FOOD FOR THOUGHT
‘Food Inc.’ Takes Aim At Corporate Ag
Don't eat the beef. Or the pork. Or the chicken. Or the vegetables. Or most of what's in the supermarket.By David Frey, 7-03-09
The latest salvo against the nation’s agricultural-industrial complex is on the big screen.
Food, Inc., a documentary by filmmaker Robert Kenner, is a forceful indictment of concentrated cattle ghettos, squalid chicken factories and cornfield deserts. At the film’s core is this thesis: the way we eat has changed more in the past 50 years than in the previous 10,000, and not for the better.
Sure, our shopping cart loads are getting cheaper, but our health, the environment, the animals and the people who handle them pay the price, Kenner argues.
“We spend less of our paycheck on our food than anytime, but it comes at a heavy cost,” Kenner told a crowd at the Aspen Institute’s Aspen Ideas Festival, after a screening of the film.
The seed for Food, Inc. was planted in 2002, when Kenner started talking with author Eric Schlosser after reading Fast Food Nation, his diatribe against the fast-food industry. Schlosser plays a central role in the film. So does Michael Pollen, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food.
Readers of these books will find their themes played out on the screen: industrial agriculture has led to a system that no longer resembles farming. It gives cows E. coli, which gives us E. coli. Chickens are pumped full of hormones to give them big breasts, which pumps us full of hormones. Farmers are subsidized to overproduce corn, which overfills us with fattening corn syrup. Growers are pushed to raise genetically-modified crops, to their detriment.
“Food has been totally transformed in the last 100 years,” Kenner says, “and the scary thing is, so have we.”
Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., has a cameo in the movie. When Barbara Kowalcyk’s 2 1/2-year-old son Kevin died from E. coli after eating tainted meat, she became a food safety advocate. When she appeared at DeGette’s office lobbying for tighter regulation, Kenner’s cameras followed her.
There’s good news for food safety proponents, says DeGette, who appeared at the film screening. A House committee has passed what she called “the most comprehensive food safety measure ever.”=.
The measure, which has yet to see a vote in the Senate, would give the Food and Drug Administration mandatory recall powers, replacing the current voluntary recalls, and would mandate field-to-work traceability for agricultural products.
“I think we have a whole new food safety regime in Washington,” she says.
The film is decidedly one-sided, but don’t blame Kenner. Companies like Purdue, Tyson, Smithfield Farms and Monsanto all declined to appear in the film.
Not surprisingly, Food, Inc. can be a downer. If you can’t eat meat and you can’t eat vegetables, what’s left? But it’s not a stomach-turner. Happily, it keeps the most unpleasant abuses of animals and people off screen. And it combats the sense of helplessness that often surrounds documentaries by offering some real solutions. Buy organic. Support your local farmer’s market. Plant a garden.
Moves by Danone to buy organic yogurt maker Stonyfield Farm, for instance, and Wal-Mart’s ban on synthetic growth hormones, show the public can vote with their stomachs.
The film’s ultimate message: “You can work to change the system. Three times a day.”
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Fact: Men live longer than they did 100 yrs ago. 3% of the people produce the food for the U.S. and much of the rest of the globe. Some of the corporations you mention are only involved in the processing of commodities. ( with the exception of Monsanto ) and not in the real production. Production is accomplished by contract growers who sell to those plants. Lettuce has ecoli on it. (I don't eat much lettuce) . You don't have much of an argument here with a sensationalistic movie provided by your constituents. You come and travel the countryside with me and I will show you the safety in production. My grandfather died from drinking too much home made red wine. He was 94.
Please give more facts before you write and speak. Now, you better get out in your garden and pull some weeds and accrue enough food for 12 months. I bet those Big Sky pineapple are not easy to grow here.
Make sure to get out and eat some of those fine organic vegetables you find in your supermarket.
Mr. Frey needs to write another article on the misuse of poor Mr. Kenner's movie by a corrupt industry that can slap the words "food safety" onto its bills, just like it slaps "natural" onto its dangerous food. He needs to write another article because he has, I am sure unwittingly, done farmers and cattlemen and consumers and our democracy a terrible disservice and it needs correcting.
Many foods consumed in the 1800's are all but illegal today - and more will be if the current bills go through.
Do searches at
http://www.mercola.com
http://www.westonaprice.org
http://www.realmilk.com
Food Inc is an excellent movie, and provides factual and truthful information. If people still think that the way farming should be done is what they see on "Dirty Jobs" they deserve what they get. Real animals raised in keeping with their natural rhythms and food stuffs, real plants, growing in healthy soil, and a diversified structure to incorporate both is ideal - AND - can feed the world.
The powers that be got that way by taking the money from those who want us to think that GM products, petroleum fertilizers and hormones/chemicals/antibiotics are the only way to raise food for the billions on the planet.
Think they care about you after you leave the polls? I hope not...
If Ms. DeGette is referring to HR 2749 - people had better hope we can get that bill killed off in the Senate!! Certainly such a travesty should not pass... Someone that incredibly ignorant of the bills (let alone their effects) before her in the house should be immediately recalled, and then tarred-and-feathered once she gets home.
Doesn't surprise me her touting this Congressional stupidity - she co-sponsored a couple of the so-called "food safety" bills in the House. In fact - she introduced one herself!! Not one of them is worth the paper its written on, but each should give cause for concern - not only at the over-reach of authority they give agencies, but also as to the thought processes of their authors and co-sponsors.
This particular bill will regulate us right down the our private vegetable gardens and do NOTHING to stop the major multi-nationals from continuing to poison us with fake food and GMO's. There are even provisions in that bill to gather "safety" information from wildcrafted and other recreational food sources.
If you value your ability to choose the foods you eat, I would encourage everyone reading this to tell their Senators to get a clue and never let this bill see the light of day, let alone pass it.
Same goes for HR 759 and HR 875 as well.
These draconian measures do nothing to ensure the safety of our food supply, prevent humans from getting sick on tainted food or protect us from "unhealthy animals."
What they do is harmonize us with European rules and laws, subvert and trample US laws (including the Constitution) and create monopolies for the multi-nationals that have destroyed not only the health of our animals, but also of ourselves and our children.
Further, in giving administrators the ability to make rules which have the authority of law, they are violating the Constitution on that ground as well. Bureaucrats do not make law in this country - legislators do. They are passing the buck so the problems can be swiped off their laps onto those who get hired and fired with every administration. That ought to say something right there.
Passing any one of those bills will be cause for great celebration at Kraft, Cargill, Tyson, Smithfield, JBS and all the pharmaceutical companies that will get our business if we survive long enough to need meds.
Congress and the media thrive on those who get caught up in their "panic over everything" marketing strategy. Don't buy into it.
Best make sure your medical insurance premiums are up do date...
I don't believe we need industrial agriculture...we need to create more and more community economies of scale.