Food, Inc.
A Robert Kenner Film
Magnolia Home Entertainment
When you walk into a grocery store and look at the packaging on many food items, you will see pictures of old-fashioned farms and farmers. When you look behind the pictures to where that food really comes from, you see a very different picture.
It’s not a pretty picture. We see feedlots packed with cattle almost on top of each other and up to their ankles in manure. We see chicken houses full of chickens that can barely walk because science has found a way to make their flesh grow faster than their bones, muscles and tendons can support. The air is so foul (no pun intended), farmers need masks to walk through and collect the dead bodies.
The ugliness doesn’t stop at how the animals are abused. As Joel Salatin astutely points out, a culture that treats its animals with brutal disregard will be inclined to treat its people the same way. We see farmers forced to build expensive chicken houses and go deeply into debt. On the average they make $18,000 per year and have little hope of ever paying off a $500,000 debt. So they are trapped, enslaved, too poor to stay in the business and too poor to get out. In Tar Heel, North Carolina we see illegal immigrants lured into a giant Smithfield plant where working conditions are reminiscent of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. After years of being treated like animals, they are unceremoniously deported.
I have worked in large factories before but I have never seen a factory or network of factories like the one run by Beef Products, Inc. It’s like a factory on steroids. Not only is the South Sioux City, Nebraska plant an endless maze of pipes, machinery and assembly lines, it has a control center that can monitor bulk tanks, adjust gearbox speeds, and regulate assembly lines in other plants in Chicago, Georgia, Utah, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, Los Angeles, and Ohio. We see some pseudo-food slop make its way through machines and conveyor belts and the resulting unidentifiable slab is dropped neatly into a box to be shipped out. The slab turns out to be hamburger meat filler cleaned with ammonia to kill E. coli.
We see the ruthless tactics that Monsanto uses to run innocent farmers out of business. I’ll just briefly summarize by saying that anyone who watches this movie and still has any respect for Monsanto either wasn’t paying attention or is on their payroll.
But the awful price of our factory food system doesn’t stop with the animals and people directly working for the system. The end result is a population with steadily declining health and badly compromised immune systems. We see the tragic story of a little boy named Kevin, who was a victim of the factory food supply. Then his mother marches off to Washington to lobby congress to pass “Kevin’s law,” a bill that would give the USDA more power and “reform the system.”
This is where I have to say, “Wait a minute! Stop!” One thing that can make a tragedy even worse is to use it to promote a solution that is worse than useless. This movie has done an excellent job of portraying a food system that doesn’t work, is out of control and massively corrupt. In addition, we see Michael Pollan explaining in detail how the revolving door works between Monsanto, Cargill, etc. and government regulatory agencies like the USDA and FDA. He goes through a long list of names with pictures attached. He does a great job of making it clear that government regulation is being run by the regulated corporations. The fox is guarding the henhouse. And this has been going on for about one hundred years. The system is not just corrupt, it is irredeemable. But we’re going to fix it … with more foxes to guard the henhouse?
I continue to wonder how many centuries it will take before we notice that more regulation isn’t working. They even show Joel Salatin explaining the mindset of food factory executives. When some part of the system starts to really break down, it never occurs to them that they may need to change the system. Instead they come up with some high-tech brute-force approach to keep the system going a little longer. This film is promoting contradictory messages. I can only speculate that the producers or editors are suffering the adverse mental effects of factory food.
Right after this excursion into contradiction, we get a breath of fresh air on Polyface Farm. We are treated to classic lines from Joel Salatin like, “If we put glass walls on all the mega-processing facilities, we would have a different food system.” He makes the point that he doesn’t want to grow into one of those monsters. He has the right idea. We need to go back to small farms and local economies. The film veers off course again when we are led to believe that one good answer might be for organic producers to get big like Stonyfield and sell organic products at Walmart! Of course, operations as big as Walmart are more interested in profits than quality, so they would have to be regulated—oops! We’re back to that same problem again.
It is unfortunate that I have to give this film a THUMBS DOWN. With a little more editing it could have been great. Its coverage of the dark side of the food system is powerful but the suggested solution will only lead to more of the same.
This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly magazine of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Winter 2009.
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I think this movie was great. I think you may just have a problem with Michal Pollan. I wouldn’t even be reading your site if it weren’t for him.
