Movie Review: Food, Inc.
"The industry doesn't want you to know the truth about what you are eating, because if you knew you might not want to eat it " – Food, Inc.
I recently headed out to a sold-out showing of the documentary Food, Inc. at Austin's own Alamo Drafthouse. Generally, getting dinner and drinks along with my movie is my favorite "night out" activity, but in watching a film which critically examines our industrial food system, it was a bit strange. Granted, all around me I heard orders for veggie burgers and the local organic veggie platter and there wasn't a high fructose corn syrup soda to be seen, but I was glad to have finished my (veggie) burger by the time the previews ended. Although I have sought to inform myself about the injustices in our modern food system, Food, Inc., presents the most comprehensive and disturbing summary of that system I have seen yet. It is a necessary film for basically anyone who eats food.
A film which took three years to make with a large part of its budget going to pay the legal fees defending itself against lawsuits from the industrial food companies, Food, Inc. takes a hard look at how corporations now control the production of our food, resulting in generally unhealthy, environmentally hazardous, and completely unsustainable food that in truth threatens the very well-being of our country. From the animals that are confined in inhumane cages, left to stand in their own mire, fed unnatural diets and cocktails of drugs and hormones to the impoverished workers who are treated with the same disrespect this system has sacrificed the respect and well-being of living creatures and people for the sake of profit. But Food Inc. doesn't just stop with detailing those atrocities, it delves into the problems with government subsidies and the ways the fearmongering enforcement of genetically modified food copyrights are destroying the small farmer. People are being hurt by this industrial food system that dumps chemicals into our environment with reckless abandon and produces unnatural and unhealthy food for our consumption.
I appreciated though how Food, Inc. didn't simply present the issues with industrial food as a clear cut, good vs. evil scenario. It acknowledged that poor workers have no choice but to take jobs on the factory farms, and that farmers have no choice but to give into the pressure to work with the huge industries. Those industries have so altered our nation's laws and have so many lawyers working for them, that any farmer who resists joining their ranks finds themselves out of work at best, and sued penniless for simply encouraging people to not buy the big company's products. The farmers and workers are desperate for a better system where real freedom and healthy standards exist, but for now they have to work with what they've got.
Food, Inc. also explores why for the average working class family in America, buying healthy food isn't an option. It is far cheaper to buy the cheeseburger from the drive-thru dollar menu than it is to buy fruit or vegetables. That is because everything in that cheeseburger comes from corn which our government subsidizes so much that farmers can sell it below the cost of production. So the poor American eats the extremely unhealthy food because it is cheaper. But the rising epidemic of type 2 diabetes shows the hidden cost of that value meal. The poor in our country – those with no health or job insurance – are getting sick at alarming rates due to the unhealthy cheap food they eat. This is injustice of the highest extreme – but it's all part of our industrial food system. It's a complicated system that gives us unhealthy, unsustainable food that disrespects the earth, animals, and people all in the name of making the greatest profit for a handful of corporations. This is the story of the food we eat every day.
But in truth, I have a lot of friends who don't want to know anything about their food. They shelter their kids from knowing the whole "circle of life" stuff, but also tell me point blank that they don't want to know the story behind their food. In their mind, what they don't know won't hurt them. Unfortunately, as Food Inc. shows, that isn't always the case. I wasn't expecting this film to be a tear-jerker, but hearing a mom talk about how her toddler son ate a hamburger and was dead in 12 days had me weeping. This mom, was the typical middle-American Republican mom on vacation, but the hamburger they bought their son on the way home was tainted with e. coli 0157:H7, a deadly antibiotic resistant bacteria common in factory farmed cows. These cows, fed unnatural diets of corn develop diseases (like e.coli) and are treated regularly with antibiotics, which leads to drug-resistant strains like this one. This mom has become the unlikely activist for food safety. The meat company who sent out the tainted meat knew it was tainted and didn't issue a recall until two weeks after her son was dead. As she puts it, all she wants is an apology from the company and a guarantee that they are doing everything possible to prevent it from ever happening again. Instead she finds the companies fighting for more lax food safety laws and herself under threat of a lawsuit under the "veggie libel" laws for discouraging people to buy meat products. Yeah, look up these laws – express fears about the safety of your food and you could be sued for causing these companies loss of revenue. So much for free speech, much less safe food. It's hard to know the truth if you are not allowed to talk about it.
