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Natalie Portman wants you to think about 'Eating Animals'
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Episode 18524
Listen 17:15
Natalie Portman wants you to think about 'Eating Animals'

On today's show: The actress produced and narrates the documentary, which is based on the book of the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer. She wants you to think twice about being a meat-eater; filmmaker Eugene Jarecki goes in search of the America that produced Elvis Presley.

Natalie Portman is the producer and narrator of the documentary, "Eating Animals."
Natalie Portman is the producer and narrator of the documentary, "Eating Animals."
(
TIZIANA FABI/AFP/Getty Images
)

Here's the lineup for today:

Natalie Portman wants you to think about 'Eating Animals'

(Starts at :40)

The new documentary, “Eating Animals,” is produced and narrated by actress Natalie Portman. The film raises some troubling questions about the people — and, more accurately, the conglomerates — who raise and grow most of the food that we eat. We would like to think that there’s a way for many people to essentially shop for farm-to-table food. But the vast majority of American meat and produce comes our way not from family farmers, but through sprawling corporations whose decisions are almost always governed by profitability. And if you really want to buy free-range eggs and meat from pigs and cattle who graze outdoors, it is not cheap.

Guest: Natalie Portman, producer/narrator of "Eating Animals"

Searching for Elvis and America

(Starts at 9:15)

In his documentary "The King," Eugene Jarecki explores the idea that Elvis Presley  is a metaphor for America — a once "beautiful vessel" of promise and talent who got out of control with his power, focused on money and consumption. The filmmaker talks about how Elvis was the embodiment of the American Dream when he went from a poor country boy to a pop culture phenomenon whose uncomfortable relationship with black America also mirrors that of the nation's.

Guest: Eugene Jarecki, director of "The King"