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As one who has been preaching and educating family, friends, co-workers, and just about anyone who will listen about genetically modified food, food politics, and agri-farms, I was delighted to get to see the documentary film Food, Inc. recently. This film, which uncovers how the food we consume is made and sold, could be the film that changes your life for the better — transforming the way you and your family eat in a positive and healthier direction.

Six years in the making, Food Inc. explores the motives of the mega corporations running the food industry and how they intentionally put profit motives in front of public health, the environment, workers rights, and animals. Using graphic photos and interviews with farmers, Director Robert Kenner forces viewers to think about where the food we eat every day comes from and asks us to figure out how to create a sustainable food system.

Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, takes us behind the scenes of the billion dollar food industry with the help of a few brave farmers. It is no surprise that many large food corporations such as Monsanto and Smithfield refused to be interviewed.

Important highlights include the far reaching ill effects on the environment from factory farming animals and their unnatural existence in the agri-farms, corporate giant Monsanto’s patent on the seeds farmers use to plant their crops, and the exploited non-unionized workers that are attempting to survive in these factory farms. The theme here is both human and animal mistreatment.

Another important point the film makes is in an interview with a Tyson chicken farmer, who despite consequences from Tyson, agreed to set the record straight. She refused to cooperate with Tyson’s specifications of keeping chickens in overcrowded, dark, suffocating, and fetid chicken houses or “houses of horror,” as she called them.

Keep in mind this is a documentary; there are no animations or cut-a-ways to cutesy footage. Eric Schlosser tells it to the viewers straight and real.

Food Inc. is the film the food industry does not want you to see. So by all means, make sure you see it. If enough people see this film, the result could be the same as that of Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle, when the meat packing industry in the early 20th century was changed forever.

Remember, as consumers, we vote with our wallets and the power is in our pockets.

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