Food Inc.

It had to happen, someone had to make a documentary based on two of the most influential recent publications on food, Fast Food Nation (Eric Schlosser), and the wonderful tale told by Michael Pollan in The Omnivores Dilemma (www.michaelpollan.com).

My brief conclusion is simple: SEE THIS MOVIE and get others to see it.

It is compelling, worrying and mostly convincing. The way we produce and consume our food in the industrial agriculture economy should have us signing up at the local vegetarian society.

One of the most compelling aspects of the movie was its attempt to take us inside a chicken farm. Apart from one brave farmer, no farmer would allow the cameras into the darkened chicken sheds. Why? Why the secrecy? It is nearly impossible to get cameras into these animal factories. The farmers that I know all welcome visitors to their farms. They take time to explain what is going on. They answer questions, even when ignorant city folk haven't a clue about how food is actually produced. But the doors of the big factory farms are shut tighter than North Korea's democracy movement. I am suspicious.

So suspicious that I will not eat chicken or pig, or beef because I don't trust where it comes from. I do not wish to participate in the ritual abuse of other species. I don't believe it is wrong to eat other species. But how we have turned them into mere protein machines is ethically wrong. Don't buy chicken unless you know that it has been raised free range, or organically.

The film offers a powerful indictment of the marriage of corporate capitalism with mass industrialisation. We need industrialisation to feed the growing world, but we must limit the cruelty and abuse of workers that occurs in these industries. The only way we can get the message through is to NOT BUY THIS STUFF. Buy from farmers markets where possible. Eat less meat (it won't kill you, despite the fears of some people that I know!).

But the film is not perfect. It did say we should eat only organic, but this is problematic for many people in the world. I am not convinced that organic is the only way, nor the only ethical way, to produce our food. Nothing wrong with it, and the idea is appealing, but I don't think it is the magic bullet it sometimes is sold as. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (May 12, 2010) published a review of over 98 thousand articles to assess the health affects of organic food vs non-organic. Only 12 articles were considered relevant and the authors concluded that: "
From a systematic review of the currently available published literature, evidence is lacking for
nutrition-related health effects that result from the consumption of organically produced foodstuffs". They did not conclude that there are no health differences, but just that the research cannot substantiate this yet, given the paucity of data.

There were some other issues I thought confused the message of the movie, such as the strong link between large corporations and poor labour laws and abuse of workers. The cause of this is not being a large corporation, but lax legislation and enforcement, and of course the power that large economic entities can exert. This is a powerful reason for ethical shareholders to hold these companies accountable, and demand strong environmental, social and ethical economic practices. Sustainable businesses need to make a profit to sustain themselves, but they need to do it within an system of ethical practice.

Please see this movie, if you haven't, and change the way you eat, if you need to.