"Milk In the Land: Ballad of an American Drink," a documentary about the ubiquitous white beverage, has shown at several film festivals across the U.S. and is now hitting Philly. Directors Ariana Gerstein and Monteith McCollum show us the ins and outs of the cow's milk industry, revealing its interesting past. But don't expect a thoughtful retrospective on the Great American Drink - this film unearths often grimace-inducing secrets about milk, questions its nutritional value, and spotlights the milk extraction process in farms run by agribusiness corporations.The film features several theatrical elements, including testimonials by industry professionals and stop-motion animation, to explore the drink inside and out. It has been called "fascinating" by some critics, but one FilmCAN reviewer was pretty disappointed, saying the film lacked detail and that the interviewees provided stuttered, unconvincing arguments.
Despite the occasional bad review, Milk sounds pretty worthwhile - similar to the string of string of recent documentaries on the underbelly of the food industry, even if the film itself isn't the best, you'll undoubtedly walk out of the theater with some newfound food and business knowledge under your belt.
Although many consumers are concerned with the standard of living of the cows, one of the primary reasons that people buy organic milk is because they are concerned about drinking milk from cows that have been treated with hormones, specifically the growth hormone rBST. The hormone has been in use since 1993 and estimates say that about 22% of cows are regularly treated with it. Only about 3% of the milk market is covered by organic milk and, due to demand and the higher operating costs of organic farms, organic milk can cost consumers twice as much as conventional milk.
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