Food, Inc

Title: Food, Inc
Director: Robert Kenner
Release Date: 2009
Genre: Documentary

A look behind the scenes of industrialized food production in the US.

The film caption reminds us that we will never look at our dinner the same way, and that may be true after seeing this documentary and how it explores where our food comes from, how it is grown, who processes it, who’s earning from it and who is dying from it.

Yet again an underlining demonstration that we can not avoid being what we eat, but the interesting point made by the documentary is that most of us have no idea what we are eating and even more alarming, we really have no idea what has been eaten by what we are eating… does that make any sense? I guess we are getting ever more detached from what our food really is, and that would be plants and animals lets not forget. Although forgetting is easy especially when we walk though our day lit supermarkets,  filling our trolleys with glass, cardboard and plastic containers covered in cool, fun and suggestive fonts and colours and trusting (more than we would like to admit) the witty advertising claims.

The documentary exposes how a handful of highly centralized mega-corporations rule the American (and this is probably the rest of the world too) food industry, which seems to be only interested in producing faster, fatter, bigger and cheaper.  The documentary illustrates with interviews and statistics that get straight to the point, how and why this situation is detrimental to health, environment and even our very own humanity. The ugly facts of worker abuse, animal mistreatment, food contamination, and government collusion are covered up by a secretive industry that refuses to talk to the filmmakers or let the interiors of their chicken farms, cattle ranches, slaughterhouses, and meatpacking plants be filmed and which are even trying to get laws passed which make documenting and publicly criticizing products and production methods illegal.

The documentary treats such subjects as E-Coli outbreaks and other food-safety related issues, and the facts alone may leave you feeling a little squeamish with a prolonged loss of appetite. The interviews  to farmers and ranchers are incredibly interesting and heart breaking at times, when we learn how they have been enslaved in debt and manipulated juridically to subdue to the will of huge companies and their power lobbies. Other subjects covered are the treatment of cows that are forced to eat corn instead of grass and all the unsustainable consequences this causes. I could go on and tell you all about it and although you may  already familiar with most of the stories and facts told during the film, Food, Inc. with it’s witty, clear graphics and ironically bright colours is an incredibly interesting and entertaining  documentary about where our food comes from, I highly recommend seeing it.

Food, Inc Website