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First of all, my apologies for the long delay! I have been very busy with the editing of Vegan Love. It is coming along very well. I am hoping to finish editing and tracklaying (sound editing) in two weeks. Once that is finished, my next goal will be to have a professional sound dub and grading session (colour correction) and hopefully a final output before Christmas!
I finished filming as planned on the 9th and 10th November. The shoot went remarkably well considering so many locations and such little time. On Sunday, we filmed 4 different locations in 4 different parts of London in 9 hours! On Monday, we began at the National Gallery of London at 7am, then moved to Neil’s Yard Café in Covent Garden, and finished at Eat and Two Veg Restaurant at midnight! On Tuesday, we even filmed a short scene on Tuesday at Foyles Bookstore on Charing Cross Rd. from 8am-10:30am.
I am very thankful to my crew who worked extremely hard and ensured that everything was done as efficient and professional as possible.
It was a very busy two days, but I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. It is an amazing feeling to actually be creating something that has been in my head for months.
I will be adding more details soon. In the meantime, here are a couple of pics from the Shoot on 10th November by Edgar Dubrovskiy:
I have made a diligent search over the past few years to find out why relatively few people have grabbed 
onto the obvious health benefits of the Vegan diet. It seems beyond my understanding why people, when faced with a choice of what to eat, would do anything else…like forming unhealthy eating habits. I eventually found that I must pull in the “horns of criticism” based upon my findings and its sobering reality. It turns out there are other, underlying and unseen, factors at work here that have affected the average person’s food choices. It appears that our Governments food policies have traditionally played a role in shifting from healthy family-farming techniques toward the larger crops of industrial farming. This was done with the well-intentioned idea of producing cheaper food that would be available to many more people. However, the net effect has been a widespread promotion of fast food products, made out of the cheapest food products in the market, and away from the garden-fresh whole foods that promote better health. We need to take a better look at our food policy and ask questions of those responsible for forming that policy. Granted, they can only do what is economically feasible to do.
But, “the times they are a-changin”, as Bob Dylan would have us understand. Yes indeed, the price of oil is fluctuating wildly and that has placed enormous pressure on industrial-farmed food prices. You can safely assume that your food prices are going up, even while food-borne health risks intensify and nutrition suffers, when agribusiness-as-usual continues. Are there any reasonable alternatives? Yes, I believe there are a few answers to these difficult questions. One answer lies with using less petroleum to produce food. 
My opinions are based on the great news delivered by Michael Pollan in a recent NPR radio interview. Mr. Pollan is the author of books including, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: a Natural History of Four Meals”, and his “In Defense of Food: an Eaters Manifesto”. He brings his strong credentials to this latest interview and tackles these difficult questions.
Michael Pollan presented an “Open Letter” to both candidates for the 2008 presidency, which was published by The New York Times Magazine on October 12, 2008. NPR radio interviewed Mr. Pollan based on the superb and informative content of that letter on October 23, 2008. If you missed that interview, you can find it at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95896389. In the interview he makes a compelling argument for the reduction of petroleum used in farm operations. He also insists that more can be done by government by redirecting their crop subsidies to farmers that will use traditional farming techniques. This includes rotating crops, introducing farm animals back onto the farm (away from mega food-farming pens) and using cover crops (later tilled into the soil for fertilizer) between growing seasons. Each of these techniques have been wisely used before the advent of large industrial farming, which helped cut the farmers costs and required less petroleum to farm. Farmers faced with rising oil prices may find it becomes a matter of farm survival. Additionally, he suggests that buying food locally can save on transportation costs. He documents how these techniques can make crops safer, cheaper and more eco-friendly…all music to my ears. I highly recommend listening to the interview. I wonder what the winning candidate will think when he reads his “open letter” from Mr. Pollan?