But for all the doom and gloom that Food, Inc. rightly covers, I was grateful that it didn't end the story there. Instead of throwing up it's arms and admitting defeat or even insisting that we all go join some intentional community/ hippie commune immediately, Food, Inc. details the practical ways we can start changing the system from within. It profiles the organic dairy farmers who although they had boycotted Wal-Mart all their lives, were now selling their product to the them. Some may call them sell outs, and they are under no illusion that Wal-Mart jumped on the organic bandwagon out of the goodness of their hearts, but to get a store with a distribution as huge as Wal-Marts means significant amounts of pesticides, fertilizers, and antibiotics are kept from polluting our ecosystem. That's a really big deal, and one of the main reason to buy organic to anyway. Working within the system, even if it is with Wal-Mart, makes progress happen faster and on a much larger scale. Similarly, the movie concludes with the reminder that we can each make a difference every time we go to the store. The point isn't to abandon the food system, or stop buying food, but to simply demand healthier, sustainable food. We can choose to vote with our pocketbooks for the type of food we want to support. Do we want to support the food that oppresses animals, workers, and the environment or the food that does its best to care for all those things? We have that choice, we just have to be willing to make it.
Food, Inc. opens across the US during Summer 2009. Check the Food, Inc. website to see if it is playing near you.
julieclawson(at)gmail(dot)com 
I saw Food Inc too, and Julie's rockin' review nails it. Thanks, Julie.
Thanks for writing such an informative review. I plan to see the movie if it ever makes it to my neck of the woods. I've been reading "In Defense of Food" this summer and it has really opened my eyes. Now that I started paying attention, I have realized that artificial sweeteners and preservatives taste bitter to me. The more real food I eat, the more distasteful the fake food becomes. Now we buy organic and unprocessed as much as possible.
Great review Julie! I'll be sure to see it, and I sent a Twitter directing people to your review. Thanks!
Hi Julie,
I come to you through twitter. Thanks for the add. Seven years ago, I was told that I had endometreosis and more than likely, wouldn't be able to have children. Through my research about endometreosis, I found that the amount of cases of infertility have risen by over 50%. Now while I am not opposed to the medical model, I do believe that as American's, we tend to treat symptoms instead of causes. Example: In Europe, it is illegal for manufacturers to use partially hydrogenated oil in their products. Why? Because it is well known that partially hydrogenated oil causes heart disease. In America, the ingredient is left in the food and worried about once the damage is done. Also contributing to the the rise in cost of medical care in my opinion (that is a soapbox for another day).
Anyway, in my quest to eliminate the cause of the problem and not just the symptom, I opted out of the suggested medical treatment which involved harsh synthetic hormones. I removed several things from my diet and began to treat the problem in more natural ways.
Now, two beautiful little girls later, as an average income middle class mother, I do find it difficult to find a balance between helping my family eat healthy and staying within our budget.
I also must admit that I frequently get overwhelmed with all dangers that are out there.. Chemicals in cleaners, BPAs in plastics, chemicals in sunscreens, and you name it that I sometimes wish that I didn't know the story behind it all.
But alas, I regress. I love my family too much to ignore these types of things. So, for now, until better laws are passed, (I'm still hopeful that they will be) I will do the best that I can do with what I have.
Thanks for this review, I will be seeing this movie.
Blessings,
Dana Ellis
Makes you realize that revamping our healthcare system will also mean taking on the agri-industry too. If we continue to eat ourselves sick, just putting a band-aid on it with health insurance isn't going to help. We need real food as defined by Micheal Pollan (In Defense of Food) – 5 ingredients and something that your great grandmother would recognize in the grocery stores.
