“Food, Inc.” Exposes Dangers in the U.S. Food Industry

The documentary “Food, Inc.” portrays the dangers and the transformations in the American food industry, saying its harmful effects to public health, the environment and the rights of workers and animals. Large corporations such as Monsanto, producer of genetically modified foods, the U.S. meat companies Tyson Food Inc. and Smithfield Foods and poultry producer Perdue Farms refused to be interviewed for the film. The industry did not remain silent. Associations representing the U.S meat industry, which has a turnover of 142 billion dollars a year, have joined their forces to rebut the allegations in the film. Led by the American Meat Institute, they have created several websites, including one called SafeFoodInc.com. The campaign says that their American foods are safe, abundant and affordable, while the film affirms that the images from farm animal grazing in green, and printed on the labels of food products are misleading. “Food, Inc.” explores the argument that food comes from farms that are not nice, but the industrial factories that prioritize profit, and not human health. The film shoes images made in units of production of cattle, pings and chickens. Some of them were recorded by immigrant workers, showing the lack of space that workers and animals have. The farmer Carole Morison, from the state of Maryland, authorized the entrance of the cameras to show the dying chickens before they were put on the market. That was because of the fast weight gained, caused by antibiotics in the chickens’ food. After showing that to the cameras, Purdue closed the contract that they had. According to the film, the big food companies in the U.S. today make extensive use of industrial processes linked to growing problems such as obesity, diabetes, salmonella, toxic strains of the common bacterium E coli, and also environmental pollution. The film claims that consumers can cause changes, pointing out to the case of Gary Hirshberg, Stonyfield Farm that now sells its line of organic products in the giant Wal-Mart.