Here are two facts about myself I’m going to share with you, our loyal loyal fans, one pretty obvious and one lesser known. Fact the first…I am a fan of food. I don’t just like to eat per se but I like to experience and try new foods. I am a foodie if you will, but I am in no way a food snob. This is the obvious fact as evidenced by my ever expanding waistline. The other fact is that while I enjoy documentaries, I try not to watch ones that have a political undertone since I get all fired up about them. I don’t really watch the news for that same reason. Politics are bad for my mental health. So it was with some slight trepidation that I watched “Food, Inc.”
Let me start off by saying that you should never trust a documentarian. They usually seem to have an agenda and it often times seeps into the film itself. So with that in mind, “Food, Inc.” is a film about the way we eat. Or more correctly, the way our food is produced and packaged and brought to the consumer. It is a fascinating subject because it is something that effects every person in the country but it is a topic that most of us never stop to consider. The film touches on many aspects of the food industry: the industrialization of farming and the changes to reality that it has brought to our farming communities, both physically and economically; the virus like spread of corn into all of the products we eat which is often not immediately apparent to consumers; and the genetic tampering and short-cuts the food industry has taken to give the consumer what it wants at the cost of nutrition and, as a consequence, our health. These points are presented well and are thought provoking.
But the real revelation of the film, at least for me, was the depiction of the food industry as a shadowy and powerful cabal in the US government. According to the film, they have positioned themselves into power by exempting themselves from trust laws, keeping their operations a strictly guarded secret, and paying low wages to employees who work in dangerous and filthy environments. All of this leads to risks to the health of the public at large. What is truly shocking, if true, is how the food industry has effectively made the USDA and FDA powerless to regulate and enforce sanctions on them. Realizing that they have made organizations that are meant to protect us toothless in the pursuit of capitalism is, well, part of what gets me all fired up and why I try to avoid these things.
The above is contrasted by images of the local farmer, the organic grower, companies that care about the well being of the public and the environment. So the message is to eat local, eat organic, eat seasonal, stop The Man. (By the way, this is spelled out explicitly in an interminable “you-should-do-this” sequence at the end.) And that is my main problem with the film. I understand they are trying to get a message across. But they only pay lip service to the negatives, if at all. For one, the film does touch on the expense of eating organic and local yet it is a short segment and incomplete at that. The fact of the matter is that it is significantly more expensive to buy organic and local products. Many families simply can’t afford to do this. The film seems to suggest that this is also the doing of the food industry. While the industry does play a part, the flip side is not significantly explored. Also, zero mention is made (from what I recall) of what organic produce does to the population of the world at large. I have heard jokes told that for every “progressive” yuppie enjoying their organic apple, 100 people are dying of starvation in the third world. The simple fact is…if all we produced was local and organic, we couldn’t support the worlds population. Who knows if we could even support our own. While it is all well and good to say it is better for your health, I’m sure those starving appreciate your moral stance against a genetically modified kumquat.
“Food, Inc.” is a good film and I encourage you to see it. Listen to what it has to say but don’t go off the deep end and keep it in perspective. Oh yeah, and in case you were wondering, there isn’t much in the way of gruesome animal slaughtering. The most graphic things involves chickens (at a small farm no less.) Bon appétit!
Let me start off by saying that you should never trust a documentarian. They usually seem to have an agenda and it often times seeps into the film itself. So with that in mind, “Food, Inc.” is a film about the way we eat. Or more correctly, the way our food is produced and packaged and brought to the consumer. It is a fascinating subject because it is something that effects every person in the country but it is a topic that most of us never stop to consider. The film touches on many aspects of the food industry: the industrialization of farming and the changes to reality that it has brought to our farming communities, both physically and economically; the virus like spread of corn into all of the products we eat which is often not immediately apparent to consumers; and the genetic tampering and short-cuts the food industry has taken to give the consumer what it wants at the cost of nutrition and, as a consequence, our health. These points are presented well and are thought provoking.
But the real revelation of the film, at least for me, was the depiction of the food industry as a shadowy and powerful cabal in the US government. According to the film, they have positioned themselves into power by exempting themselves from trust laws, keeping their operations a strictly guarded secret, and paying low wages to employees who work in dangerous and filthy environments. All of this leads to risks to the health of the public at large. What is truly shocking, if true, is how the food industry has effectively made the USDA and FDA powerless to regulate and enforce sanctions on them. Realizing that they have made organizations that are meant to protect us toothless in the pursuit of capitalism is, well, part of what gets me all fired up and why I try to avoid these things.
The above is contrasted by images of the local farmer, the organic grower, companies that care about the well being of the public and the environment. So the message is to eat local, eat organic, eat seasonal, stop The Man. (By the way, this is spelled out explicitly in an interminable “you-should-do-this” sequence at the end.) And that is my main problem with the film. I understand they are trying to get a message across. But they only pay lip service to the negatives, if at all. For one, the film does touch on the expense of eating organic and local yet it is a short segment and incomplete at that. The fact of the matter is that it is significantly more expensive to buy organic and local products. Many families simply can’t afford to do this. The film seems to suggest that this is also the doing of the food industry. While the industry does play a part, the flip side is not significantly explored. Also, zero mention is made (from what I recall) of what organic produce does to the population of the world at large. I have heard jokes told that for every “progressive” yuppie enjoying their organic apple, 100 people are dying of starvation in the third world. The simple fact is…if all we produced was local and organic, we couldn’t support the worlds population. Who knows if we could even support our own. While it is all well and good to say it is better for your health, I’m sure those starving appreciate your moral stance against a genetically modified kumquat.
“Food, Inc.” is a good film and I encourage you to see it. Listen to what it has to say but don’t go off the deep end and keep it in perspective. Oh yeah, and in case you were wondering, there isn’t much in the way of gruesome animal slaughtering. The most graphic things involves chickens (at a small farm no less.) Bon appétit!
Grade: B+
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