Very interesting re: WalMart & organic food. WalMart can be a big force for good as well as ill. For example, a couple years ago they stopped selling incandescent light bulbs in favor of CFLs — huge news (check out http://tinyurl.com/ktcuw6). So I hope their organic food experiment goes well.
I will be looking out for this… thanks for the very informative review.
"Food, Inc. also explores why for the average working class family in America, buying healthy food isn’t an option. It is far cheaper to buy the cheeseburger from the drive-thru dollar menu than it is to buy fruit or vegetables… So the poor American eats the extremely unhealthy food because it is cheaper. But the rising epidemic of type 2 diabetes shows the hidden cost of that value meal."
This is so true, and it seems these days the rich are the only ones who can afford to be healthy and lean. Otherwise you don't have the luxury of time to cook healthier meals at home, or the money to select better, organic products. I like my junk food from time to time (as long as people stay informed on what they're really putting in their mouths), but it's scary when you think about how really, even though technically we have a "choice", so often the easiest, almost automatic thing for busy people with tight budgets to do is go straight to McDonalds.. and the visits just add up. I was fortunate enough to have enough money to eat fairly well, but I wonder how much damage university students wreck their health with all the cheap food they consume during their undergrad/grad school years.
You also just gotta wonder about the link between the increasingly unnatural way our food is produced and conditions like IBS– even if it isn't causational, it surely isn't helping. There's the hidden cost of our food right there… hundreds of visits to a doctor a year.
Hi Julie, Great post!
I was wondering if we could feature this post on our upcoming blogazine for our project: Sustainable Traditions. We of course would give you credit and a link back here.
If interested please let me know, otherwise feel free to ignore this request.
For more info on Sustainable Traditions check out our online community:
http://sustainabletraditions.ning.com/
-shalom!
Thanks for this comprehensive review. I'm extremely intrigued by the movie and eager to see it. I mentioned this to a good friend yesterday and he expressed his frustration as well, but in a completely different manner. He is a corn farmer in middle Ohio, and his perspective on the movie is very different. Maybe it is similar to a priest watchig a movie about the terrible abuse scandals in the RCC over the past few decades. Terrible yes, true for those stories sure, but an accurate (and unbiased) portrayal of everyone in the "industry"? No, not really.
I'd haven't seen the movie yet, but I plan to go with my farmer friend. He always helps me have a broader understaning of the complex issues you touched upon in this post and are uncovered in the movie. I'd encourage others to also try to see both sides.
Blessings -
It seems to me that the average farmer is as much a victim of the system as the rest of us. Does no good to blame them. It's not like there's much they can do about it, especially if they're an independent farmer trying to survive against the huge agribusiness corporations. Is your friend an independent farmer? If so, he's a dying breed and my sympathy goes out to him.
See "Food, Inc." for free! or just go to Chipotle . . . everyday. "Chipotle invites you to a FREE SCREENING of "Food, Inc." Find out where and when @ http://www.chipotle.com/#/flash/fwi_food-inc
Well said! As the mother of three children(15, 14 and 9)it was very telling that the day after I saw Food Inc. there was a beef recall from e. coli of 378,000 lbs of beef!
After being diagnosed and treated for breast cancer eight years ago at the age of 37 I was astounded to learn that I could prevent a recurrence by changing my diet.
Food Inc. is a hard pill to swallow and I encourage everyone to support it at the box office and keep up the blogging. The Food Inc website http://www.foodincmovie.com is asking for signatures to sign a petition for healthy school lunches. (Our local school lunch offers three types of cow's milk, including chocolate but no water because the federal government sees no nutrional value in water. Has to do with the industry funded food pyramid of course but that's another topic for another day.)
Thanks again Julie…
there are lots of cheap foods on the market that taste like crap but there are good quality ones too *
you can always buy cheap foods on any supermarket these days because food production is mechanized already .,:
I :love: this! I cant begin to describe the detail and care that must have went into this. This is a big
in my books!
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