Food Inc.

Rea, Stephen. “Don’t watch ‘Food, Inc.’ if you don’t want to ruin your appetite.” PopMatters 18 June 2009 19 June 2009 <http://www.popmatters.com/pm/article/102200-dont-watch-food-inc.-if-you-dont-want-to-ruin-your-appetite/>.

Stephen Rea offers a synopsis of the documentary Food Inc that delves into the world of mass produced food. The images presented to consumers in a grocery store are misleading. They present a picture of cows in rolling pastures and the family farm. However, upon closer inspection, the food that is at the market is from commercial farms where cows are standing in their own excrement and chickens are pumped with chemicals and never see the light of day. It follows companies such as Monsanto, that chase small farmers out of business by suing them for planting their genetically altered soy seed or by the simple politics of a monopoly.

The creator of the documentary does not aim to change people’s eating habits necessarily. Instead he wants to allow more information to be available to the consumer. He claims that the misleading information provided about food is un-American and people should have the right to know what exactly they are buying. He also advocates for there to be a greater choice when it comes to the kind of food that can be bought. There should be more organic and slow-grown foods made available. The documentary has been met with some amount of resistance from the large companies, in particular Monsanto. However, they refused to be contacted during the making of the film and so far the documentary has been a success.