Changing the Earth with Every Bite

“You can change the world with every bite.” is the closing line of Food, Inc. Rather than getting into the debate around this sensationalized “opiniontary” – I’ll just suffice it to say that it doesn’t fairly represent an incredibly complex agriculture system. However, the last line (set to “This Land is Your Land” music and lovely graphics that clearly show the money poured into the film) caught my attention.  I’m sure it resonated with many viewers who are wondering about WHO is behind their food.

 

Value in Twitter & Tweeting

To tweet or not to tweet – therein lies the question. Twitter is the rage of the season and a headliner in most media outlets. Since Oprah began tweeting last month, Twitter moved to mainstream from early adopters.  Before you wave it off as youth fad, the numbers below tell you that people 35 and older are driving the success of Twitter as a business tool. According to ComScore, college age and teenagers are 12% less likely to tweet than middle agers.

 

Industrial Agriculture & Sustainability

“Industrial agriculture” and “factory farming” are terms used with increasing frequency, thanks to activists on a rampage to put food production in the worst light possible  to further their own agendas.  What is a factory farm?  How do you define one?  And, WHO is responsible for defining that? 

 

The Fickle Consumer

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been at the Center for Food Integrity Food Summit.  In addition to hearing from executives from across the food chain with vastly varying opinions, consumer panels enlightened us and provided a glimpse into another world.

Several on the animal care consumer panel didn’t really believe that labels are meaningful; the generational differences were apparent with the levels of food label use.   This is consistent with recent Food and Drug Administration findings that consumer use decreased for most label components. “It declined approximately 3 percentage points for the Nutrition Facts panel, 11 percentage points for the ingredient list, and 10 percentage points for the panel’s information about calories, fat, cholesterol, and sodium. Only the use of information about fiber and sugars did not decline over the 10-year period. Use of fiber information increased by 2 percentage points, while that for sugars held steady.”