Tuesday 23 June 2009

Reviews of Food, Inc.

Responding to Marc Gunther's review, "Food Inc: tasty but unsatisfying":

Enjoyed your review, but took Food, Inc. more favorably on several key points. It’s not surprising that you have trouble distinguishing the real merits behind the save-the-world green marketing of Coke, Pepsi, Cheerios, and Post. The movie did well to raise questions about even the most green brands like Stonyfield. The real contrast it draws is between conventional and local and organic food.

I understand the question about whether the world can produce enough food, but I have a pair of standards for those who raise this concern: (a) Did they acknowledge that advanced non-GMO technologies are immensely productive and that GMOs make only a modest further improvement?, and (b) did they discuss the inefficiency of historically unprecedented per capita grain-fed meat and dairy in the same paragraph as their concern about non-GMO technology? Without these points, the repeated mantra “But how can we feed the world” risks misdirection.

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