'Food, Inc.' is worth digesting

By Sarah Sluis

If you're one of the millions of people who eagerly consumed Fast Food Nation, and followed it up with Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, the documentary Food, Inc. will drive home the points of these books in an easily digestible, tear-jerking, visual experience.

At the screening I attended, the critics (usually a quiet bunch) occasionally let out an "mm-hm" or sympathetic scoff to punctuate some of the documentary's points: Preacher, meet choir. Food, Inc.'s tri-city release on June 12th will distribute the film to the sympathetic, liberal cities of New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, so it remains to be seen whether this documentary would be a successful conversion device if you were to drag along a reticent relative or friend.

Food, Inc. focuses on the whole range of food politics: legislation, corporate practices, local farms vs. factory farming, food safety, nutrition, the effects of fast food, and the class issues surrounding food consumption. While most of us are familiar with the basics of these debates, the examples offered by Robert Kenner, who has directed episodes of PBS's "American Experience," make all the difference. While many people are sickened by food, I was sickened by the story of a mother whose son was killed by a burger tainted with E.coli. Sadly,

although testing at the plant turned up the virus, the meat was not

recalled until weeks after her son had already eaten the burger. Her pursuit of the passage of Kevin's Law, which would require speedy notification of food contamination, is one of the most touching vignettes of the film.

Because Food, Inc. looks at food from the farm to the table, it's able to showcase unusual solutions to problems like E.coli contamination in meat. Turns out, fixing this isn't just about plant cleanliness, but grazing practices that promote the virus. According to the food scientists interviewed in the film, E.coli multiply in the gut when cows are fed corn instead of grass. Feeding cows grass a week before slaughter will remove the majority of E.coli from their gut, but the expensive practice simply isn't part of the corporate slaughterhouse process.

Factoids like these are the kind of things evangelists like to share over dinner with friends (perhaps to their consternation), and there's plenty more in Food, Inc. It never felt too didactic to me, but rather took the role of a microphone, amplifying and neatly laying out the arguments of prominent activists. The interview with the CEO of Stonyfield Farm yogurt, Gary Hirshberg, is one such standout segment. The former radical now sells his products in Wal-Mart, and sold the company to the corporation that produces Dannon yogurt. While these choices have made his liberal friends aghast, he sees the growth of organic companies as a way to reduce the net amount of pesticides and negative byproducts in our ecosystem. With most of the organic upstarts (like Kashi, for example) being acquired by the big food companies, the question floating around is, will these companies be able to scale up the organic, free-range movement and improve the quality and safety of our food? Or will growth compromise the core tenets of these companies, like locally sourced food?

Food, Inc. is a thought-provoking documentary, though even a convert like me found a few moments that relied more on emotion and exaggeration than statements backed up by firm research. With food politics such a hot topic, this documentary is required viewing for anyone who's ever reached for organic milk, or drawn back once they've viewed its price.

Food, Inc.'s website can be accessed here.
A NY Times article about the bottoming-out of the organic milk market can be read here.
Sneak-peek clips of Food, Inc. viewable here.