Exploration Four: Fresh

I really enjoy how the film Fresh was put together. I gives you stories from real people who are on the  farms really trying to make things better for people, that is one of the most important parts for me. One of the most important ideas to me comes from Andrew Kimberly when he said "Medium sized organic farms are better than any size industrial farms." I feel like that really put in to perspective what the industry is doing to the world, and as a nation if we would put our money back into smaller organic and local farms we would see a change. Some good evidence that stuck with me was Joel Salatin when he said "Go down the list of diseases and thats nature saying STOP IT!" This is piece of evidence is supported not only in the film with clips talking about mad cow disease and actually showing how that cow acting but in life we've seen salmonella, trichinosis, etc. all of these are supporting that statement. I think theres a clear need for change and at the end of the film Professor John Ikerd says that as well to the effect of it did not get like this all of a sudden but we can get back to how it used to be it will just take one person at a time. If I were going to review this film I would cover it all, but something that is really important to me is the treatment of animals so I would like to focus in on that. This film is full of strengths because it sticks to topic and really drives home the need for organic and local food and also with the choice of people it ranges from farmers to professors and everywhere in between. A weakness that sticks out though is we don't hear very much about the other side, there is Mr. and Mrs. Fox, which I thought was good to put a face to people that do use industrial farming, but there was not a lot from them or any other sources. 
I wanted to explore something that I'm sure a lot of people from all age groups were wondering and thats why did Chipotle stop serving carnitas (pork)? Chipotle is known for trying to use the best ingredients in everything that it serves to the public so what happens when they find out that one of their suppliers were violating what are Chipotle's core animal welfare standards? What I found made me completely happy. They stopped all purchases with this supplier saying when given a choice to serve conventional pork or not at all, they chose not at all. What made me upset, nothing that they can control all by themselves, was the fact that they have to now get our pork from out of the country. I am happy that we have a strong enough relationship with the UK to do that, but I know we are more than capable as a country to be doing it. I confirmed through research that 95% of our pork is raised conventionally and I find that disgusting. I feel like we as a nation should follow in Chipotle foot steps until 100% of our animals in the US is not conventionally raised.   

http://chipotle.com/carnitas