The Slow Food USA Blog

FOOD, Inc. Hits Theatres (and throws a punch at agribusiness, too)

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There are a bunch of sustainable food documentaries that have been kicking around our circles for a few years now.  Some of them are very good—enlightening, celebratory, inspiring, damning.  But we all have probably wondered: who sees these but the proverbial choir?

Filmmaker Robert Kenner, along with producers Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, is making a go at hitting the big time,—i.e. lots of viewers, even ones outside the usual circles—with his movie “Food, Inc.”  The movie, which opens in NYC San Fran and LA on June 12th, got some primetime coverage in the New York Times this past weekend.  The Times article will help the word spread, but so can you.  Go see the movie, and while you’re at it, go tell some others to see the movie.

Participant Media is a unique production company in that they release their movies as part of a social action campaign.  Remember “An Inconvenient Truth?” This time around they are focusing on food issues of all shapes and sizes. The movie touches on many issues, including violations of farmworkers’ rights; aggressive litigiousness on the part of large agribusiness; food safety; the role of industrial organic; and some straight up weird stuff like an irradiated fat slurry that goes into most hamburger meat produced in this country. The main theme, as the title suggests, is what goes wrong when corporations control the food system. 

Along with the movie they have released a companion book with the subtitle: “How Industrial Food is Making us Sicker, Fatter and Poorer—And What You Can Do About It.” It includes pieces by many of the faces in the movie, like Eric Schlosser, Gary Hirshberg (of Stonyfield Farm Organic), and farmer Joel Salatin, as well as a few people and organizations who did not have face time in the movie, such as Heifer International and United Farm Workers.
In addition, they are focusing on improving school lunch and the Child Nutrition Act’s Reauthorization—you can check out their “interactive cafeteria” and sign their school lunch petitionhere.

With movies like this, it’s important to head out the first few days they’re open, so run out this weekend and see “FOOD, Inc.” if you haven’t already.