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“The industry does not want you to know the truth about what you’re eating because if you knew, you might not want to eat it.” – Food, Inc. opening credits narration
How well do you know the food that you eat?
Your answer to this question may reflect your current state of health and affect your future wellness.
Food, Inc. is a 96-minute documentary scheduled for limited release this June that takes a look at agriculture through the eyes of farmers, consumers and large multinational companies. Variety magazine calls Food, Inc. a “civilized horror movie for the socially conscious, the nutritionally curious and the hungry.”
Directed by Robert Kenner, the film exposes the shocking truth about the American food industry: that the food in your plate doesn’t come from the farm but from the factories of huge multinational corporations.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqQVll-MP3I&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1]
Food, Inc. was largely inspired by the works of Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma). The documentary portrays the modern American farmer as a “factory farmer” who uses questionable methods to further his crop and is supported by large, profit-driven companies that control almost every aspect of food production, from the seed to the supermarket.
The film exposes the negative role of corn in the American diet. Apart from masquerading as the unhealthy sweetener high-fructose corn syrup, corn has been kept at a ridiculously low price and fed to animals that were not designed to consume it (including cattle), causing them to develop sicknesses that require the use antibiotics (which are passed on to consumers) and has mutated new strains of the E.coli virus, which sicken thousands of Americans every year.
On the other hand, what you’ll learn about animal farming will probably change the way you look at meat, say a burger patty or a chicken breast fillet. The animals (and processing plant workers) are being abused, making the meat very dangerous.
In the case of chickens, they are genetically-modified, live in complete darkness in congested sheds (standing in a pool of their own stool) and are given regular doses of antibiotics so they can produce twice the amount of meat than usual. Because of this, they end up getting slaughtered twice as fast and due to the high demand for breast meat, chickens are bred in such a way that their breasts have gotten so big and are barely able to walk.
Curiously, Monsanto (the world’s largest seed producer) and Tyson Foods (the world’s largest meat company) have declined to be interviewed for the documentary, shocking Kenner, who saw the refusal as a sign of the giant companies’ wanting “total control.”
So move over, Transformers 2. Catch you later, Star Trek. There are more important things than space ships and morphing robots. If you truly value your health and the safety of your food, watch out for Food, Inc. this summer.
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