B Murray is our randomly selected winner of the $25 gift card. Thanks everyone for your entries!

Have you seen Fast Food Nation? Read on for a chance to win a $25 gift card!

Did you make it to one of the 151 screenings of films about food shown in our Let’s Retake Our Plates Film Series? If so, we hope you enjoyed it and learned something! To wrap up our month of reviews, Lauren Craig reviews the Richard Linklater comedy Fast Food Nation.

I had to read this novel while in culinary school to set the scene for our in depth look at 21^st century consumerism and food choices. The book made a big impact on me, causing me to me think about my food choices and how I could make simple changes to be healthier and make less of an impact, to be more aware of my food choices. It also painted a much better picture of the grim reality our country faces when it comes to food, and that most of us are oblivious to our downward spiral. Read the rest of this entry »

Sue Swyt is our randomly selected winner of the $25 gift card. Thanks everyone for your entries!

Have you seen Soylent Green? Read on for a chance to win a $25 gift card!

Director Richard Fleischer imagines a time far far away when food is extinct!  This is the story of Soylent Green, one of the movies in our Let’s Retake Our Plates Film Series. Movie buffs and team members David Lannon, Ashley Gibbons and Robin Rogison team up to review this 1970′s sci-fi movie.

David Lannon is the President of our Northern California Region of Whole Foods Market. He is a film buff and can help you win your Oscar Pool. Here’s his take:

The year is  2022!  (not so very far away!)  Natural food like fruits, vegetables, and meat are now extinct. Global warming has overheated the earth (all the way back in 1973 they had figured this out!) and New York City has 40 million starving people. The only way they survive is with water rations and eating a mysterious food called Soylent. A detective (Charlton Heston)  investigates the murder of the president (Joseph Cotton)  of the Soylent company. What is in Soylent Green? Charlton Heston was the go-to action star in the late 60’s to early 70’s for these dystopian visions like  Planet of the Apes and  Omega Man. He co-stars with Edward G. Robinson (they were also in The Ten Commandments together). Edward G. Robinson died shortly after the completion of the film.  This film was directed by Richard Fleischer, who also directed Fantastic Voyage one of the best sci-fi movies ever. Read the rest of this entry »

Belinda Gross is our randomly selected winner of the $25 gift card. Thanks everyone for your entries!

Have you watched The Garden? Read on for a chance to win a $25 gift card.

151 films about food shown in 30 days… that’s what the Let’s Retake Our Plates Film Series is all about.  Find a showing of one of these films in your area.

Ashley Gibbons, Marketing Supervisor at our Arroyo store in Pasadena loves eating food other people have cooked at home. When left to her own devices however, a monstrous salad and Murphy’s Stout usually hit the spot. Here’s her review of The Garden:

After the riots in 1992, the city of Los Angeles gave the community of South Central 14 acres of land to create a healing garden. And it prospered, and healed, and was the largest urban farm in the country. And then the city bulldozed it. For the group of farmers, who were mostly immigrants of Latin America, this was one more time that government officials were intruding, and silencing them. But this time, they organized, they fought, they stuck together to hold on to their rights. Read the rest of this entry »

Jackie Shibles is our randomly selected winner of the $25 gift card. Thanks everyone for your entries!

Have you seen No Impact Man?  Read on for a chance to win a $25 gift card!

Earth Month officially starts today and in honor of our Let’s Retake Our Plates Film Series, we asked film buff Team Members to review some of the films being shown. Check out the local listings of films in your area.

Team Member Lauren Craig, Associate Marketing Coordinator for our Rocky Mountain region, is a chef at heart. She loves to read about food, eat from her garden and experiment with new and exciting flavors. Here’s what she thought of No Impact Man.

To set out on the quest that Colin Beavan did for a year seems impossible, as does being his resistant wife amidst the dramatic changes. In No Impact Man, we get to see a family transform their lives for a year in an effort to make as little impact on the planet as possible. I think the movie finds a good balance between calling attention to our often high maintenance lifestyles and developing a good, humorous family story.  It made me examine my own life to see how I could make simple changes to move toward a more balanced eco-lifestyle, and it also made me realize how little I have done to live a life where I make a small environmental footprint, compared to all that is possible.  Then again, I don’t have the luxury of living in downtown New York, where you can easily get around and where local organic farm stands are a dime a dozen. Read the rest of this entry »

Earth Month is just around the corner and we are celebrating by hosting our very first company-wide film series! We’ll be featuring films that show the connection between the food we eat and its impact on the environment. Our food choices matter and each of us should feel empowered to make informed decisions.

Different cities are doing things a bit differently, so to find info on a film series near you, check out Let’s Retake Our Plate Film Series.

Giveaway Alert: Starting next Thursday and continuing throughout Earth Month (that means April!), we’ll be featuring team member reviews of select films that are part of the film series. Readers, we’d love to hear what you have to say about these films too! Check back each Thursday in April to share your film review with us in the comments for a chance to win a $25 gift card. (Not on this post, though. The contest starts on April 1st!) Read the rest of this entry »