Food, Inc.

Food , Inc. explores the root of the evil we call nourishment in this country. Everything to be believed about the quintessential American farmer, the effort of the Food and Drug Administration to protect us from harm, and eating chicken being better for you than eating beef will be challenged while watching Food, Inc. What can now be understood is that corn rules, food is poison, farmers are forced to be cruel to animals and the earth to survive, and the government agencies in place to protect you from harm are in cahoots with profit driven food corporations. The stories covered in this documentary may force viewers to become the most disillusioned genetically modified food eating consumers in history.

Take for instance the story about the chicken farmer Carole Morrison, who is expected to grow a chicken from egg to filet in six weeks. This requires an atmosphere for the chickens that, well, isn’t very chicken like. No light, no room to move, and the inability to walk because they are so overgrown with steroids and an unnatural diet that their bodies are too heavy for their legs to carry them. When Carole who makes a measly $18,000/year raising and selling these chickens puts her foot down about this chicken abuse and fights the giant corporation that buys her chicken meat about not allowing light into her chicken house, they cancel her contract.

Then there is the tragic story about an E.Coli breakout that caused the death of Barbara Kowalcyk’s young son and her subsequent plight to put a stop to any such future tragedies. The story behind the story; well it turns out that the cows aren’t supposed to eat corn, which allows unnatural bacteria to grow in their manure, which cows stand in up to their knee caps, unable to move, in an overcrowded corral. Nor is the rain water that runs through the feces filled cow farm supposed to be able to spill down into the spinach field next door. If you are wondering why we feed cows corn if it isn’t part of their native diet, the answer is simple: cheap corn equals cheap feed, equals cheap meat, equals more meat sold, equals big profits for the meat company. Where is the Food and Drug Administration while all this filth is running through farms you ask? Not doing inspections apparently, for according to Food, Inc., they performed approximately 40,000 less inspections in 2006 than they did in 1972.

All these stories force the viewer to wonder about the American food consumer’s lack of a relationship with their food; especially if that food once had eyes. Joel Salatin, a good old fashioned “natural” farmer in the film said “industrial food is not honest food” and he believes you can “meet the need without compromising integrity”. In other words the consumer should demand that we let cows act like cows, and chickens act like chickens and let food corporations either cowboy up or squander. We should buy more and locally grown, fresh, organic foods. Which begs another question the movie explores; “what if you can’t afford it?”. Everyone knows the cheaper the food is the worse it is for you (think fast food), and this film clearly points to big food business, with bigger profits, and gigantic heavy hands as the reason. Large food corporations rebuttal by saying they are doing us a huge favor with the level of efficiency they provide and that America would have a food shortage if it wasn’t for their iron fisted national network. Food, Inc. sheds a beaming light on what now appears to be an obvious fact: efficiency equals bad food.

Is this corporation-farmer-consumer paradigm sounding familiar to caregivers reading this? Big business with big profits (pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies) forcing the middle man (nurse and other healthcare providers) to manipulate the product (caregiving) at risk to the consumer (patient). I highly recommend Food, Inc., if not for your own health and well-being, for the health and well-being of your patients.