Flicked Off: Food Inc.
I dragged on down to Film Forum on Friday night, which is a wonderful place, of fabulous intentions and wee home television-sized screens and hard little chairs. I try not to come here unless I need to see something really important, such as Hannah and Her Sisters. This time I saw Food Inc., the new documentary about FOOD AND HOW IT WILL KILL YOU FROM THE INSIDE WITH SCARY THINGS YOU READ ABOUT OR SAW ON THE INTERNET THREE TO SIX YEARS AGO. You know, basically anyone who has driven through central California on Interstate 5, past Cowschwitz, could have basically told you to stop eating at Carl's Jr. Also maybe you heard of this guy Michael Pollan?
So yes, this documentary attacks in various ways, from chicken-raising to government interference with the FDA to the patenting of crops, the ways in which the grotesque corporate food industry is turning America into an idiocracy. I do not particularly like eating food these days. I spend way more money than I should on food, because honestly I do not want to put shredded bits of hundreds of different feces-covered animals compacted into one burger or piece of "chicken." So I am basically a hippie who is revolted by the food industrial complex and EVEN I found this movie insanely annoying and preachy and fact-light and opinion-heavy.
Watching this movie is the equivalent of being beaten by a Pollan book between bites of a tasteless soy product. It has some high points! There is an interesting, if scanty and brief, interview with a chicken-producer who loses her contract with Purdue because she is so grossed out by their practices. It is nice to meet a food safety lady whose son was killed by recalled meat.
And a few people have mentioned what the movie just touches on: that is, that the system of producing cheap food is actually incredibly expensive, when you begin to calculate the subsidized grain industries, the environmental and actual cost of transportation, and, oh right, the fact—or so the film tells us!—that one-third of all children being born today will acquire early onset diabetes. Which, you know: that diabetes shit is expensive.
So basically I would rather have seen a movie about math than this one. And that is sayin' something!
Food Inc. also has a long slavish section devoted to Stonyfield Farm, the makers of bad organic yogurt. Organic milk currently accounts for about 6% of the milk market, and, pretty much, less and less every day as the recession ages on. Still, in 1999, "organic dairy products" were "just 0.3 percent of the $75 billion American dairy market," according to the Times.) Stonyfield Farm, actually, is not always an "organic" company; because "it was difficult to find suppliers and the cost of making organic products was much higher than it is today, the company gave up its organic mission until 1995. Now 85 percent of what Stonyfield produces is organic," the Boston Globe wrote in 2003. "Its main facility is a state-of-the-art industrial plant just off the airport strip in Londonderry, N.H., where it handles milk from other farms. And consider this: Sometime soon a portion of the milk used to make that organic yogurt may be taken from a chemical-free cow in New Zealand, powdered, and then shipped to the U.S.," wrote Business Week in 2006.
So basically Stonyfield Farms was a genius business; and yes, they give to charity, and recycle their little cups. But they aren't really heroes of anything much more than capitalism, especially as they are now "asking" their milk-producing collective to cut back on production this year. It's nice that the organic milk buyers have a big buyer! But their relationship to producers doesn't seem that much different, except in scale, from the way McDonald's bosses around the beef industry. It's weird that them making deals with Wal-Mart is like the "good guys" section of this movie.
Anyway, then on Saturday, I went to the farmer's market and spent all the cash I had on like 1.2 meals. Because I'm basically reaffirmed in my plans to never eat a hamburger again, sure. Gross! And now, I mean that was some tasty stuff from those nice farmers, but now what am I supposed to eat today exactly?
So I shouldn't tell you I read the site this morning while I was shelling fava beans from the kitchen garden?
So I am correct in assuming that this is not a "popcorn" movie?
And Stonyfield tastes like total ass.
Say what you will about Cowschwitz, the steaks at Harris Ranch are deeeelish.
I buy organic milk. Because it's ultrapasteurized, it keeps in my crappy warmish refrigerator, while regular milk goes bad. This does not speak to the "natural"ness of organic milk.
Okay, not to wax sanctimonious, but this is something I really care about so here goes. Just for the record, it is possible, over the summer and fall, to get your produce from the farmers market for as little or less than you would pay in the supermarket. Pastured beef? Pricey. Eggs from healthy chickens? A little pricey. Local zucchini? Cheap as dirt. $10/week usually gets me more vegetables than I know what to do with.
So I'm just saying, that part of things isn't actually so bad. And goodness do these vegetables taste good.
So does sanctimony.
urbanorganic.com – they are a bit erratic but it's good stuff and you don't have to trip over all those fucking strollers at the farmers market.
I don't get the picture. Apparently, there is a an obesity epidemic among young chickens too?
I once regaled my family with tales of how their turkey was raised for Thanksgiving – like that they are so stupid they look up at the rain & drown and they are bred with breasts so big they cannot copulate naturally. Someone take that to the next level – I am George Burns to your Gracie Allen….
The breasts thing is true, but the rain thing is urban legend.
Nina, all your observations are spot on. But, the strollers part leavse me a little, um, distressed. Please don't remind me of the countless times I've been trying to find something good to eat at the supermarket only to have as muzak some goddamn ankle biter hollering up a storm for candy. I've not experienced them at the FM. But those little assholes are going to grow up fat, cynical, and ignorant, thanks to their elders. What is to be done? Move into the woods as I have done and say so long to the rat race! Grow your own. Look at the stars. Listen to the owls. MMMMM nice.
I just came back from the woods – shall I tell you about the scabs?
My supermarket is full of people retuning bottles and Chelsea Boys looking for mixers. Maybe you should shop here….Saturday nights are serious disco night at the Chelsea Gristede's. The air-conditioning is superb and the mix tape is decent.
I sent back the Oscar Mayer because it was too snotty.
I didn't say "snobby."
Call me when MSG becomes the "trans fat" scare of the 00's.
http://www.naturalnews.com/026157.html
The movie is probably not that important for people who know these things, but I appreciate its heavy promotion, if only so that it may reach my mother-in-law.
Also here in Kansas City there is a great organic milk farm called Shatto which was started a few years ago and is expanding. They make a delicious root beer flavored milk which sounds terrible but in fact is not. Oh yes.
WalMart is also shown to be not entirely evil. Not very convincingly.