Food, Inc. in Review

This is one of the first times I have been truly grateful for living in New York City; I just got back from a screening of Food, Inc, in its limited-release opening this week. It is one of the most frightening, uplifting, important movies I have seen. If you liked "This Film is Not Yet Rated" or "An Inconvenient Truth," but were left wishing there was more you could do - this is the movie for you.

It tells the tale of the American industrial agriculture system, in all of its glory and shame. The quantity of food we produce, and the myriad ways we break down and recombine it into new food products, is a marvel of modern technology. The irresponsibility with which those technologies are wielded is a marvel of modern politics and litigation.

Much of this information was not new to me; for the past six weeks or so, I've become increasingly interested in what we eat, as a country, what we should be eating, what we think we should be eating, and why. It's a big task, and I'm only just starting to feel like I know enough to really talk about the things I'm learning. But more on that later; for now, here are a couple things from the movie that were new to me:

Although food processing plants are required to perform regular tests for salmonella and E. Coli, the USDA does not have the power enforce safety standards; it cannot shut down even plants that repeatedly fail those test. A law was introduced to confirm the USDA's authority in these matters, but Kevin's Law (named for a 2-year-old boy who died of E. coli O157:H7 in a 2001 outbreak) never passed.

We have been so successful in breeding chickens to grow faster (full growth in 48 days as opposed to 112 or more) and larger, that their bodies cannot support the rate of growth. Did you ever hear horror stories (in health class, for my generation) about the strain steroid use puts on your bones and tendons? That's the problem these chickens have. Many of them can't walk more than a few paces, because their legs are too weak. Now, I'm neither a vegetarian nor an animal rights activist, but I don't want to eat a creature that's too sick or injured to walk, particularly when I am (indirectly, through our desire for cheap and plentiful food) responsible for its state.


Above all, what I loved about this movie was its hope. An Inconvenient Truth was terrifying, and moving, and made me (and anyone who saw it, I'm sure) wish I could to anything to halt global warming; but apparently all I can do is change my lightbulbs, take out the recycling, and make sure my house is well-insultated. But at the end of Food, Inc., I was presented with a slew of feasible, sensible suggestions: write to your congress person; encourage your local farmer's market to take food stamps, if it doesn't already - good food is a class and economics issue too; educate yourself and spread the knowledge (ok, maybe I added that one);  but above all, buy local, organic, or sustainable. Whatever you can do, do. We all vote with our wallets three times a day, for the kind of food we want to see produced.

One last note: Walmart, one of the largest corporations in the world, is now ensuring that its house-label milk is free of artificial growth hormones. Why? Because that's what it's customers were buying.

What we eat matters. What we buys matters. What matters to you?