The current method of raw food production is largely a response to the growth of the fast food industry since the 1950s. The production of food overall has more drastically changed since that time than the several thousand years prior. Controlled primarily by a handful of multinational corporations, the global food production business – with an emphasis on the business – has as its unwritten goals production of large quantities of food at low direct inputs (most often subsidized) resulting in enormous profits, which in turn results in greater control of the global supply of food sources within these few companies. Health and safety (of the food itself, of the animals produced themselves, of the workers on the assembly lines, and of the consumers actually eating the food) are often overlooked by the companies, and are often overlooked by government in an effort to provide cheap food regardless of these negative consequences. Many of the changes are based on advancements in science and technology, but often have negative side effects. The answer that the companies have come up with is to throw more science at the problems to bandage the issues but not the root causes. The global food supply may be in crisis with lack of biodiversity, but can be changed on the demand side of the equation.

Food, Inc. (2008)
  • Rating: (16,307 votes)
  • Taglines:You'll never look at dinner the same way again » Hungry For Change? »
  • Runtime:94 minutes
  • Director: Robert Kenner
  • Country:USA
  • Actors:
    Himself - Author, 'Fast Food Nation'
    Eric Schlosser
    Himself - National Chicken Council
    Richard Lobb
    Himself - Tyson Grower
    Vince Edwards
    Herself - Perdue Grower
    Carole Morison
    Himself - Author, 'The Omnivore's Dilemma'
    Michael Pollan
    Himself - Vice President, American Corn Growers Association
    Troy Roush
    Himself - Center for Crops Utilization Research, Iowa State University
    Larry Johnson
    Himself - Ruminant Nutrition Expert, Iowa State University
    Allen Trenkle
    Herself - Food Safety Advocate
    Patricia Buck
    Herself - Food Safety Advocate
    Barbara Kowalyck
  • Genre:Documentary
  • Producers:
    Elise Pearlstein
    producer  
    Robin Schorr
    executive producer  
    Jeff Skoll
    executive producer  
    Diane Weyermann
    executive producer  
  • Plot: The current method of raw food production is largely a response to the growth of the fast food industry since the 1950s. The production of food overall has more drastically changed since that time than the several thousand years prior. Controlled primarily by a handful of multinational corporations, the global food production business - with an emphasis on the business - has as its unwritten goals production of large quantities of food at low direct inputs (most often subsidized) resulting in enormous profits, which in turn results in greater control of the global supply of food sources within these few companies. Health and safety (of the food itself, of the animals produced themselves, of the workers on the assembly lines, and of the consumers actually eating the food) are often overlooked by the companies, and are often overlooked by government in an effort to provide cheap food regardless of these negative consequences. Many of the changes are based on advancements in science and technology, but often have negative side effects. The answer that the companies have come up with is to throw more science at the problems to bandage the issues but not the root causes. The global food supply may be in crisis with lack of biodiversity, but can be changed on the demand side of the equation. Written by Huggo
Food, Inc.
  • User's comment: by John DeSando (jdesando@columbus.rr.com)

    "Faster, fatter, bigger, cheaper." A farmer describes fast food folly.

    Although I would like to call Food, Inc. a horror film, I must relax my delicate eating sensibilities to call it a disturbing documentary. Images of little chickens hanging like laundry on conveyor cables above fast-moving assembly lines and cows patiently standing knee high in feces have changed my attitude toward grilling.

    Robert Kenner's Food, Inc. isn't half the fun of a Michael Moore doc in which the infamous director savages everyone from auto execs to neocons. Kenner is more credible because he doesn't viciously pursue any one official, just the food industry itself (and McDonald's more than any other), which has become oligarchic and impersonal, endangering the quality and safety of consumers. Unlike Moore, Kenner has no sense of humor.

    Like almost all documentarians, Kenner smartly offers ways to change the barbaric methods and marketing of food. In truth too little praise is given to the food giants that have provided good nutrition and cheaper food in an amazing harvesting that can feed the world. Narrator/interviewer Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and scientist Michael Pollan (UC Berkeley) modestly present their cases for food abuse such as the demand in corporations like McDonalds for "faster, fatter, bigger, cheaper."

    On the point of treating animals with kindness, the documentary has encouraged me to consider vegetables.


  • Quotes: Michael Pollan: There are no seasons in the American supermarket. Now there are tomatoes all year round, grown halfway around the world, picked when it was green, and ripened with ethylene gas. Although it looks like a tomato, it's kind of a notional tomato. I mean, it's the idea of a tomato. Joel Salatin: A culture that just uses a pig as a pile of protoplasmic inanimate structure, to be manipulated by whatever creative design the human can foist on that critter, will probably view individuals within its community, and other cultures in the community of nations, with the same type of disdain and disrespect and controlling type mentalities. Joel Salatin: I'm always struck by how successful we have been at hitting the bull's-eye of the wrong target. I mean we have learned- for example, in cattle we have learned how to plant, fertilize and harvest corn using global positioning satellite technology, and nobody sits back and asks, "But should we be feeding cows corn?" We've become a culture of technicians. We're all into the how of it and nobody's stepping back and saying "But why?"
  • Also known as: Food, Inc. (Argentina - festival title), Food, Inc. (France - imdb display title), Корпорация 'Еда' (Russia), Élelmiszeripar Rt. (Hungary - imdb display title), Food, Inc. - Was essen wir wirklich? (Germany - DVD title), Hrana, d.d. (Slovenia), Korporacyjna zywnosc (Poland - imdb display title),

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