Food Inc - Robert Kenner

Food Inc. is a movie you don’t want to see. See it anyway. I didn’t want to see it either. I’ve seen a lot of movies like it, and they don’t make me happy. They make me angry. But I keep seeing them, because I want to know what they have to tell me, and I want to tell you about them, because the more time passes, the less we seem to know about the world we live in. The celebrity-obsessed, partisan-baiting American news media is of little help; they’d rather tell a story about Kate Gosselin or stage a screaming match between ideologues, because more people will watch that than a story about how the food industry is strangling us. It’s not sexy. And Glenn Beck isn’t angry about it.

Sicko, Super Size Me, and Maxed Out are movies like it. They have different subjects, but they’re all about the same thing: money. “Greed is good,” said Gordon Gekko, who if he were real would be running a government regulatory agency by now, turning all that healthy greed into national policy.

This stuff doesn’t require deep penetrating analysis; you open the door, and there it is; from medicine, to food, to corporations devoted entirely to the process and exchange of money — at the highest levels of corporate power, it’s a racket. And I’m sick to death of free-market fundamentalists blaming the government for getting in our way, when it’s government deregulation and relaxed oversight that hurts us. I use the word “fundamentalists” deliberately; by those on the far right of the political divide, capitalism has been warped into a secular religion. The Market will solve our problems as long as we let it, and as long as we don’t ask questions or demand accountability, because it slows down progress.

See this movie. Please see this movie. I don’t want to be alone in knowing these things.

Food Inc. details how the food industry has radically changed in the last half century, and how those changes are damaging our health and our planet. I feared this would be a scared-straight documentary, guilt-tripping consumers into buying free range, whole grain, granola wheat germ because it makes the animals happier. I’ve always found that kind of argument overly simplistic and strangely hypocritical. If we anthropomorphize the animals we eat, shouldn’t we, you know, stop eating them?

This is not such a film. Yes, it describes farming methods that make the animals happier before they become our food, but those methods are also safer for workers and consumers, introduce fewer toxic chemicals into our food supply, consume fewer fossil fuels, and promote a self-sustaining environment. Food Inc. does not wish to indict consumers for our choices. It points its finger at the food industry for taking our choices away.

To get the complete picture, see the movie, but here are some of the pertinent points:

• The factory system of food production has made the food industry faster and cheaper, but it imposes an unnatural diet and lifestyle on animals that promotes the growth of food-borne diseases like salmonella and E. coli.
• A revolving door of power and influence results in government agencies being infiltrated by food executives and lobbyists. As an inevitable consequence, laws protecting workers and consumers have been gutted, laws protecting corporate interests have been established, and agencies like the FDA have been stripped of much of their regulatory authority.
• It is illegal in many instances to criticize food products, and corporations can bury you with lawsuits. Just ask Oprah.
• Chicken farmers are poorly paid by poultry corporations and are kept in line because their business costs force them into debt.
• Illegal, non-union laborers are brought in from Mexico; law enforcement cracks down on the exploited immigrants, but does nothing about the multimillion-dollar companies that brought them across the border.
• Income-level is one of the best indicators of obesity in this country. When a Happy Meal costs less than a broccoli spear, the working poor aren’t making poor health choices, the choices are being made for them.
• Our government heavily subsidizes corn production, which is chemically altered into any number of substances, including the ubiquitous high fructose corn syrup; you know all those sugary soft drinks we complain kids drink too much of? Our tax dollars pay to make it.

In the end we feel quite powerless to stop it. Those of us with limited means cannot afford to exclusively buy organic food, and as organic companies are bought by the larger, offending corporations it’s unclear whether those healthy alternatives will retain their nutritional or ethical integrity. If there’s one thing Food Inc. lacks, it’s a clear plan of action for consumers. Tips are scrawled on the screen during the end credits: buy food that is in season, shop at farmers’ markets, eat organic, support legislation that protects consumers and regulates businesses, and so on. That’s all well and good, but it might be cold comfort to the parents profiled in the film who feed their children fast food because they work exhausting hours and still can’t afford fruit or vegetables.

As I write this I’m still not sure how much power I have to affect change — there’s high fructose corn syrup in my Raisin Bran! — but if nothing else, I’ve seen this movie, can tell you about it, and ask you to visit the website to learn more:

If nothing else, now I know, and hopefully so will you.

A trailer of this controversial documentary