who are small farmers, and the cow that is a god of his Hindu ancestors. With a sense of humor and curiosity, Ramayya travels back to India to learn about the modern mad cow and the ancient sacred cow, hoping that the stories he hears will reveal a solution to his fear of food. Ironically, India today is also home to a burgeoning meat export industry that threatens to destroy an agricultural economy centered around the feeding of the sacred cow, and critical to the livelihood of 65 percent of India's population.
Globalization emerges as a recurring theme, connecting the food we eat to the environmental, cultural, economic, and health crises we are currently facing. Included are interviews with activists Dr. Vandana Shiva and Maneka Gandhi; author Dr. Murray Waldman (Dying for a Hamburger: Modern Meat Processing and Alzheimer's Disease) ; and Swami Agnivesh, a social activist best known for his work against bonded labor in India.
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