Time: 12:30PM-1:45PM
Location: Room 5W22
Description:
Learn how corporate agribusiness’ efforts to influence public opinion and policy have influenced a shift in US and global diets towards increased consumption of animal products – particularly those produced by industrial agriculture – with disastrous implications for workers, farmed animals, the environment, human health, and food availability.
Moderator:
Nicholas Laccetti
Presenters:
Dr. Milton Mills, Associate Director of Preventive Medicine with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
David Kirby, author, Animal Factory, will discuss corporate agribusiness welfare – how farm subsidies keep us fat, and why Washington won’t stop the factory farm gravy train.
Caryn Hartglass, Founder, Responsible Eating And Living (REAL), will discuss how government subsidies make it more affordable to eat unhealthy foods than nutritious ones. Marketing campaigns brainwash us into consuming foods that make us sick. Agribusiness and government policy influence our consumer choices, impacting our health, the environment, work conditions, animals and food availability.
VIctoria Moran, author, Main Street Vegan, will discuss how hen we eat the food Big Agra wants us to eat, we come to need the drugs Big Pharma wants us to buy. Moran will weigh in on self-care and dynamic nutrition as political acts of great importance.
Tools, Skills, and Messages Participants Will Take Home:
Caryn:
* Participants will learn how agribusiness lobbyists have:
- influenced USDA nutrition information to reflect their economic interests rather than science
- maintained implicit subsidies to factory farms
- mandated animal products in school lunches
- pushed for international agreements to eliminate agricultural tariffs.
*Participants will be familiarized with how massive advertising campaigns and deceptive packaging have distorted consumer awareness of what foods they need to be healthy and where their food comes from.
* Participants will discuss how we can fight corporations like Smithfield and Tyson and take action for sustainable and just food policy.
David:
Participants will learn what types of farm subsidies are going to millionaire factory farmers and corporate grain, meat and dairy producers and how our taxpayer dollars support a food and nutritional system that is the opposite of what we should be eating. The USDA’s own “Food Pyramid” is entirely inverted when it comes to USDA subsidies: meat and dairy benefit the most, fruits and vegetables receive virtually nothing. Meanwhile, President Obama pays little more than lip service to farm subsidy reforms while supposed deficit hawks like the Tea Party Caucus in Congress almost unanimously oppose any reforms to farm subsidies.
About the Moderator:
Nicholas Laccetti is a writer and activist living in New York City. He is interested in food justice, gender/sexuality issues, the history of Christianity, and progressive religious practice.
About the Presenters:
Caryn Hartglass is the founder of Responsible Eating And Living (REAL), a nonprofit that promotes plant-based foods and planet-friendly products. She currently hosts the weekly It’s All About Food show on the Progressive Radio Network.
David Kirby, a contributor to the Huffington Post since 2005 and journalist for 20 years, wrote for The New York Times for five years and was a correspondent in Latin America from 1986-1990. He has authored three books: Evidence of Harm, Animal Factory and Death at SeaWorld.
Victoria Moran, CHHC, the Oprah-featured author of The Love-Powered Diet and Main Street Vegan, is among VegNews’ “Top 10 Vegetarian Authors.” Moran directs Main Street Vegan Academy, training Vegan Lifestyle Coaches in NYC.
Dr. Milton Mills is the Associate Director of Preventive Medicine with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) and co-author of PCRM’s report on Racial and Ethnic Bias in the U.S. Dietary Guidelines. Whether internist Dr. Mills is practicing at Fairfax Hospital in Virginia or at free clinics in Washington, D.C, his prescription for patients is likely to include some dietary advice: go vegetarian. Mills doesn’t limit his message to his patients. He takes it to audiences around the country as well.