Bates screening of 'Food, Inc.' with Stonyfield Farm chairman

Food safety seems to be one of the most challenging parenting issues we face, as a generation of parents that can't trust the FDA or big business that feeds us, but we can't all homestead either.  I saw 2/3 of this movie (a childcare emergency pulled me out before the hopeful part) and it has changed some of my eating habits, and also revealed places for collective action.   Plus, how fun to see it with energetic college students (who eat the most amazing food around)... 

 All are invited...

Stonyfield Farm chairman to speak at Bates screening of 'Food, Inc.'
Saturday, Oct. 3 at 7:00 p.m.
Olin Arts Concert Hall

MORE INFO: http://home.bates.edu/views/2009/09/29/food-inc/

A Bates College screening of the food-industry exposé Food, Inc. will be followed by a question-and-answer session with the director of Bates Dining Services and with Gary Hirshberg P'13, head of organic yogurt producer Stonyfield Farm.

The screening begins at 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 3, in Olin Arts Concert Hall, 75 Russell St. The film is 90 minutes long.

Hirshberg appears in the film, which scrutinizes the food we eat and how it is produced. He'll be joined in the Bates event by college Dining Services Director Christine Schwartz. The event is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please call 207-786-6476.

Produced and directed by Robert Kenner, Food, Inc. aims to reveal the inside story of American food, the corporations that often place greater value on profit than consumer health, and the regulatory agencies, like the USDA and FDA, that oversee the industry.

Called "an essential, indelible documentary" by Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers, Food, Inc. features interviews with such respected experts as Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, and Omnivore's Dilemma author Michael Pollan. Food-industry figures striving to change the status quo, like Polyface Farms' Joel Salatin and Stonyfield's Hirshberg, are featured describing their efforts to improve the quality of the food Americans consume.

Now chairman, president and "CE-Yo" of Stonyfield, Hirschberg came to the organization in 1983 as director of the Rural Education Center, the small organic farming school (with only seven cows) that spawned the yogurt operation. A renowned speaker on topics such as sustainability, organic agriculture and socially responsible business practices, Hirschberg is author of the 2008 book Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World (Hyperion).