Food Inc Summary

Imagine having a big juicy hamburger or some fried chicken in front of you, of course you cannot wait to eat it. Now a days we want to eat the cheapest, fastest thing we can find without realizing where it came from or how the animal was treated before being killed. The production of food has changed drastically over the course of the years. There is more food being produced, but at the cost of becoming unhealthy. In the documentary Food Inc. released in 2008, it goes through and provides the real facts of what goes on in the food we eat. The documentary provides an American family’s view, a farmer’s view, and an expert’s view towards the modern day food production system. The movie makes you aware of the how dangerous food has become over

Like Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, puts it “so much of our industrial food turns out to be clever rearrangements of corn”. Today it has become easier to grow large amounts of corn, which in turn makes it very cheap. