Food, Inc.

They way humans eat has changed more in the last fifty years than in the previous 10,000. The film Food, Inc. sheds a ghastly light on corporate farming and the industrialization of the food industry. It uses several perspectives ranging from a chicken farmer that is cutting ties with oppressive Perdue, to inside the very plants that chemically treat massive amounts of meat to illustrate just how unnatural and dangerous today’s food can be. The movie is devided into three main segments. The first focuses on the inhumane production of meat, including beef, chicken, and pork. Not only are animals treated inhumanely, the mass production of farm animals has had an enormous and negative impact on our environment from pesticide runoff to increased number of cattle emitting poisonous, ozone-depleting gas. The conglomerate companies care even less of the people they employ. The film mentions how Upton Sinclair’s ‘The Jungle’ changed the workplace forever, creating safer environments for workers and the formation of unions. The companies have regressed the workplace hundreds of years by hiring illegal immigrants that will tolerate shoddy conditions and low pay just to be allowed to work there. The second portion of the movie focuses on the industrial production of grains and vegetables, primarily corn and soy. Focusing on these two grains makes a large portion of food available contain only corn. Also, it is so cheap and readily available that once grass-fed cattle and other farm animals are fed only corn. This corn diet leads to e-coli infections in the animals and, in turn, infects humans and can lead to death. All to lower the cost and increase production. The film's third and final segment is about the economic and legal power, such as food labeling regulations of the major food companies, the profits of which are based on supplying cheap but contaminated food, the heavy use of petroleum-based chemicals (largely pesticides and fertilizers), and the promotion of