DNC Worldwide

We went to Houston’s Angelika Theater to watch Food Inc. this past week. The movie/expose by fimmaker Robert Kenner gives a look into America’s agricultural business and how the industry has evolved within oh-say, the last sixty years or so.

Here is the synopsis from the official 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.

Now before I give you my honest review of the issues within the movie, I think its important to tell you what type of person I am, so you can see the foundation of my opinions.

1. I am the most cynical person I know.  As an example, when it comes to politics, I’ve smiled and listened to both extremes of the left-wing and the right-wing on issues. And oftentimes, I think both sides are full-of-you-know-what spouting off uneducated none-sense and propaganda. I’ve seen too many people incoherently babbling on issues that they don’t even have full knowledge of recently.
2. In going with the above theme, I believe it to be important for individuals to educate themselves on all sides of an issue in order to form their own opinion. Doing so will help you avoid coming off like an uneducated dolt aka one of them ‘sheeple.’ Understand that others will always try to influence you. From individuals and organizations to politicians and activists, everyone will have an argument to back their side. Take an objective look at the whole picture before you figure out where to plant your feet. And for God’s sake, when somebody tries to influence your thoughts and beliefs, check their premise before believing them.
3. As soon as you have your facts straight and have planted your feet fully on issues, I think its okay to be an advocate – so long as you do it respectfully and avoid coming coming off like an idiot trying to push your beliefs on people. Challenge others to awareness and not opinion. Let them figure out issues for themselves through objectivity rooted in factual knowledge. That’s the respectful way to affect change.

 My Opinions on the movie, Food Inc.

 Variety’s review is correct in stating that this movie “does for the supermarket what “Jaws” did for the beach — marches straight into the dark side of cutthroat agri-business, corporatized meat and the greedy manipulation of both genetics and the law.”

With that fact in mind, I’ve gotten the following feedback all too often when talking about Food Inc. this week, “I’m scared to watch this movie.” or “Don’t do it, you won’t want to eat for a week.”

 Well duh you idiots, that’s what the movie is intended to do. But why in the world would you want to avoid something you could possibly learn from? I’m not saying believe everything you hear because I certainly do not. What I am saying is that maybe by watching films like Food Inc. and other like it, you may raise your own awareness of problems in the world you didn’t even know existed. I know that’s unfathomable for a lot of people. Most of us don’t want to be bothered. And films like this one delve in issues on a much-higher level than our usual ‘things that go boom’ and ‘girls like Sarah Jean Underwood’ that we like to be entertained by. I’m cool with that. I love those types of films too. But for real, it’s okay sometimes to walk out of the theater not jumping up and down about the bad-ass explosion sometimes. What a startling concept huh? To actually walk out of the theater with your head down because you learned something that jarred your consciousness… LOL.

Like I said, Food Inc. deals with complex issues. If you haven’t watched it yet, ask yourself how much you know about how our agricultural systems work. Probably not much. Films like this are good at showing you that. Honestly, walking in to the movie, I was thinking it would be nothing but a collection of propaganda and ‘facts’ bordering on bullshit. I was expecting another Da Vini Code but what this ended up being was my Zeitgeist about chicken. Except the facts were a lot newer and certainly a lot more irrefutable. I’m sure there is a lot more behind the food issue and the agricultural industry that I need to learn before I go off advocating anything other than awareness.

But here are just a few facts I got from the movie that warranted some thought.

• It’s insane that four multi-national corps. (Perdue, Tyson, etc.) control most of the the food chain from planting to our stomach. The choices we see on the aisles are all coming from the same sources.
• It’s sick how they grow beef, chicken, and pork. They’re truly not growing animals naturally, but rather growing meat for consumption. It’s not natural.
• I never know large the corn industry was and how our government subsidizes it. From ethanol to food to beauty products, damn near everything we have contains corn.
• Genetic-manipulation and patenting of said genetic advances have created monopolies of monstrous proportions. Scary sh*t. It’s Orwellian for sure.
• There is much more to the agricultural business than I ever thought there was and it’s a lot to digest, no pun intended.

Reviews from other Sources about Food Inc.

Entertainment Weekly, LA Times, Salon.Com, Village Voice, and Rolling Stone gave highly favorable reviews. Rotten Tomatoes  gave the film a 97% rating.

Comments about Food Inc. that made me laugh

“It’s an “Inconvenient Truth” for food, minus the droning Al Gore and a handful of PowerPoint slides.”
 
“Smart, gripping, and untainted by the influence of Michael Moore.”

“A brutally disturbing, fundamentally important new documentary.”

“Consider food your guilty pleasure? Well, “Food, Inc,” shows it’s a killer. You need to see this film.”

Food Inc. Trailer