Thursday, October 22, 2009

Food Inc.


We saw "Food Inc." last night and even though I've read Eric Schlosser ("Fast Food Nation" ) and Michael Pollan ("The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals" ) the images in the film made their arguments even more compelling.

More than the tragic story of a mother who lost her preschooler to E. coli O157:H7, I was moved by the mother of the poor family who asked how she is supposed to feed her family a healthy diet when fast food hamburgers are cheaper than fresh vegetables. That about sums it up and it explains so much.

But the overarching image that I took away from the film was one in which people, human beings, have become just like the pitiful cattle in the dreadful CAFOs, the contained animal feeding operations: overfed on unnatural diets with resultant health problems by a system increasingly in danger of collapse.