A Review of "Food Inc."

by Dee Newman

If you care about your health and the health of this planet, then you should go see the remarkable new documentary “Food Inc.” It is one of those rare films that have the potential to change your life. You will certainly never walk through a supermarket in the same way again.



I read that the director, Robert Kenner, spent six years putting the film together. The narrators of the documentary are the writers Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation).

Though the film does not focus on the brutal, violent, and gory images of slaughterhouses and the inhumane and filthy conditions of feedlots, the limited images that it does show are often difficult to view.

The main narrative of the film reveals how the vast American animal agricultural food industry has been consolidated into the hands of a few powerful corporations and how those corporations have been able to successfully restrict our understanding of where our food comes from, exactly what is in it and just how safe it really is.

But, what really makes this film so powerful and captivating are the stories of the ordinary folks in the film who have bravely gotten in the way of these powerful corporate giants and what they have had to suffer and endure in their efforts to try and protect us all.

There is the story of Barbara Kowalcyk, who became a relentless and determined food-safety advocate after her 2 1/2-year-old son, Kevin, died from eating an E-coli-contaminated hamburger.

There are the farmers who appear on screen with their faces blacked out in fear of lawsuits from Monsanto and the undocumented workers at processing plants who are recruited from Mexico and other countries and illegally brought to the United States to work dangerous jobs for extremely low wages.



Yes, it is the ordinary folks in this film who truly provide the knowledge and understanding of how and why these issues are so critical to the health and well being of us all.

So, if you care about your health and the health of this planet and you haven’t, as yet, seen “Food, Inc.” do not put it off. Go see it, today.