Food, Inc.

Last night, I watched a screener for a new documentary called Food, Inc. As the blurb says,

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that’s been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment.

The movie featured sustainable food heros like Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser (who was also a producer) and Joel Salatin, as well as chicken farmers, food safety advocates and labor activists. It’s a greatest hits collection of the issues facing our food system, tied together by the fact that this system is controlled by a handful of huge corporations that get vastly preferential treatment from the US government.

Michael Pollan reprises his ideas in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which, in case you haven’t read it, tells the story of how our entire processed food system is based on cheap corn. For me, the most telling point in that book (and made in the movie) is that feeding corn to cattle is directly responsible for the rise of the acid-resistant E. coli O157:H7.

Eric Schlosser tells the story he told in Fast Food Nation, that the demands of the fast food industry in America have shaped the entire food system, even for those who never set foot in McDonald’s.

Joel Salatin is the hero of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. He is a farmer in Virginia, and Polyface Farm is a tightly-integrated operation that produces astonishing amounts of healthful food based on energy from the sun. Not energy from the sun, like he has solar panels on his roof. Salatin does not import energy in the form of massive amounts of fuel and fertilizers. The basis of his farm is the grass of his pasture.

The most heartbreaking segment of the movie featured Barbara Kowalcyk, whose 2 1/2 year old son died from eating contaminated hamburger. She’s taken up the banner of food safety, and the movie shows her testifying on Capitol Hill in support of Kevin’s Law, named after her son. Kevin’s Law would give the USDA power to shut down facilities that have repeatedly produced contaminated meat, and Food, Inc. makes it clear that industrial meat is working hard to keep it from passing.

Gary Hirshberg, the founder of Stonyfield Farm, talks about his life journey from commune hippie to Wal-Mart supplier, making the point that every Wal-Mart order for organic instead of conventional means tons, (“not pounds, but tons,”) of pesticides not spread into the environment. Each of these segments deserves full-length treatment, and this one only touches on important issues such as making the perfect the enemy of the good, the contradiction between organic principles and processed foods, and whether large corporations can ever be a force for good in the world.

The section on chicken farming is very clear on the thrall in which the large poultry processors hold their farmers. Companies like Tyson and Perdue own the chickens from egg to display case. The farmers do what they’re told (go into debt for expensive facilities upgrades) or lose their contracts. One farmer speaks on camera and shows what the inside of a chicken house looks like, saying that she’s fed up and has to speak out, despite the consequences. Sure enough, her contract was canceled. She explains how modern chickens raised for meat grow so fast and have such overdeveloped breasts that their bones cannot keep up with their growth, nor support their weight past a few steps at a time.

And so with pig and cattle slaughtering; the few companies in the business have enormous control and leverage over their employees. Just 13 slaughterhouses butcher the vast majority of meat in this country, up from thousands of local slaughterhouses just a few decades ago. Cattle fattened in CAFOs (concentrated animal feedlot operations) stand all day ankle deep in their own manure, which their hides are also matted with. This manure gets into the meat in the high-speed processing line. Since ground beef now can contain meat from literally thousands of animals in the same patty, any contamination is sure to spread.

Meatpacking was once a blue-collar job with the same kind of benefits as working in car factory, but now it is one of the most dangerous jobs around. Food, Inc. shows how slaughterhouses actively recruit in Mexico, then cooperate with the INS to bleed away a few workers at a time (with the implication being that those that speak up are targeted) without having to shut down their production lines.

All in all, the movie manages to hit all the bases. It doesn’t talk to Marion Nestle, or address the issue of the Immokalee tomato workers that Eric Schlosser is heavily involved in, but it’s an excellent overview of the crisis facing our food system. And it even ends on a hopeful note. Eric Schlosser points out that Big Tobacco was once in a similar position of power and influence, and has been laid low. And Gary Hirshberg says that ordinary people feel powerless to do anything but accept the crap food that big producers force on them, when it’s really we, the ordinary people who have the power of our wallets. Responding to customer pressure, Wal-Mart has stopped carrying milk from cows treated with rBST, which he thinks is the death of hormone-treated milk in the US. See it when it comes out in the theatre.