If you eat food, then this movie is for you. . .at least if you are like most of us, and the bulk of your of your diet comes from the supermarket. Then, it’s important to understand what happens to that food before it gets to you. If you are concerned about why there have been so many food recalls in the past few years, the producers of Food, Inc. are hoping to explain to you why this happens and what you can do about it.
Food, Inc. is about the ways our industrialized food system is concentrated in the hands of a few mega-corporations. According to the producers of Food, Inc., the players within our food system are largely unsupervised, unaccountable for their actions, and not particularly interested in consumer health. The film features interviews with farmers, food experts such as Michael Pollan (author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food) and Eric Schlosser (author of Fast Food Nation and co-producer of the movie), and ordinary citizens like Barbara Kowalcyk who started a food safety advocacy group after her two-year old son died from an E. coli infection.
Last week, on the radio show Good Food, food safety expert Marion Nestle declared, “Why isn’t there an absolute dread, outrage, and public protest and people taking to the streets to get something done about our food safety system? That is the thing I can’t understand. . . I think that people feel comfortable about food safety issues in a way that they don’t feel comfortable about genetic modification, for example. People are just deeply outraged about genetically modified foods and don’t have that kind of outrage for the fact that we don’t have a real food safety system in this country.”
The producers and food experts behind Food, Inc. are hoping that their film will stir that outrage and spur consumers to action. The Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act is up for renewal this fall, and the producers of the film are sponsoring a petition drive to revamp school meals.
If you see the movie, I’d love to know what your thoughts are. Please comment here about Food, Inc.
I have three pairs of tickets to give away for the 7:40 pm showing of Food, Inc. at the Sunrise Intracoastal Theater this Monday, June 22. The first three people to email their name and address to trina@miamidish.net will get those tickets.
