I think at the time I had to restrain myself from asking if she also banned her kids from hearing the story of the feeding on the 5000 in Sunday school, but it was hard not to think about her objection a few months later as I read The Goblet of Fire and its subplot about house elves. As it revealed, food does not magically appear on the tables at Hogwarts, it is prepared by hardworking elves who in the wizarding world are generally kept as slaves. House elves have been so trained to subservience that most of them believe their identity is derived from serving their wizard master. In the books, Hermione commits herself to working for rights and fair pay for house elves. Of course her efforts are ruthlessly mocked by not only her classmates at Hogwarts, but by many readers of the books who found the “rights for elves” subplot to be a silly distraction from the real story.

I know that back in 2000, thinking about the plight of the people who worked to provide me with food was not something I had ever done. Recently out of college, I was quickly learning the hard work required to make my own meals. But at the time the food I bought at the grocery store could have magically appeared on the shelves for all I knew. I might in saying grace thank God for the food and the hands that prepared it, but that never extended beyond the kitchen to those who grew the food or did the backbreaking work of picking the produce. My perspective has changed tremendously over the past 12 years, as I now do my best to be aware of where my food comes from and the conditions faced by the workers who grow it. Sadly, the plight of the poor, mostly immigrant workers who grow our food is uncomfortably similar to that of house elves in the Harry Potter universe. Also similar is the likelihood that one will be mocked if one dares to acknowledge those workers or advocate for their rights.

Thankfully recent films like Food, Inc. and Fast Food Nation have forced people to at least be aware that our food doesn’t magically appear in the grocery store and that the people who grow and process our food are generally treated poorly. But people don’t want to know about such things – because knowledge makes them feel like they may have to do something to change things. If animals are being abused in factory farms and the immigrants who work in those places are treated like animals, it makes it difficult to sit down to enjoy a feast much less mindlessly consume the cheap food such a system produces. So food companies are helping people return to states of ignorance through expensive propaganda campaigns that while acknowledging that our food comes from somewhere do so by presenting idyllic images of family farms without a poor worker or abused animal in sight. While the “happy cows come from California” was perhaps the most extreme example of this sort of misdirection in advertising, McDonald’s proud of our suppliers series is the most recent. If the McDonald’s ads are to be believed, their food comes from dreamlands that look deceiving similar to the average person’s idea of the pastoral landscape of heaven. I don’t doubt that these suppliers work for McDonald’s in some fashion, but Harry Potter seems to do a better job representing reality than these ads. Countless reports reveal the harsh conditions faced by those that grow food for fast food companies, reports that places like McDonalds are now trying to undermine with these ads. But in truth many people would rather believe the lie they’re selling than have to change their eating habits or take the unpopular path of advocating for worker’s rights. As The Meatrix shorts so brilliantly reveal, few people want to take the red pill and know the truth about where our food comes from.

As a bumper sticker on my car says, “the truth will set you free but first it will make you angry.” The McDonald’s ads are constructed to not only hide the truth, but to keep people from ever getting angry. Angry people change the world and the world doesn’t want to be changed. I agree with that mom at the Harry Potter debate, teaching our kids that food appears from some magic place (be that the grocery store or the idyllic family farm from the propaganda images) does them a disservice. Life isn’t convenient or easy despite what the fast food companies would like us to believe and problems don’t magically disappear just because we would rather not deal with them. So when we say grace we need to extend that thanks to all those who worked hard, often with barely any pay, to bring us that food. And, like Hermione, we need to advocate for and embody change – even when it’s unpopular or difficult. But whatever we do, we need to at least embrace the truth instead of being placated with lies.

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.

But watching these commercials from 20-50 years ago was disturbing. They were so far fetched, it is hard to believe that anyone ever thought that they might be persuasive in any way. There was one about fortified white bread that was presented as a documentary – explaining that fortified bread has improved nutrition so that children who eat white bread are smarter and better athletes. Or the McDonald's commercials presenting a parade of uniformed, pretty, white women singing about how much they love serving a stereotypical small town. It was all about these companies providing helpful services that will improve our lives. Well, I don't think anyone is stupid enough to believe that processed junk food has improved anyone's life. And as Food Inc. shows, that sort of food is actually destroying our health, our environment, and our country.

So it was amusing to then pay attention to the junk food commercials I encountered over the next few days (which, btw, are all the food commercials, natural, healthy foods don't have advertising budgets). Every single commercial was about treating ourselves – giving ourselves the break we deserve. No veiled lies to get us to believe that processed junk helps people, but simply the appeal to self-centered "it's all about me" mentality. And I know how stupid it is to complain about commercials, but they have big money going into determining what people want to hear. Forget building community, or improving lives – that's so 1978. Now its all about self-centeredness.

It's hard not to get cynical when confronted with that attitude. There are people I start discussing my upcoming book on justice with, and I get a blank look in reply. I've even had people ask, "why should caring about the needs of others be my concern?" Or I stumbled across this book recently, which decries the evils of environmentalists who are "demanding that you turn down your thermostat, stop driving your car, or engage in some other senseless act of self-denial." Apparently trying to save the earth must be fought because it threatens "the entire American way of life" and envisions for us "a grim future marked by endless privation." Well, duh, of course it does. But apparently for some it is far better to be selfish jerks than to have to give up anything to help others. I know this isn't widespread, but some days it sure feels that way.

But maybe 20-30 years from now people will watch our commercials and ask "how could people be so selfish and stupid."