ChrisKerr-Food+Inc.


 * Title:** Food, Inc.
 * Directors:** Mark Kenner
 * Release year:** 2008


 * What is the central argument or narrative of the film?**

This film discusses the way in which corporations have taken over the food industry and the detrimental health effects it has caused for the consumer. It shows where mass produced food comes from, how it’s processed and the decision making behind the practices involved. Although it doesn’t discuss environmental damage in a very direct way, it details the detriments the industry is causing society and ways in which the process is broken.


 * What sustainability problems does the film draw out?**

Food Inc. starts and finishes its story in the grocery store, showing us first where the consumer purchases good. The average supermarket, with over 47,000 products on average, appears to be a plethora nutrition and sustenance. Behind the process involved in getting it there, however, are only a few companies whose competition has taken its toll on the consumers in a variety of ways. This externalization on the consumer by the major corporations takes place throughout the entire food creation process.

The first place the film starts is in discussing the introduction of fast food to America. Back before McDonnald’s was the company we know it as today, the McDonnald’s brothers owned a single burger joint. Although they were successful, they determined that if they employed the assembly line process to food the same way it’s conducted in factories, they would reach a similarly successful production process. This turned out to be true; although the quality of their burgers decreased, they were able to produce so many more that it became profitable for the price. Because of their success, the franchise grew. Even though they had compromised the quality, at the expense of their consumer, they had managed to create a product with could be produced at a fraction of the price of a higher quality burger. And, in the consumer’s eyes, it appeared to be a fair trade.

This lead to the expansion of McDonnalds into a multi-billion dollar conglomerate; they are now the largest purchaser of beef in the United States. They are also among the top purchasers of potatoes, lettuce and tomatoes. Although this isn’t a detriment to the environment, per say, it is definitely a sustainability issue as far as human beings are concerned. With soaring obesity and cardiac arrests being the number one killer in the United States, the consumer has indeed suffered tremendously.

One might argue that it’s the consumer’s choice and that the corporation isn’t to blame for what is happening to them. The film counters this argument with a section on how consumers are forced to make choices now regarding spending which has cornered them into buying this food. The film follows a family whose bills are so high that in order to help pay for them, one of the corners they must cut is in their food choices. These choices involve, to a great degree, fast food. At one point they discuss how raising spending and eating healthier might be an option… if they didn’t have to spend $170 on their father’s pills. “Which health would you pick… the pills, or eating a healthier meal?” the mother enquires at one point.

The film also discusses how corn is involved in the matrix of problems involved in the mass production of food. Because of government subsidies, farmers are able to producing huge amounts of corn at a loss. This is because companies want to purchase corn at cheaper-than-it-takes-to-produce prices. This has lead to corn being planted on 1/3rd of all plant able land in the United States. This abundance of cheap corn has, in turn, lead other companies to seek out ways of re-creating the “tiny packets of starch” which make up corn kernels into pretty much everything; high fructose corn syrup is the leading sugar used in processed foods, and corn can be found in everything ranging from ketchup to soda to beef. The sustainability problem here lies in the fact that, because of subsidies paid for by the United States Government, this process of growing one of the most earth depleting crops on the planet has been allowed to grow artificially. The system set up is now so dependent on corn being continually created that it will be very hard to break.

One subject the film did much talking about was the beef industry. Massive CAFO, or concentrated animal feeding operations, are where the cattle start. Here they are injected with hormones to make them grow faster, and are fed not only tons of corn but on some occasions the meat of other cows which was unable to be processed. Because cows stomachs are meant to eat only grass, this creates poorer quality meats that are sometimes infected with E Coli and other bacteria. The slaughterhouses are where the cows go next. Here, they are killed by foreign workers who are being paid a pitiful wage. These workers, who the companies generally refuse to do background checks on, are routinely rounded up by US border patrol and sent home. The meat is then sprayed with ammonia to reduce the risk of E Coli infection, packaged and shipped out to fast food restaurants among other places. Although this process is sustainable to a certain degree, there are so many cruelties and injustices involved, both for the cattle and the humans working around them, that it becomes unsustainable on a societal level; if we continue to produce these things the way they are being produced, we are damaging our health, endangering the lives of workers and giving them unsustainable wages and encouraging a system rife with animal cruelty.

This whole process, one could argue, is damaging the earth simply by the amount of resources being used up by each individual piece of the chain, and the fact that the methane released by the cows is one of the leading causes of global warming. The film does little to expand upon this fact however.

