The Meatrix is a clever animated short that explains how incredibly cruel, destructive and dangerous factory farming truly is. Even the recent over-hyped outbreak of swine flu has been linked to poorly managed factory farms in Mexico, that are actually owned by US Agribusiness giant Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest industrial pork producer. “Industrial farms are super-incubators for viruses,” said Bob Martin, former executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Animal Farm Production, and a vocal critic of “contained animal feeding operations.”
Louis Fox and Jonah Sachs, of Free Range Graphics, created the four minute film, which is a spoof on The Matrix science fiction movies. Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE), an organization that is committed to halting factory farms and promoting locally based sustainable agriculture, also provided background and research information for the movie. The filmmakers said that their decision to spoof The Matrix was based on the many similarities between the film and today’s horrific corporate system of agriculture.
The Meatrix II: Revolting
The Meatrix was the winner of the Film for Thought Award sponsored by Heifer International, a non-profit group that helps people to obtain a sustainable source of food and income. GRACE, Sustainable Table and Free Range Graphics have also released a much anticipated sequel to The Meatrix called The Meatrix II: Revolting. You may never look at a cheeseburger or a pork chop the same way again.
[...] many practical cooking tips and hands on advice, as well as an easy to understand overview of our diseased food system, and simple things that we all can do to change [...]