First Hit: Everyone needs to see this film. It may change your mind about what you eat and will certainly educate you on how creating food has become more about the production line and how fast and cheap we produce it than nutrition and how it helps our bodies.
The two main narrators of this film are Eric Schlosser who wrote “Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the all American Meal” and Michael Pollan who wrote “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”.
The film begins with shots of grocery packed aisles in a grocery store. We see thousands upon thousands of products on the shelves, and as Eric states, where did all this food come from. The first startling statistic revolves around how the producers of meat products are being consolidated into just a few.
Example: 50 years ago, the top dozen major beef producers controlled less than 30% of the market. Today 4 companies produce more than 80% of the beef on the market. The how and why this happened and the dangers of what we are now facing, as the production of food becomes an exercise in least cost efficiency, is what this film is about.
This film documents the incredible and powerful impact of fast food chains on all our markets. It shows how corn is produced by huge farms and sold at a loss, but these farms make money because they are government subsidized.
Why is corn important? It is in everything and is used to fatten up our animals for slaughter. You see how the chicken industry has created a full grown chicken in less than 50 days when it used to take 70 days. One of the worst parts is, these chickens can barely stand or walk and on most chicken farms, the chickens never see the light of day. You see a hog processing plant that kills more than 32,000 pigs a day. You see miles and miles of cows being fed corn, which their bodies cannot handle, to fatten them up.
Corn fed cattle is a danger because their stomachs can produce E. coli 015:H7 which would normally be non-existent when they feed on grass. We hear the story of a woman losing her 2 year old son from E. coli contaminated hamburger. The film also shows you farmers who care and are attempting to do something about it. We are also shown a story about how Monsanto, in their quest to make germ resistant seeds, has capitalized on their invention to the tune of ruining farmers.
Finally, the film gives you very clear instruction of what you can do to change what is going on and the reason is: If we don’t make these changes, we are headed for a nutritional and health disaster.
This film was expertly directed by Robert Kenner and does not rely on histrionics, over dramatizations or a bending of the truth. However, there are some images of food processing that had me momentarily turning away from the screen because they were just simply too hard to watch.
Overall: We are heading towards a health crisis through our food. The images, explanations and information will stay with me long after this film leaves the theaters.