I disagree
If it weren’t for this movie I wouldn’t even be reading your site. I think this movie really does shed light on the problems we have in the way typical Americans shop and eat. He mentioned some of the same solutions at the end that you are advocating. Unfortunately Walmart is not going away and if we can get REAL food in Walmarts than heck let’s do it.
Define “Real”
Mmmm, I’m not sure if organic foodlikeproducts are that much closer to real food than nonorganic foodlikeproducts so I wouldn’t say Big Organic going to Walmart is success. It just keeps us going down the same bigger-is-better road that got us here in the first place. Can we all agree change will happen when we buy our food from farmers directly?
Licensed Acupuncturist
Dannielle, I do agree that Walmart will not be going away but i think we have to be mindful of the impact of a giant company and the influence it can have on any industry. If Walmart starts to carry a lot of organic food they will undoubtedly have much influence on the organics industry and since their bottom line is always profit, they won’t be as inclined to look out for standards of organics as much as how to make a bigger profit. This can eventually erode organic standards so big companies who get on board can have a down side too. That is why I will always support my local coop over giant big box stores no matter what they carry.
Fresh
I thought Fresh, the movie, was better.
Michael Pollan and Food, Inc.
Dannielle,
I think the main problem the WAPF has with Food, Inc. is that the movie promotes giving the USDA more power. That’s a huge mistake, as the film itself points out. Personally, I couldn’t give this movie a thumbs up either, regardless of the merit of the rest of the movie.
The Green Eyed Monster
Well well. I would not have expected to see a thumbs down from WAPF, but then again, I’m not a WAPF fanatic. It appears that you have taken the same tack as the Industrial Food Machine, but in reverse. If something is broken, don’t even attempt a fix, scrap it. If you think that unregulated food is the answer, then you’re sadly mistaken. Maybe, if we lived in a perfect world, but last I checked, people were still starving and children are still being abused.
The suggestions that more organic would be better is not “off course”. It would be better, regardless of whether it is retailed through Wal Mart (not my fav retailer, but I’m not throwing stones here, at least at them). I wonder how you would back up such a statement? What boogie man in the closet would you bring forth that would be worse than what we have right now.
It may not be the absolute best that we can envision, but to say that it would not be better than the status quo is absurd.
As usual you have firmly re-established that WAPF as a fringe element.
Seeing both sides
I just finished Food, Inc and wanted to comment. I definitely understand Tim Boyd’s point that the FDA and USDA can’t be fully trusted to be the good guys and that more laws won’t necessarily make things better. Individual food and buying choices make a big impact. But I do feel the movie encouraged viewers to take both sides…call your senator right after you make lunch with your family and eat all those yummies you bought at farmers’ market this morning.
reconsider your thumbs down
Please reconsider the thumbs down on this one. Mercola got a thumbs up for a vague cod liver oil conference call and Food, Inc got a thumbs down? This movie is a winner IMHO. We don’t have to agree with their solution. If enough people watch it, solutions will emerge.
Reply to RadiantLux & others
I won’t be changing the thumb on any reviews but because reviews almost always involve some subjectivity, I completely respect those who politely disagree with me. In general I don’t reply to any comments on reviews for that reason, but on this particular one my thumb seems to have generated unusual angst, so for what it’s worth, here is some further comment.
Food Inc. is a good movie but I didn’t watch it in a vacuum. I watched it in a theater with friends and crowds and I know how the typical movie-goer uncritically accepts what they see on screen. Many walk away outraged that Kevin’s law hasn’t been passed (giving FDA more power) and that drives me crazy. If the result of my thumbs down causes more controversy and more people go to see the movie but think it through carefully and come away with the right message, I will be very happy.
“You mean, my home-cooked food’s not good for me?!”
Cultures don’t change overnight. Food Inc. takes average, busy, middle-class viewers from thinking their homemade baked chicken is healthy to questioning how it was raised. That’s a step in the right direction.
The film makes people uncomfortable, which will (hopefully) lead to dinner-food action (the application most relevant to the individual), rather than political action, in most cases. Good thing our money vote still counts here, in the US–there’s a ray of hope for ya.
