FOOD, Inc (2009)

My wife and I knew what we were getting into when we chose to see “Food, Inc.” this afternoon. She has read several books by Michael Pollan, and I have seen interviews with him and researched food production in order to add relevance to my environmental science class that I teach at a culinary school. So, please understand that when I say that I was under whelmed by the content of the film, it is not because the information was interesting or engaging, but that it did not have anything new for me as a viewer. Nevertheless, the film was interesting, horrifying, and heart breaking.

“Food, Inc.” sets out to lift the veil on food production. Do you know where everything in your kitchen came from, how it’s produced, and how far it has to travel before it reaches your favorite supermarket? If you don’t, you might be surprised to know that food travels, on average more than 1,000 miles before it reaches the grocery store. The system that provides fresh fruit to Minnesota in the dead of winter is a system that requires huge amounts of fossil fuel to sustain.

Beyond fossil fuel and America’s dependence on foreign oil to keep our food system lubricated, there are other costs involved, such as, abuses of human labor, disease, unsustainable monocultures, regardless of your view on the ethic treatment of nonhumans. “Food, Inc.” spends little to no time on the ethical treatment of animals. There are a few scenes of industrial feedlots and chicken coops, but ultimately the movie was trying to appeal to the human fear of disease. It is not healthy for the animals that we eat to walk around in their own feces or to force upon them a diet of cheaply produced grain that they were not meant.

I expected organics to play a role in the film as a solution to some of what is wrong with our current food production methods, and they did. However, it was interesting to see just how many large companies are scrambling to obtain a piece of the organic market. Wal-Mart, one of the few corporate giants that willingly participated in the film, made it clear that they will try to supply what the consumer demands. “Food, Inc.” went so far as to say that Wal-Mart, most likely put the final nail in the coffin of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH). If this is true, go Wal-Mart!

Including Wal-Mart in a documentary on food in a positive light was not the only surprise. I knew that the companies that produce our food have a strong legal hold on what can and cannot be said about their products, but I did not know just how strong or enforce able those laws are. Several people were interviewed about food laws were fearful of the repercussions. Not everyone has enough money to fight the felony charges for slandering food like Oprah. Laws that put a limit on free speech make me question my county’s greatness, which brings to why our country is the best in the world: consumers control demand.

The lasting message of the movie is a simple one. Each and every time the scanner at the checkout lane beeps, you and I are casting votes. We are voting for foods that we want to be produced and sold in our grocery stores. If a company as large as Wal-Mart is still sensitive to the desire of its customers, there is hope. However, we need to know what we are voting on when we shop. We need a better information system so that consumers can make better-informed choices. We need to know where our food is produced, how it is being produced, and what is in it. Armed with the good information, we can accurately and effectively vote on food products that we what to survive the market and which one we want to see fail.

“Food, Inc.” is an important movie, one that shouldn’t play in movie theaters where it will only reach the interested and already convinced, but it should be run on television during primetime.

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Lastly, an apology to my friends over at Attack of the Movie Watchers for posting this movie review here instead of there. I enjoyed posting reviews of moves on that site, but it is just not working out. Sorry.