Food Incoporated

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Written by Norm Benedict

Friday, 06 March 2009 18:12

(Commentary) Everywhere, March 2009 – The sixth annual True-False Film Festival (T/F), which has been held here in our hometown since its inception, and which is growing fast in popularity, specializes on showing documentary films. One of the hits of this year’s festival, which ended March 1, was called Food, Inc. The film asks the question: How much do we really know about the food we buy at our local supermarkets and serve to our families? In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that's been hidden from the American consumer, apparently, it reports, with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. The film says that our nation's food supply is controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. They have given us bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have been provided new strains of e coli--the harmful bacteria that cause illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. (And we’re not even mentioning the peanut mess.) In addition, it’s no secret we are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults. The film points this out. As a public relations professional, we’ve been fighting the battle to spread the bad word about obesity to parents and children (at their own levels) but it takes consistent funds to make this happen, and for the past decade, “consistent” has definitely not been the name of the game. Then, when we see prestigious groups like the American Heart Association proclaim their own battle plans, only to see that it’s made up of tactics that have been tried before and have failed, it’s sad. The film, one for all to see, features interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield Farm's Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms' Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising -- and often shocking truths -- about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here. For more information about the film and where it will be shown next, go to www.takepart.com/foodinc.  SOURCE: Food, Inc., Healthy Newspaper (Visual courtesy takepart.com) < Prev   Next >