#7. "Fresh"

Hello, welcome back to my blog! Hope you've spent Thanksgiving well! Today I wanted to splatter about a film I've watched in class: Fresh. 

This documentary, directed by Anna Sofia Joanes, divulges the ugly truth surrounding the United State's food system. 

In the past, I don't think I've ever thought too deeply about where our food comes from or how we have so much of it. As a fast food worker, I've witnessed firsthand how ignorant people are of where their food comes from or its value. 

(I don't like working here but it's ok)

Mobile order never get's picked up? Throw it away.
Leftover food during a closing shift, throw it all away.
Someone complains about their order? Throw it all away and make it over.

It seems anyways that no matter how much food goes to waste, there's an endless supply to replenish from. In the back of my mind I always knew, as most people do know, that our food comes from unsustainable and horrific practices, but I never really cared because I had no knowledge of just how bad the problem had become, is becoming, or what I could do to help the situation. Watching Fresh opened my eyes to what our food has gone through to get on our tables and that it doesn't need to be this way.

A scene that really caught my attention was one in which a man began dumping hundreds of baby chicks from crates onto a factory floor by hand. The fact that they were getting brutally chucked onto the hard floor was not what held my attention. It was mood of the scene. It felt as if they were running any other factory operation to me. That's the thing, it's not like any other factory operation. These are live animals. They don't know what grass is, how fresh the air can smell, or even what the sun looks like. That's just crazy to me how we give them lives and pretend they're just objects. They go through life as if they are objects. It's so normalized that most people think others are too sensitive when this fact is brought up; how millions of animals are robbed of life. I get it, they're just chicks and this happens on the daily to provide us with food, but isn't it crazy how we don't realize how abnormal this practice seems from an outside perspective. 

The film goes on to present that there are solutions to this issue. This isn't the way the world has to run, it's just how it's been running. There are farmers like Joel Salatin who show that running a sustainable farm, in which animals roam free, is possible and can feed large numbers of people. He and others urge for more financial support for sustainable farms because not only do they better the lives of the animals, but they will better our lives, as our health is impacted by what we eat, and our earth, as factory farming is a major cause of global warming.

If you haven't truly thought about this wrongdoing that is our nations agricultural system, I encourage you to do so. I think we can all agree that food often goes undervalued and taken for granted.

 Anyways, I hope this leaves you with something to think about. See you in my next post!