I have recently received tons of emails this week asking some tough questions about the blog and why I haven’t posted some of the more interesting emails from the readers. OK, it would be more accurate to say that I received several emails with questions. Well, there were exactly three…but all three deserve some straight-talking answers. I thought I would break from my usual fare and let the readers sit in on a little Q&A from this weeks email. So here we go:
Q: “Ryan, I thought the blog was going to be about filmmaking, and include interesting news for other Vegans and those people who are concerned about diet/health? I don’t see much about your films. Why haven’t you posted some of the more interesting emails you get? You seem to be all over the place with that blog. What is going on?”
-My Mom
A: Mom, you need to give these things more time. Right now I am very busy making the short film I have named “Vegan Love”, it is going just fine, we are having a great time, and it should be finished next month. I will call you later and explain the other things.
Q: “Son, are you eating ok…you turned into an awful picky eater? Why isn’t your film out yet, is there a problem? How come your ‘donations received’ has been stuck at 22% of your goal for so long? No takers? What is going on?”
-My Dad
A: Dad, I have been Vegan for about 6 years now. The film will be out next month. You have no room to talk…you have never donated to anything in your life. I will call soon and tell you everything, I promise.
Q: “My dog “Lenny” disappeared 3 days ago in the Chicago bus station area of downtown. He is a very cute, short-haired terrier with one blue eye and one brown eye. I was wondering if you could ask your readers to help find him or email you with any clues about his disappearance. Then you could forward them to me.
-Slim Phillips (Chicago Slim)
A: Slim, I would be happy to pass that on to my readers. You always want to try the dog pound first, then post signs on the telephone poles asking for people’s help.
NOW, on to other news….
It really depends upon whom you ask. Ask most vegans, or any health-conscious advocate, and the answer will be a resounding “yes”. That is because they have learned to appreciate the increased nutritional values, better tasting food and other benefits of knowing where their food has come from. Some people are very passionate about saving their seeds. Seeds from past generations of farmers (heirloom seeds) have been passed down through family farms to preserve the preferences that they have in their own food. Those choices include benefits like fewer chemicals used in food production, food naturally ripened to suit their tastes and raising fresh/live vegetables that have been proven to maximize nutrition. We should also mention the important benefits of watching things grow, the self-satisfaction of accomplishing something with your two hands, the fruits of physical labor and arriving at a consistent/fully predictable crop (unlike hybrid varieties)…to name a few. Please look at Fedco’s website for a few other reasons to save se
eds.
On the other hand, six companies, DuPont, Mitsui, Monsanto, Syngent, Aventis, and Dow control 98 percent of the world’s seeds. They have gobbled up most of the small generational seed companies and have genetically modified numerous seeds for which they have received government patents. Those patents are registered with world governments to control the availability of the seeds, and thus, the production from those seeds. Some call it a conspiracy…they call it good business. To get an idea of the number of food varieties they control, look at the seeds from one recent Monsanto acquisition here.. Before it was acquired by Monsanto, Seminis eliminated 2,000 varieties of seeds from its inventory. These were the open-pollinated types that were not genetically modified, thus not as profitable. So what’s the problem with leaving the world’s food supply in the hands of a few large agribusinesses? Well, there IS that one little matter that I call; “the squeeze” — more commonly known as the “profit margin”. This would only be a problem if these companies prioritized their profits above consumer benefits…in this case, the consumer’s health. In fairness, Monsanto claims to have made more food available to more people through its’ heavy chemical sales to modern farmers. But, critics warn that problems from a food supply monopoly, chemically-induced health concerns and aggressive patent supervision (in the form of lawsuits that have ruined small farmers) does not speak well of these large companies.
Seeds are the ultimate source for all of our food. It would be impossible to describe how important they are to our survival in writing this short blog article. It is also difficult to sort through the various arguments made for and against the methods for growing. One thing seems certain about the supplies of seeds worldwide…the older varieties are being lost. I would encourage everyone to look further into this seed argument, and be the judge for you. That would include the radical act of trying to grow some of your own food. You can gather seeds from your own garden each year and reuse them to personalize your crop. One of the healthiest food supplies in the world could come from your own back yard. There are still a few generational seed banks if that is your preference. You can get a catalog from “heirloom” seed suppliers like Baker Creek Seed Company. Owner, Jere Gettle, tells us more here.
