In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now 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. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won’t go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.
Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield’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.
-Sarah Newman, Research Manager, Social Action, The film’s Social Action campaign details are available at takepart.com/foodinc
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Ten things you can do to change our food system (on a postcard distributed after the screening)
1. Drink fewer sodas and other sweetened beverages.
Fact: If you replace one 20 oz soda a day with a no calorie beverage (preferably water), you could lose 25 lbs a year.
2. Eat at home instead of eating out.
Fact: Children consume almost twice (1.8 times) as many calories when eating food made outside the home.
3. Support passage of state and local laws to require chain restaurants to post calorie information on menus and menu boards.
4. Tell schools to stop selling sodas, junk food, and sports drinks.
Fact: Over the last two decades, rates of obesity have tripled in children and adolescents ages 6 to 19 years.
5. Meatless Mondays… Go without meat one day a week.
Fact: An estimated 70% of all antibiotics used in the United States are given to farm animals.
6. Buy organic or sustainable foods with little to no pesticide use.
Fact: According to the EPA, over 1 billion pounds of pesticides are used each year in the U.S.
7. Protect family farms, visit your local farmer’s market.
Fact: Farmers markets enable farmers to keep 80 to 90 cents of each dollar spent by the consumer.
8. Make a point to know where your food comes from- READ LABELS
Fact: The average meal travels 1500 miles from the farm to your dinner plate.
9. Tell Congress that food safety is important to you.
Fact: Each year, contaminated food causes millions of illnesses and thousands of deaths in the United States.
10. Demand job protections for farm workers and food processors, ensuring fair wages and other protections.
Fact: Poverty among farm workers is more than double that of all other wage and salary employees.
To view a longer video: an interview with Robert Kenner, director of Food Inc watch this!
Great blog. I am looking forward to “Food Inc.” I’m glad you’re getting the word out. I just hope it comes to my little town. Keep up the good work. Cheers.