Food, Inc.
“How much do we really know about the food we buy at our local supermarkets and serve to our families?”
That is the question posed in the film Food, Inc. Filmmaker Robert Kenner takes a peek into our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized processes that have 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 sustenance of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment.
We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, vegetables that don’t spoil, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are engulfed with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.
Food, Inc. exposes America’s industrialized food system and its effect on our environment, health, economy and workers’ rights and reveals shocking truths about what we eat, how it’s produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.
This isn’t another animal rights, slaughter house film that pushes veganism. This movie brings light to what’s really going on with our food and how it’s affecting each one of us in so many different, devastating ways. Some of the issues that are touched upon include:
- Finding Organic, Local Foods
- Kevin’s Law: Foodborne Illnesses
- Nutrition Labels on Restaurant Foods
- Cloning
To learn more about these issues and how you can take action, you can click on the links above or visit Takepart.com. Each one of us can change the future by making just a few subtle changes starting with simple steps like these:
1. Stop drinking sodas and other sweetened beverages.
You can lose 25 lbs in a year by replacing one 20 oz soda a day with a no calorie beverage (preferably water).
2. Eat at home instead of eating out.
Children consume almost twice (1.8 times) as many calories when eating food prepared outside the home.
3. Support the passage of laws requiring chain restaurants to post calorie information on menus and menu boards.
Half of the leading chain restaurants provide no nutritional information to their customers.
4. Tell schools to stop selling sodas, junk food, and sports drinks.
Over the last two decades, rates of obesity have tripled in children and adolescents aged 6 to 19 years. To help ensure that the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act assures healthy food choices, you can sign this petition.
5. Meatless Mondays—Go without meat one day a week.
An estimated 70% of all antibiotics used in the United States are given to farm animals.
6. Buy organic or sustainable food with little or no pesticides.
According to the EPA, over 1 billion pounds of pesticides are used each year in the U.S.
7. Protect family farms; visit your local farmer’s market.
Farmer’s markets allow farmers to keep 80 to 90 cents of each dollar spent by the consumer.
8. Make a point to know where your food comes from—READ LABELS.
The average meal travels 1500 miles from the farm to your dinner plate.
9. Tell Congress that food safety is important to you.
Each year, contaminated food causes millions of illnesses and thousands of deaths in the U.S.
10. Demand job protections for farm workers and food processors, ensuring fair wages and other protections.
Poverty among farm workers is more than twice that of all wage and salary employees.
Vegan or not, I HIGHLY recommend seeing this movie if it’s playing in your area. To check for tickets, go here.
What we put into our bodies and what we feed our kids doesn’t only affect our health, it effects the environment and the entire world.
As the Dead Kennedy’s would say, “Give me convenience or give me death!” Well, that’s just where we’re headed if we don’t start making some serious changes, fast.
