Food, food, food, food…

Food, food, food, food…..faster and faster, more and more choices, food!

Product placement in films is part of the advertising game that Hollywood uses to help pay for movies and that advertisers use to push their products. All products are pushed in this way. Historically, cigarettes are the most obvious and the most vicious effort made by advertisers to get their product "sold" to the public. Food, however, is very much in evidence in films as a way of pushing product. Few things are more important to you than the food you eat. Few things are more manipulated than food products. Most of you will contend that you don't have the time to prepare and consume a healthy diet. Hogwash! You don't have the time NOT to do so! If you slow down long enough to eat properly, you will actually gain time! Yes, slowing down can gain you time! Doesn't sound mathematically possible? What happens is that you will enhance your well-being and you will live a healthier and longer life and have more energy to be creative, to make great movies, to do whatever you want to do with your life. Don't get sucked in by the advertisements. Also, as you gain more awareness of the world around you, this has spin off effects. You are more likely to become aware in general. That means you are more likely to write good scripts and make good movies or succeed in whatever other creative endeavor you are interested in becoming a part of.

SO PAY ATTENTION!

"More and more, our attitudes were being shaped by those selling the food. By the early 60s, according to Gussow, the ideal menu featured plenty of meat, but also side-dishes concocted from the growing pantry of heavily-processed foods: Jello, canned or frozen vegetables, green-bean casserole made with cream of mushroom soup and topped with canned french-fried onions…During the late 1920s, consumers could choose among only a few hundred food products, only a portion of them branded. By 1965, according to Lynn Dornblaser, editorial director at the Chicago-based New Product News, nearly 800 products were being introduced every year. And even that number would soon seem small., In 1975, there were 1,300 new products; in 1985 there were 5,617; and, in 1995, a whopping 16,863 new items…convenience was all the rage by the 1950s. Grocery stores now had freezer cases with fruits, vegetables, and---joy of joys---pre-cut french fries. In 1954, Swanson made culinary history with the first TV dinner---turkey, cornbread stuffing, and whipped sweet potatoes, configured in a compartmentalized, aluminum tray and packaged in a box that looked like the TV set. Although the initial price---98 cents---was high, the meal and its half-hour cooking time were hailed as a space-age marvel, perfectly in synch with the quickening pace of modern life.

"According to Noble & Associates, convenience is the first priority in food decisions for 30 percent of all American households.

"New research shows that while the average upper-middle class consumer has some 20 contacts with food a day (the grazing phenomenon), the amount of time spent eating with others is actually falling. That's true even within families: three-quarters of Americans don't breakfast together, and sit-down diners have fallen to just three a week" (Paul Roberts, "The New Food Anxiety", Psychology Today, March/April 1998, pp. 36-7).

So, if you are going to live a wonderful life, you will need to stop listening to the food peddlers and their endless advertising litanies that tend to extol the virtues of fast foods and endless choices. You are going to have to begin to take control of that part of your life, an extremely important part, what you eat and when and how you eat. Less prepared foods, more natural fresh foods---ideally you need to plant fruit trees and begin vegetable gardens. (Don’t tell me you don't have a yard in which to have a garden. That doesn't stop you from creating a cooperative garden with others.) You need to plan more meals with friends and family. You need to start cooking meals, and that means really cooking, not just opening some cans or putting some prepared meal in the microwave and nuking it for a few seconds. Once again, don't try to make all of these changes overnight. Go at it a step at a time. But do begin the journey!

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