HomeNews/Essays Food, Inc. - A Documentary Film About the Irresponsibility of Industrialized Agriculture
Food, Inc. - A Documentary Film About the Irresponsibility of Industrialized Agriculture
by Robert Kenner
22 June 2009
Editor's note: There are clear advantages of sustainability and biological precedence of vegan diets compared to omnivore diets. We must think outside the pseudo-normal modern industrialized diet as well as the industrial infrastructure that supports it. We wonder if the filmmakers understand the implications of avoiding the topic of diet. Consider that 80% of the destructive soybean production in South America goes to livestock feed for Europe and Asia. The production of food must be sustainable to survive; resource depletion and unsustainable diets are pathological. Act eco-logically: primates eat fruit, veggies and nuts.
Introduction (from www.foodincmovie.com)
In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.
View the Food, Inc. trailer
Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield's Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms' Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising—and often shocking truths—about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.
A transcript of information items from the trailer:
The way we eat has changed more in the last fifty years than in the previous ten thousand.
The modern supermarket has, on average, 47,000 products.
The industry doesn't want you to know the truth about what you're eating because if you knew, you might not want to eat it.
Eric Schlosser, Author, Fast Food Nation: "We've never had food companies this powerful in our history."
Everything we've done in modern agriculture, is to grow it faster, fatter, bigger, cheaper.
If you can grow a chicken in 49 days why would you want one you gotta grow in three months?
When you go through the supermarket, there is an illusion of diversity.
So much of our industrial food, turns out to be rearrangements of corn.
America's food industry is making a killing... and its making us sick, but you have the power to turn the tables.
Corn products are used in ketchup, cheese, Twinkies, batteries, peanut butter...
Sometimes you look at a vegetable and say, okay, well, you can get two hamburgers for the same price.
They have managed to make it against the law to criticize their products.
Michael Pollan, Author, The Omnivore's Dilemma: "There is an effort to make it illegal to publish a photo of any industrial food operation".
I find it incredible that the FDA wants to allow the sale of meat from cloned animals without any labeling.
Peanut butter contaminated with Salmonella.
E. Coli has been found in spinach, apple juice...
"Smells like money to me!"
The average consumer does not feel very powerful. Its the exact opposite.
When we run an item past the supermarket scanner, we're voting, whether local or not, organic or not.
Look at the tobacco industry. The battle against tobacco is a perfect model of how an industry's irresponsible behavior can be changed.
“More than a terrific movie -- it's an important one" -- Own Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly.
"The film I have always been waiting for" -- Alice Waters
Imagine what it would be if as a national policy the idea would be to have such nutritionally dense food that people actually felt better, had more energy, and didn't get sick as much.
People have got to start demanding good wholesome food of us, and we'll deliver, I promise you.
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Some articles are published under Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. See Fair Use Notice for more information.
Editor's note: There are clear advantages of sustainability and biological precedence of vegan diets compared to omnivore diets.
We must think outside the pseudo-normal modern industrialized diet as well as the industrial infrastructure that supports it. We wonder if the filmmakers understand the implications of avoiding the topic of diet. Consider that 80% of the destructive soybean production in South America goes to livestock feed for Europe and Asia. The production of food must be sustainable to survive; resource depletion and unsustainable diets are pathological. Act eco-logically: primates eat fruit, veggies and nuts.
Introduction (from www.foodincmovie.com)
The way we eat has changed more in the last fifty years than in the previous ten thousand.
When you go through the supermarket, there is an illusion of diversity.
They have managed to make it against the law to criticize their products.
The average consumer does not feel very powerful. Its the exact opposite.
People have got to start demanding good wholesome food of us, and we'll deliver, I promise you.
