Neal Reviews | Movies

Food, Inc.

This is the kind of film that elicits a dropped jaw, the kind that never hinges closed until the credits roll.  Food, Inc. is a much-needed biography.  It does what any basic biography must do, tell a story with a beginning, middle, and end.  The interesting thing about this particular biography is that it isn’t about a person: it’s about food – those three or so ostensibly innocuous meals we eat every day (or six if you’re Tony Horton).   Among other things, it exposes the deception of “choice”, and the interconnectedness of cattle, corn, gas prices, Jack-in-the-Box, and public policy.

This documentary is iconoclastic.  It exposes, at various times throughout, the factories (for that is what they are: factories) in America that house chickens, pigs, and cows.  It elucidates the concept of choice at the grocery store, and how the reality is far from this supposedly vast selection that is available to the consumer.  A handful of companies (at present, about four) control all the beef or pork at a given time in America, from McDonald’s double cheeseburgers to Ruth’s Chris steak to Jimmy Dean breakfast sausages.  This isn’t all inherently “bad”, but it certainly isn’t expected, and it actually has quite negative ramifications for everyone involved in meat: those who own the cattle, swine, and chickens; those who kill, pack, and ship the meat; those who eat the meat; and those who regulate all of the aforementioned processes: the government, many of whom were actually a part of the four companies I mentioned earlier (by name: Tyson, Purdue, Smithfield, and Monsanto, all of whom refused to be interviewed for the film).

From pasture (a misnomer), pig pen (another misnomer, though not as far off), or hen house (certainly misleading: more like a chicken shack), food is unethically regulated by policy makers influenced by lobbyists (not much different from tobacco lobbyists of preceding decades, as the film points out).  What does ‘unethically regulated’ mean?  Essentially, a small group of people hold all the power, causing those who have little to no authority or ability to say or do otherwise, no option but to yield to The Man.  The film presents several cases-in-point, including chicken farmers who make less than $20,000 a year being forced to take hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans to pay off their ever-rising cost of production to the very companies they support by raising chickens.

Another example is in corn.  Corn is ubiquitous.  It’s in coke, candy, cereal, syrup.  One scientist interviewed from the University of Iowa estimates that 90% of the products in supermarkets today contain some form of corn.  Again: not inherently “wrong”.  But the consequences are far-reaching and negative.  I won’t delineate all the reasons why, but the film highlights the monopoly of corn distribution in America by Monsanto, who sues farmers who don’t use their corn by claiming that they use their corn illegally, shutting down all “seed cleaners” in America, whose jobs are ultimately expunged, due to mounting legal fees and an inability to fight back without proper funds, thereby virtually granting Monsanto a perpetually larger stake of the market.

The film goes into much more detail, of course, but it is persuasive, puissant, and poignant.  This dynamic film interviews the authors of Fast Food Nation, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, the mother of the child who died due to eating a hamburger at Jack-in-the-Box infected with E. coli (a sickening story), politicians, corporate Americans, agrarian Americans, and many people besides, all of whom have something to contribute, all of whom having one essential plea: know where your food comes from.  Will it make you change your eating habits?  Probably not.  But the point is not so much aimed at changing what you eat, but rather knowing more about what you eat, which in turn will hopefully result in more mindful eaters, resulting in a possible change in dietary habits in America over time.  Illuminating and highly recommended.

Rating: 3/4 Stars