"Food Inc": Food Industry on Film

There is certainly enough in the news to have quickly buried the premier of the movie "Food Inc." But just before it opened I submitted an editorial for the print version of Food Product Design that still raises a lot of questions.

“Food, Inc.” Stincs

Here we go again. By the time you read this, the theatrical release of the latest food-industry hit job, “Food, Inc.,” will be history. The film’s website describes it thus: “Corn is the vegetable-as-villain in ‘Food, Inc.,’ which builds on the work of nutritionists, journalists and activists Eric Schlosser (“Fast Food Nation”) and Michael Pollan (“The Omnivore's Dilemma”) to show how multinationals have taken over the production of food. The movie tells us corn—which today assumes dozens of ubiquitous identities, notably high-fructose corn syrup—is kept at unrealistically low prices by the government, is fed to animals that haven't evolved to eat it (such as the cow), causes those animals to develop maladies that must be treated with antibiotics (which are passed on to consumers), and has led to the mutation of new strains of the E. coli, which sickens tens of thousands each year.”
Where to start? Perhaps hunt for the peer-reviewed study that shows cause and effect for the theory that corn mutates E. coli …
Without seeing the movie I really can’t make a valid argument to counter any potential controversy. And, while I’m sure the food industry has its share of problems—Peanut Corporation of America comes immediately to mind—I’m guessing the movie is mostly a modern-day version of yellow journalism. The filmmakers are certainly tapping into a wave of anti-corporate sentiment and likely suggest replacing the current food industry with an unrealistic bucolic utopia filled with happy cows—just as advertised. And they’re feeding the collective insight oozing from the blogosphere, including this amateur movie review lurking just a web-search click or two away: “People just need to stop trying to add chemicals to food, that’s how we invented cancer.”
It shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone that, like any other industry, the food industry collides with politics and profits—and that there are instances of abuse. Business was that way 100 years ago, and conceivably will still be that way 100 years hence.
But I’m getting tired of this industry being blamed for everything from global warming to intentional poisoning of the populace. While the food industry is trying to fight back by adopting web strategies like SafeFoodInc.com, I doubt that will do much to counteract the relentless message that, if you don’t buy your food fresh from a local farmer who knows all his carrots by name … YOU’RE GOING TO DIE! Individuals who work in the industry need to step up and say, “Hey, we eat this stuff and feed it to our families, too.”
Lastly, I wish rabid locavores would preach from North Dakota in the dead of winter instead of from the cornucopia that is relentlessly irrigated California. Plus, they are invited to come and cull the local deer herd that grazed their way through my backyard bean patch. I have plenty of freezer space, and suburban-grass- and garden-fed venison sounds like good eating. They can even name them first.
   -Lynn A. Kuntz