Thread: Food, Inc.

Food, Inc. came out a few months ago and started airing at our local state theatre, so we went out and watched it this past Friday.

It's a documentary about the industrialization of America's food supply and was actually quite well done. There was a dash of "the videos meat companies don't want you to see", most of which I've already seen, but it was much more informative documentary than shock documentary.

My wife read The Omnivore's Dilemma not too long ago so I was already aware of how corn became, and currently is, the dominant food in just about everything we eat. What surprised me most in the movie was the bit about soy production.

Monsanto is the leading manufacturer of Roundup, and they also genetically engineered a soy seed that would resist Roundup. Now some 90-something percent of all soy produced in America is both manufactured and patented by Monsanto. They speak in-depth about the pressure Monsanto puts on farmers to use the beans that are resistant to the herbicide that they also create. If a farmer cleans his seeds to regrow them next year, they violate the patent and Monsanto can, and will, sue them.

The movie points out how many past and current politicians, specifically tied to the FDA, were former consultants, lawyers, or employees of Tyson, Monsanto, and other mega corporations (shocker, I know). Advocacy groups are fighting these same companies over labeling laws. Do you think consumers should have a right to know if an ingredient (e.g. soy) is genetically modified by label identification, or is it detrimental and damaging to the corporate image?

If you've seen the movie, what did you think? If you haven't seen it then would you be interested in the content? Have your eating habits changed for the better in the past few years, and if so then why?