Educational Media Reviews Online

A Chef’s Journey: Deconstructing Supper explores how food is grown, processed, and genetically engineered. This documentary begins in a restaurant with Chef John Bishop being asked where the elements of the meal he has prepared come from - are they engineered or, are they organic? Chef Bishop takes the viewer on journey though the controversial subject of genetically altered foods. The film looks at both sides of the issue; we are introduced to scientists and activists.

The journey begins in North America with a look into a biotech laboratory where the Scientists believe that Genetic engineering holds the promise of being able to grow more crops on less land. There, with the manipulations of two different plant genes, genetically superior plants will be produced to enable an increase in the amount of plants to planting area. Scientists believe that they can produce one seed that will have the genetic programming to protect itself from pests and be a high producer. On the opposite side of the issue, traditional Farmers have developed many hardy varieties of crop plants; but this biodiversity is being lost as traditional forms of farming give way to commercial farming with its industrial requirement of crop uniformity. Farmers with traditionalist leanings are being forced to use genetically engineered seeds by companies that monopolize the seed business.

Bishop takes us to India where farmers are trying to preserve the biodiversity of their crops. On the Indian continent there are many different climate zones. In the broadest sense these are desert, mountain and coastal zones: Obviously, one type of wheat seed is not going to produce a crop in all those zones. The Indians believe that the best way to avoid starvation during an environmental disaster is to have a diverse crop: this strategy allows one plant type to fail while others thrive under given circumstances. A striking example of the conflict of approaches is the plight of native greens: this part of the traditional diet is being labeled industrially as weeds and consequently, native greens are sprayed with herbicides under the new genetic strategies. Questions that are raised by this film include:

• How is genetically altered food going to effect our environment?
• How do these foods affect the human body?
• Do the benefits of an altered food out weight the dangers?

This film could easily be used in a high school/college classroom as part of an introduction to biodiversity, agricultural practices, and world hunger. This video stirs interest in a controversial topic and can be used as a springboard to further discussion of the topic itself and related issues.