Food Inc. presents an opportunity to seize, not a message to criticize. Thumbs up from Whitney for Food Inc., the perfect primer for telling my friends about Weston A. Price Foundation!
Raising Awareness
This movie is opening eyes, so whether it’s a thumbs up or thumbs down is not a biggie to me. We are a small family farm striving to produce nutrient-dense foods in a very small town who don’t understand at all what we are doing. Our neighbor, who is raising beef cattle, called us up one morning and said, “Do you know what they are doing to our food????!!” He lent us the DVD to watch. What a great way to open people’s eyes and start conversations…even in our own family as we educate our boys to understand why we are making sacrifices to run our organic, pastured farm that we hope to one day pass down to them! Yes, there is a section about the FDA that we might not agree with, but in America we are all about doing & making choices that we think are right for our famiy. That’s why some of us support local farmers and that’s why some of us ARE local farmers. I believe it will take all of us, hitting the problem of our food supply from many different angles to raise awareness.
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but based on the review and the comments I think it’s very possible that the only thing keeping this movie in the ‘mainstream’ arena is the fact that it suggests giving more power to government regulatory agencies as a solution.
YES.
You liked this film for exactly the same reasons I did – I learned so much about Monsanto, the corporations behind food, and just why meat you find in grocery stores is so unhealthy. And I was inspired by people like Joel Salatin (and quite frankly, $3 for a dozen of REAL farm fresh eggs is a bargain!)
But, when they showed the CEO of Stonyfield Farms working with Wal Mart to somehow change things – HUH???
SAY WHAT?
Um. NO. Just….NO.
Change is NOT going to come about via Wal Mart. All he’s doing is just feeding the beast he’s supposedly trying to slay.
Ditto for the USDA. While I can’t blame that bereaved, angry mother for trying, I agree her energies would be better spent elsewhere.
Thumps up from me!
Like other commenters I must agree that I was suprised to see this review. My search for thruth about nutrition and better food options wouldn’t have started if not Michael Pollan’s books and Food, Inc. movie. I never even heard of Weston Price Foundation. This movie is an eye opener for an average viewer and will get people thinking. My take from the movie was not more regulations at all, instead I started shopping at farmers markets and buying more organic products.
eye opener
I see a lot of disagreement with your review. I have to say that I too, watched this film and came away enlightened and searching. I took away from it that the only way to eat is to eat real food. I felt like the contrast between the big organic corporation and the small local farmer was an artistic interpretation in the movie designed to cause the viewer to think about both of these viewpoints and make a decision based on what is shown. Personally, I saw Stony Field farms and decided that their practices were not what I wanted to support. So, I don’t know, I feel like the movie is an eye opener that every average person should watch.
What?
I have to admit – I thought the movie was enlightening and it seems to me that you giving it a negative review really puts this review in the shill category. I don’t know if you got paid for writing that review but – it was extremely enlightening and more people should watch this to see the corruption that big business (Monsanto) and government have teamed up on Americans and people world wide.
I disagree with Tim Boyd
I agree that Tim Boyd’s criticism of the films, Food Inc, and Food Matters is a bit harsh. Yes, there are points of view in both of these films that are questionable at best, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. There is a tremendous amount of good information being presented here that ultimately could lead to improvements in nutrition. Diet is a process, not an absolute, and, regardless of where we are in that process, we need to be encouraged. To take an elitist attitude towards philosophies and ideas which differ from yours, when they are still a huge improvement on big agribusiness, is counter productive —and it’s off-putting to the very people who need this information the most. We must not forget that the path to better health is circuitous and full of experimentation. And as much as we think we know, we still don’t know everything and we never will. Both of these films are a huge step in the right direction. This is my first time to visit the WAPF website and I was impressed with the content until I ran across this all-or-nothing mentality regarding films which deserve much more consideration than to be put on a do-not-watch list. Frankly, it makes me question the objectivity and sensibility of the rest of this site. Instead of a straight thumbs up or down review, why not rate it on a scale?
This is a defintive thumbs up movie
I understand the criticism for this movie, but there are so many more eye openers and revealing messages in it that you easily could have given it a thumbs up review with some remarks for the solutions the maker gives that you disagree with. I am a WAP member and totally agree with Weston Price’s work, but I really cannot understand why you have to be so harsh on this film.