Film and panel discussion: American Meat at Michigan Theater

The acclaimed new documentary American Meat chronicles America’s grassroots revolution in sustainable meat production. The film, an official selection of Food Day 2011, explains our current industrial meat system, and shows the feedlots and confinement operations, not through hidden cameras but through the eyes of the farmers who live and work there. The film then shifts to the burgeoning sustainable, local-food movement made up of farmers, food advocates, chefs and everyday folks who could change everything about the way meat reaches the American table. The film stars Joel Salatin, the legendary Virginia farmer who leads a movement of meat producers who raise their animals outdoors and without antibiotics.

The film frames the debate on whether sustainable meat production could ever meet the needs of consumers and showcases farmers who believe they can.

A panel discussion afterward will include the filmmaker, Graham Meriwether, who grew up in Ann Arbor; Lynn Henning, a Lenawee County farmer and winner of the 2010 Goldman Environmental Prize of $150,000 for her years-long fight against pollution from CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations); Kris Hirth, owner of Old Pine Farm of Manchester, a meat CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) featuring heritage breed and humanely raised animals; Karl Rosaen, the co-founder of Real Time Farms in Ann Arbor (realtimefarms.com), a national online food guide to let consumers know where to find farmers, markets and restaurants who grow and use fresh, sustainably raised food; Chef Alex Young of Zingerman’s Roadhouse Restaurant in Ann Arbor, who in 2011 was named the Best Chef in the Great Lakes Region by the James Beard Foundation, and who uses sustainable practices to grow vegetables and raise livestock at Cornman Farms in Dexter that supplies his restaurant. Events

Food event with a four-course meal at 5 p.m., Sat., Mar. 10 at Chef Alex Young’s Zingerman’s Roadhouse Restaurant, 2501 Jackson Rd., Ann Arbor followed by a discussion with Chef Alex and filmmaker Meriwether. American Meat Dinner at the Roadhouse. Sustainable farming is expanding exponentially as Americans learn more about their food and how to connect with local farmers. Here is a film that celebrates these farmers and, in an unbiased way, allows all farmers and food advocates to discuss solutions to our common challenges. Most importantly, the film provokes a spirited but constructive conversation about one of the most important issues in our lives -- our food.