f-r-e-s-h: FRESH.

So I'm currently sitting here, in a scantly populated auditorium watching FRESH: The movie. And although its only a half an hour or so into the movie, I can't deny that its made me think.

First we hear one man's theory that "American's fear only one thing - inconvienence."

Then we hear someone speak of how we don't consider what work a farmer puts into his job, or what pesticides go where and for what - that as consumers, we only care whether something taste good - or better yet, does it LOOK good?

We then learn the definition of a monoculture - a lot of the same species grown together, w/o variation. This however, is not a phenomenon that regularly occurs in nature. Instead, it is made possible only by the use of antibiotics. Feedlots, factory farms, and "animal cities" are all the essence of a monoculture.

Then, we are told that on a regular farm, manure is a blessing – the animals produce it, and the plants use it. It is literally a circle of life. But the feedlots, have taken this working system, and separated it into two problems (polluted manure, we don’t have a place to put, and unfertilized plants, that in turn need unnatural fertilization).

We are then given an image. As someone is talking in the back, saying something important, I'm sure, I can't take my eyes of the chicken. The cute, little, teeny, tiny, yellow chicks. The cute, little, teeny, tiny, yellow chicks being carted around in the back of a truck, stacked up in little boxes, one on top of the other. The same cute, little, teeny, tiny, yellow chicks that are then shown being thrown - thrown - from the buckets they are held in onto the floor below.

I was shocked...
... as was Christina.

But nobody else seemed phased.

I've heard of cats landing on their feet, but never chickens.

The audio, returns to my consciousness, and the video cuts to yet another man - a sustainable farmer. He tells us that every chicken has a certain "chicken-ness" that he like to honor. They too, he says, contribute to the work that he does. At first, I kind of giggle - "chicken-ness." And then I stop. He was serious, and in a way it makes sense.

He goes on to talk about mad cow diseaes - how it came about because we felt it necessary to "feed dead cows to cows." All in the name of efficiency - in the sense of bigger, faster.

We then learn how the use of antibiotics, and the prevalence of industrial farming had led to the loss of 90 percent of agricultural diversity.

And how a medium-sized organic farm has been found to be more productive than an industrial one.
And how YES - organic food costs more, but that it costs more, because its worth more - naturally and nutritionally. After all, you get what you pay for.

All I can think of is hmm... if you say we can feed the world on an organic agricultural system, how it that possible if the world can't afford it?

"Cheap food is an illusion," he says. If you don't pay for it at the cash register you pay for it in hormones, in the loss of natural resources, in the imbalance of an ecosystem, and most intimately - your health. My question is answered.

Cut agin to the chickens. All grown up now... with the little red dangley thing below their chins and all. But instead of boxes, they are arranged in rows - little tin rows - still in a warehouse. No green grass, no bright sunlight, only beige-colored feed, and cold steel walls.

And then I pose another question - if your chicken is grown in a warehouse, instead of raised on a farm, how FRESH is it really?