Another problem discussed by the film was the way in which chemical companies such as Monsanto are involved in this process. Monsanto, the leading producer of farming chemicals and seed, has farmers stuck in a fix in a variety of ways. Because the government legislated successfully to allow companies to patent life, Monsanto owns many patents involving genetically modified seed. An example of this is soybean seed. To allow their pesticide RoundUp to be used on soybeans, they had to genetically modify the beans to be unaffected by the poisons RoundUp contains. They then sold these soybeans to farmers, who aren’t allowed to save seeds after harvest because Monsanto owns their genetic makeup. As unjust as this is, however, it isn’t unsustainable.


 * What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why?**

Although this film did much to show how the food being mass produced by today’s corporations is detrimental to our health, it did little to find any other type of sustainability problems. There were a few compelling arguments as to why our system is awful in the way it misinforms the consumer of the origins the food it produces, but these can all be resurrected by informing the consumer to make better decisions. One part of the film which I found quite revealing was scene where representatives from Wallmart came to an organic farmer’s house in order to negotiate the purchase of their products. The reason they came was because, as always, they were trying to put on their shelves what would be removed by consumers. This points to the fact that more people are opening their eyes and discovering what healthier food can do to help sustain them, and thus paying more on store shelves for it. Wallmart, which usually is considered the arch villain of retail, just simply does what the consumer wants: the cheapest products of whatever quality they desire.


 * What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by?**

Many of the pathos arguments in the film were poorly constructed and misleading. Two prime examples are the family “forced” to buy McDonnalds in order to save money, and the mother whose nine year old son died of E Coli. The family, for starters, clearly wasn’t making educated decisions about their health. Instead of purchasing that new TV, for instance, why didn’t they put a little money towards buying better food? It’s hard to feel sorry for somebody when they make decisions like that and then try and complain that they’re not eating healthy. The mother, on the other hand, I can completely feel sorry for; losing a son must be a pain I can’t even contemplate, let alone understand. I also have no problem with her activism, as we need people such as her who are motivated to change our system out there doing what they feel is right. The way in which she was going about changing the system, on the other hand, I was not impressed with. She was upset that she couldn’t change the FDA’s inability to shut down factories that produced consistently poor meat, but this isn’t the responsibility of the FDA; if meat is found to be poor, it doesn’t pass FDA inspection. Companies that refuse to shut down factories producing this meat have incentive to change themselves because so much of their meat is failing.

Also, the fact that her child died is horrible… but the number of people dying yearly from starvation makes her sadness almost forgettable. If 9 people die a year of E Coli, which is an easily curable disease if treated correctly, and a few million die of starvation, it is clear where priorities lie.

Lastly, I believe the film didn’t do enough to show how the system could be redesigned to better educate the consumer. Instead if focused on how corrupt the system itself is. Although anybody watching the film would have a better understanding of where to buy healthy foods, it showed little about what the foods currently being produced are actually doing to our society. Although its known that childhood obesity, cancer rates and cardiac problems are all linked to the food we eat, it did little to who the correlation.


 * What additional information does the film compel you to seek out? Where do you want to dig deeper and what connections do you want to make with other issues, factors, problems, etc?**

This film compelled me to seek out actual facts about the detriment this food is causing to society, because it didn’t have enough of them. Although it did a good job of showing where the food came from, the lack of information about what the food is actually doing left a gap which I desired to fill.


 * What audiences does the film best address? What kind of imagination is fostered in viewers? Do you think the film is likely to change the way viewers think about and act on environmental problems?**

This film definitely lends itself well to a variety of viewers. It gives points of view from many different angles, and pinpoints issues which are relevant to consumers of all varieties. This film perhaps doesn’t do so well for people who already are aware of the places the food comes from, because this is essential the one main focus.


 * What kinds of action or points of intervention are suggested by the film?**

At the end of the film there was a large section on how purchasing organic and naturally grown food will have an effect on the system. Already companies like Wallmart are increasing their sales of organic products as a reaction to consumer demand. Because this industry only wants to match the needs of the consumer, as the consumer we must tailor our needs to be more sustainable to our health. If we do this, companies will follow suit.


 * What could have been added to this film to enhance its environmental education value?**

This film centered its argument on human health, rather than environmental effects. Although this may have been more effective in getting viewers to actually change their habits, it did little to inform them of how the system is damaging the environment. If it had emphasized this aspect of the problem, it might have shifted its audience from those who are more health conscious to those who are more environment conscious.