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Food, Inc (2008) by Robert Kenner

One of the central issues raised by the movie is that we produce a lot of animals on a small area of land at affordable prices which leads to many unintended consequences. Animals are mass produced as if they were inanimate objects instead of being raised the proper way as actual living animals. In addition, animals are grown faster, bigger, and cheaper without giving any thought to the animal’s well being.


 * · __Economic__ – Well slavery was abolished nearly 150 years ago in this country but instead there is a new form known as economic slavery. Farmers are literally under the economic thumbs of the major meat corporations. For example, farmers need around $500,000 to be able to build 2 buildings that are used to raise chickens in.
 * · The movie indicated that farmers generally only earn around $18,000 per year. As a result, these farms owe a huge amount of money to the bank which allowed them to borrow the money they required to make the buildings. To make matters worse, these companies force the farmers to always upgrade their equipment and buildings as a technique to keep the farmers under their control.
 * · Another economic impact shown is what happens as a result of having food subsides and the cost of various foods. By making calories cheap, due to subsidies, it forces most people to by the cheap foods that contain lots of calories. It is easier to buy cheaper foods, think fast food, than it is to buy fresh produce. For example, the price of broccoli is 1.29 per pound but one can get a whole burger for only $1. As a result of bad foods being so cheap, the people with economic difficulties will generally only be able to buy the cheap bad foods
 * · __Ecological__ – The movie showed several ecological examples. One results from the fact that bad foods with lots of calories are cheap. Type 2 diabetes generally only affect adults, but now kids are also affected by it. 1/3 of kids, born after 2000, have diabetes. If I recall correctly ½ of kids are also deal with obesity related issues.
 * · Some other ecological issues relate to the production of animals. Instead of taking 3 months to fully grown a chicken, they are grown in half the time. In addition, they weight twice which leads to the chickens not even being able to walk a few feet due to their body mass. Various chemicals are used to grow them faster and fatter. They are also given antibiotics that generally do not benefit them but causes harm the people who eat them.
 * · Another issue is that some animals are feed foods that they would not eat naturally. One example is that we are now feeding corn based foods to fish. I do not know what exactly fish eat but I do know that fish do not eat corn that is not even located in their environment. Another example is that we also feed corn to cows that are not designed to eat corn. Normally, cows eat grasses but instead are only feed corn. As a result of being forced to eat corn, lots of cows are being infected with a new strain of e-coli known as EO157H7.
 * · __Legal__ – In one of my classes I have previously taken, economics or business law, I was told the legal definition of what makes a monopoly. I was taught that the top 4 industries in whatever industry could not have over 25% of the market share. However, the movie showed that 4 or 5 various companies owned well over 25%, maybe between 65 to 85%, of both the meat and pork markets.
 * · Some other ecological issues relate to the production of animals. Instead of taking 3 months to fully grown a chicken, they are grown in half the time. In addition, they weight twice which leads to the chickens not even being able to walk a few feet due to their body mass. Various chemicals are used to grow them faster and fatter. They are also given antibiotics that generally do not benefit them but causes harm the people who eat them.
 * · Another issue is that some animals are feed foods that they would not eat naturally. One example is that we are now feeding corn based foods to fish. I do not know what exactly fish eat but I do know that fish do not eat corn that is not even located in their environment. Another example is that we also feed corn to cows that are not designed to eat corn. Normally, cows eat grasses but instead are only feed corn. As a result of being forced to eat corn, lots of cows are being infected with a new strain of e-coli known as EO157H7.
 * · __Legal__ – In one of my classes I have previously taken, economics or business law, I was told the legal definition of what makes a monopoly. I was taught that the top 4 industries in whatever industry could not have over 25% of the market share. However, the movie showed that 4 or 5 various companies owned well over 25%, maybe between 65 to 85%, of both the meat and pork markets.
 * · Another issue is that some animals are feed foods that they would not eat naturally. One example is that we are now feeding corn based foods to fish. I do not know what exactly fish eat but I do know that fish do not eat corn that is not even located in their environment. Another example is that we also feed corn to cows that are not designed to eat corn. Normally, cows eat grasses but instead are only feed corn. As a result of being forced to eat corn, lots of cows are being infected with a new strain of e-coli known as EO157H7.
 * · __Legal__ – In one of my classes I have previously taken, economics or business law, I was told the legal definition of what makes a monopoly. I was taught that the top 4 industries in whatever industry could not have over 25% of the market share. However, the movie showed that 4 or 5 various companies owned well over 25%, maybe between 65 to 85%, of both the meat and pork markets.
 * · __Legal__ – In one of my classes I have previously taken, economics or business law, I was told the legal definition of what makes a monopoly. I was taught that the top 4 industries in whatever industry could not have over 25% of the market share. However, the movie showed that 4 or 5 various companies owned well over 25%, maybe between 65 to 85%, of both the meat and pork markets.

If I heard correctly, the movie stated that there were around 1,700 butchers in the United States a few decades ago. Now the number has been greatly reduced to a mere 5 factories that do most of the work. I think that having 1,700 is much better than 5 for a number of reasons. The first is that there would be much more competition with 1,700 than 5 because it would give the customer most of the power in the relationship. The reason is that the customer can simply go to another butcher if they do not like the prices from that butcher. The same could also be said that with more butchers, there would be more variety due to the fact there will be more competition between butchers.

One of the things that I found most shocking was the amount of market share that 4 or 5 corporations own in the meat and pork industry. Under my definition, these companies should be sued by the government for being a monopoly. Remember what happened with Microsoft? They were sued for being a monopoly, so why are not these companies being sued?

Another thing that surprised me is in regards to the cleanliness difference between chicken processing plants and a guy processing chickens outside in nature. We are raised with a general notion that preparing food out in “nature” is dirty and unhealthy for us. However, the farmer who processes the chickens gave some numbers that compared the cleanliness of the factory and farmer. Ironically, the numbers indicated that the area that was used to process the chickens by the farmer was substantially cleaner than the chicken processing factory.

The first time that people watch this movie, I think most of them feel as though they were slapped in the face. I say this because the first time a person watches they may get the impression that the movie is very negative. However, after watching the movie a second time, the movie did not feel that it was overly negative as I first thought. Towards the end of the movie, the movie does provide some positive motivation to the viewer but I think it is too little too late. In addition, the positive motivation seems as a after thought because it feels as thou it was a last minute addition to the movie which did not flow with the movie. If I could change one thing with the movie, it would be to incorporation some positive information into the movie.

The parts of the film that I found most compelling was when they stated numbers. For example, before there were 1,700 butchers and now it is only 5. This number is a fact that can be proven and cannot really be argued about. Maybe the number 5 is incorrect but people get the idea that there is substantially less butchers than ever before.