Food, Inc. Just See It!

I'm devoting this blog entry to encourage all of you who have not seen the move, Food Inc., to see it!  I can't believe it took me this long to finally watch it!
If you haven't heard of the movie, here's a description directly from their website. 

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.


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.

I wouldn't be able to do justice to the actual content of the film.  I think it's best to see it for yourself and take it all in.  Here are a few "highlights" to hopefully spur your interest a little.  Nerdy me, of course, took some notes while watching so I could, as directly as possible, quote parts I felt were important to motivate you to watch.

"The industry doesn't want you to know the truth about what you're eating because you wouldn't eat it."

They don't want you to know that a small group of multinational corporations control our food supply.  It's a "world deliberately held from us." 

The goal of meat companies to to make a lot of food on a small amount of land and sell cheaply so you buy it.

One hamburger patty you buy might contain over 1,000 different cattle.

We want to pay the cheapest price for food, BUT the price to pay for that is big companies and a cheap labor force.  (By the way, all major corporations where intereviews were requested, declined ).

These large corporations use their POWER against farms, workers, and consumers.  We are deliberately kept in the dark about what we eat and what it does in our bodies.

While much of the information in the movie wasn't new to me, it was eye opening to actually see with my eyes things that I've only read about as far as meat packing plants, large cattle farms, treatment of poultry, etc...

This movie might come as a shock to you, if you are unfamiliar with a lot of the facts presented.  It might depress you, anger you a little, and hopefully above all, inspire change.  If it doesn't make you change the way you look at food and go shopping, I would be surprised.  Every small change you make after seeing the movie is a step in the right direction.  I've heard some people say they wanted to become a vegetarian after seeing the movie.  While I don't ever picture myself a vegetarian, I was certainly even more grateful for the small farms where we are able to purchase our meat. 

I hope that you can see beyond just the meat industry, to how only a few small companies, basically control almost all the foods you would typically buy at the supermarket.  How eating a bowl of cereal and milk or pulling into a drive through seems so innocent, and yet, how unhealthy it is and the sacrifice our nation's farmers have had to take.

Eating well does cost more.  I've said that before.  And while most of us are trying to spend less, food is one area where spending less has larger costs to our bodies and our world. 

If you've seen the movie, or see it in the future, please share your feelings!  And let others know about it.  The more you know, the more power you have to make decisions about what you eat!