Review: ‘Food, Inc.’

Chicken breasts are twice as big as they used to be! We’re All Gonna Die !!!! FOOD INC .is an eye-opening and alarming new documentary by Robert Kenner that attempts to expose dark developments in the way food is prepared and regulated. It’s like a horror film in which the villains are McDonalds, Tyson Foods, Corn, and especially Monsanto (the St. Louis-based agricultural and biotechnology corporation). FOOD INC. is ambitious in scope and very entertaining, but like so many modern documentaries, it’s clearly agenda-driven and while watching it, I kept feeling that I was only being told one side of the story. FOOD INC. uses the best-selling books FAST FOOD NATION: THE DARK SIDE OF THE ALL-AMERICAN MEAL by Eric Schlosser (filmed before as a narrative by Richard Linklater) and THE OMNIVORE’S DILEMMA by Michael Pollan (both authors appear in the film) as a starting point to explore where the food we buy at the grocery store really comes from, and what it means for the well-being of consumers.

Presented in several portions, FOOD INC. starts by criticizing the current ‘industrial farming’ system that has taken over the manufacturing of food and blames the fast food industry, especially McDonalds, for the assembly-line process now used by the chicken and cattle industries. Chickens have larger breasts and are raised to slaughter in half the time as a few decades ago. The four largest meat packers command over 80 percent of the beef market and cattle are now corn-fed instead of grazers. Much of this is old news but these points are trotted out as if they are the direst and most urgent of issues and this documentary is the socially conscious wake up call the world needs. Most of the disturbing stats presented in FOOD INC. are not surprising and I think Americans aren’t quite as naive about the way food is produced as Kenner thinks they are as he presents his endless footage of crowded chicken factories and hidden camera shots of the grimy conditions in beef slaughterhouses as if he’s uncovered some grand conspiracy. FOOD INC. isn’t so much about food as it is food politics. The film is debate by anecdote in the vein of one of Michael Moore’s screeds. Kenner presents positive examples of food production he applauds (local organic free-range farming), and worst-case examples of production that doesn’t fit in with his political ideology (everything else). His description of the sustainable organic farms seem idyllic and romantic and his descriptions of the corn farm and feedlot make them seem awful, but the latter are of course so much more cost-effective and higher yield but their common-sense advantages are blatantly ignored. By presenting the affiliations between food corporations and government, Kenner attempts to expose the corruption within the American food industry. The FDA and USDA are supposed to protect the consumer, so why is it, Kenner asks, that these government regulatory agencies are allowing corporations to put profit ahead of health (I assume he supports even more government regulation, but if these agencies are so complicit, I guess we’re all screwed)?

FOOD INC. then throws out a lot of accusations that U.S. food corporations knowingly use industrial techniques that are linked to problems like obesity, diabetes, and strains of E. coli bacteria. Barbara Kowalcyk, whose 2-year-old son Kevin died from an infection of E. coli in 2001 after eating at Jack in the Box, is shown lobbying lawmakers to pass “Kevin’s law,” which would give the U.S. Department of Agriculture the power to shut down plants that produce contaminated meats (the law has yet to pass). She speaks at length and her story’s so sad but, given that billions of burgers have sold since and there have not been more e-coli deaths, couldn’t one could argue that the meat industry has done a good job of containing the danger?

FOOD INC. spends time with Stonyfield Farm’s Gary Hirshberg, who offers his own line of organic yogurt, grass-fed beef, and other local products. Kenner invites WAL-MART representatives to Hirshberg’s farm where they are receptive to his product on-camera and now carry it in their stores (WAL-MART also refuses to sell dairy products that use bovine growth hormone). I have my doubts that making WAL-MART look good was the filmmaker’s intent, but FOOD INC. is saving its sharpest knives for Monsanto. Kenner spends much of the last third of the film accusing the biotechnology giant of using bullying tactics against soybean farmers. Monsanto provides a patented high-yield ‘Round-Up Ready’� insect-resistant soybean seed to farmers who are contracted not to save their own seed for use the following year and to buy new seed from Monsanto (because successive generations of the seed degrade in quality which decreases yield, handicapping both parties, a reason conveniently unmentioned). Kenner seems amazed that Monsanto would actually legally enforce these contracts and go after farmers who infringe them. Kenner breathlessly points out that Monsanto has an army of 75 lawyers (we’re supposed to be shocked that a multinational corporation such as Monsanto would have a large legal staff), then throws down his trump card: at one time one of Monsanto’s attorneys was – (cue the scary music) – Justice Clarence Thomas (!!!), implying corruption leading all the way to the Supreme Court without a speck of evidence to back up the insinuation. Monsanto and their ‘frankenscience’� brand of genetic engineering has long been a target of anti-corporate crusaders, but of all the angles for a documentary like this to go after them, this one seems weak.

It’s easier to be persuasive when your presentation is lively and skillful and FOOD INC. is certainly a very polished movie. It makes as many solid points as flawed ones, raises serious concerns, and even uses humor well but it too often relies on sensationalism and jumps to conclusions. It’s big on accusations but short on evidence. Unsurprisingly, FOOD INC. is from the producers of AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH but it’s a much more cinematic and compelling experience than the Al Gore film. FOOD INC. bites off more than it can chew and is so jam-packed with facts and heads in so many directions it loses focus and even gets a bit ridiculous (does it claim that industrial farms contribute to global warming? Of course it does!). Instead of solutions, it offers platitudes such as “buy food made by companies that treat animals with respect”� (I’ll bet the director of this film is being interviewed on NPR right now!). There is no room for counterpoint though we are treated to a lot of subtitles that say unsurprising things like “Monsanto, Tyson, etc… refused to grant us an interview”. I don’t intend to change my eating habits after seeing FOOD INC. but, despite my gripes, I still recommend the movie for its entertainment value alone. It’s alarmist food for thought that should be taken with a grain of salt.