‘American Meat’ to Screen at Stanford, Followed by Discussion

Written by Bonnie Azab Powell on February 5, 2013in Events, Featured, Meat, Video - 1 Comment

Here at Bon Appétit Management Company, we’ve been tackling the issues of large-scale meat production for quite some time. We started trying to reduce the use of nontherapeutic antibiotics in animal agriculture back in 2003, and since then switched to cage-free shell eggs and a number of other commitments aimed at improving animal welfare.

That’s why we’re so pleased to be sponsoring the 10-state screening tour of American Meat, a new documentary that takes an evenhanded look at both the industrial and the pastoral sides of the U.S. meat system. The film is sympathetic to the hog, beef, and chicken producers who, forced to compete on price, must resort to routine antibiotics for growth promotion. But it also shows how an alternative, pasture-based system — exemplified by Joel Salatin and Polyface Farms, the farm made famous in Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma — can offer an economically viable replacement. Meant to inspire young farmers, the film leaves one with the urge to go out, buy a piece of land, and start farming. Watch the trailer.

Director Graham Meriwether (left) is criss-crossing the country showing the film at universities, colleges, agricultural high schools, and Future Farmers of America chapters. Bon Appétit at Washington University in St. Louis, MO, kicked off the tour with a grass-fed beef barbecue for 325 attendees.

This Thursday, February 7, at 6pm, Stanford University will show American Meat followed by a panel discussion, moderated by Graham, that includes Maisie Greenawalt, Vice President of Strategy for Bon Appétit Management Company; rancher David Evans of Marin Sun Farms (a longtime BAMCO Farm to Fork supplier); Professor Rosamond Naylor, Stanford Center on Food Security & the Environment; and Professor Vasile Stanescu of the Modern Thought & Literature program and Journal of Critical Animal Studies.

Hope you will join us! Details here. Continue…

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