Friday, November 28, 2008

King Corn - film discussion

You are what you eat, and we need to talk. Next Thursday, Dec 4 at 6:30PM, we'll have a screening of the documentary film King Corn, and discussion led by Dr. Dubear Kroening, Associate Professor of Biology at UW-Fox Valley.

From the PBS blurb:
Behind America’s dollar hamburgers and 72-ounce sodas is a key ingredient that quietly fuels our fast-food nation: corn. In KING CORN , recent college graduates Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis leave the east coast for rural Iowa, where they decide to grow an acre of the nation’s most powerful crop.

Alarmed by signs of America’s bulging waistlines, the filmmakers arrive in the Midwest enthusiastic about their new endeavor. ... Ian and Curt are increasingly troubled by how the abundance of corn is helping to make fast food cheap and consumers sick, driving animals into confinement and farmers off the land. Animal nutritionists confirm that corn feeding can make cows sick and beef fatty, but it also lets consumers have fast food at low prices. As feedlot operator Bob Bledsoe says in KING CORN, “America wants and demands cheap food.”
Here's the trailer for the film:

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