Food, Inc. (2009)
ALTERNATE LINK:
The current method of raw food production is largely a response to the growth of the fast food industry since the 1950s. The production of food overall has more drastically changed since that time than the several thousand years prior. Controlled primarily by a handful of multinational corporations, the global food production business – with an emphasis on the business – has as its unwritten goals production of large quantities of food at low direct inputs (most often subsidized) resulting in enormous profits, which in turn results in greater control of the global supply of food sources within these few companies. Health and safety (of the food itself, of the animals produced themselves, of the workers on the assembly lines, and of the consumers actually eating the food) are often overlooked by the companies, and are often overlooked by government in an effort to provide cheap food regardless of these negative consequences. Many of the changes are based on advancements in science and technology, but often have negative side effects. The answer that the companies have come up with is to throw more science at the problems to bandage the issues but not the root causes. The global food supply may be in crisis with lack of biodiversity, but can be changed on the demand side of the equation.
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So I couldn’t actually watch the video as I am a vegetarian and could only imagine the disgusting deaths of the food at these huge processing plants. Thankfully an official at the Tennessee USDA informed me about six weeks ago that as of this November, renderings (unusable animal scraps that remain after slaughter, intestines, brains, eyes, etc.) can no longer be used in commercial feed intended for the same species of animal it came from; Tennessee is basically outlawing the making of animals into cannibals. With the mad cow scars, who would have imagined that this was still legal.
On another note, the disconnect from the food supply is very disconcerting. There are kids growing up who have never been to a farm and do not associate food with farming but with the retail stores that sell the food. Another issue with this disconnect is that it really lessens the safety controls that family farmers use to self-impose.