Your Are What You Eat

If there is any truth to the saying "you are what you eat", then the USA is in big trouble. Food, Inc. from director Robert Kenner is a documentary that looks at the corporate run food industry and how they (not necessarily knowingly) have become providers of cheap, unhealthy food. The film addresses issues like animal mistreatment, food contamination, and how the big food corporations cover up these problems with help from the government. I honestly felt sick to my stomach while watching the film. The parts with the big businesses pushing around the "little guys" and putting a blindfold over the consumer's eyes are all things that we have seen before (health care, oil, etc..). But what churned my stomach the most was the footage of the animals. Living in their own excrement, crammed together in great numbers, filled with antibiotics, deformed, suffering, and then brutally killed. The topper is, not only are these animals treated horribly but then we eat them after they have been living in their own shit! But I guess it is not surprising that they are willing to feed us such contaminated food after you see how they treat their own employees. The food corporations knowingly hire illegal immigrants (these mega-businesses sure like to cut costs and corners) and then sell them out in order to appease the government. Food, Inc. does provide some hope like with the farmer from Virginia who treats all of his livestock with care and does his work in the open, fresh air. We also see mega-corporation Wal-Mart taking steps to endorse organic products. This film will make you think twice about what you put in your shopping cart and it has an important message that I think anyone who eats (which is everyone) should know, that most of what we eat now is produced by a handful of centralized businesses, and that this situation is detrimental to our health and humanity.