FOOD INC.

Oscar nominated documentary highlights the evil of factory farming. (Review by Lynne Goodman)

You are what you eat, the saying goes, and if you accept this, then mass cruelty and poison courses through our veins. This is the contention in the Oscar-nominated documentary, Food Inc, which highlights the evils of factory farming with such impact that it is enough to give the most committed omnivore ethical heartburn.

Though it is basically about America’s corporate ‘eating disorder’, this exposé uncovers the ugly underbelly of the food chain wherever powerful conglomerates take over. It is elevated by input from the eminent food writer Michael Pollan, Professor of Journalism at Berkeley University, who penned The Omnivore’s Dilemma. In this he sums up the gist of the film with his statement: "The industrial animal factory offers a nightmarish glimpse of what capitalism is capable of in the absence of any moral or regulatory constraint."

As the film questions: how else can you explain the total takeover of the soya bean with genetic modification? Or that cattle - natural herbivores - are being forced to eat mass produced corn? Or that chickens are being bred with bigger breasts to satisfy the demand for white meat (never mind that they can hardly bear the weight or stand up in their overcrowded feedlots)?

The aim has become to grow faster, fatter, bigger and cheaper. But the documentary suggests that cheap food is in fact very expensive in terms of the cost to the animals, the environment and our health. It feeds us examples from slaughterhouse cattle to the effects of contaminated food - backed by deceptively calming music and verdant country scenes to emphasis the message that once healthy farming has gone drastically wrong.

It is not easy watching - nor was it easy in the making as all the conglomerates refused to be interviewed about their suggested mafia type tactics and hidden cameras had to be used to back up the accusations of the ecological detectives. US organisations National Beef, Smithfield, Tyson, Perdue, Wal-mart and Monsanto are implicated with the suggestion that the men in corporate boardrooms don’t live with the consequences of their decisions.

The positive conclusion is that while we have allowed ourselves to become disconnected and ignorant about something as basic as what we put in our mouths, we have a right to ask what is in the kitchen - and we can change the world with every bite we eat.

Doubtless this documentary will end up preaching to the convinced as it is not going to top the movie-goers’ popularity poll. But for anybody who takes the trouble to watch, it offers potent food for thought during its 93 minutes. And it is certainly not just relevant to America. In South Africa, Animal Voice editor Louise van der Merwe has been campaigning for 20 years against the abominations involved in our factory farming. She has facilitated the introduction of free range eggs and meat into local supermarkets and offers the plea: "Let us all adapt a mind set that we have a right to assume that the food we eat has been produced with the utmost care and respect." – Lynne Goodman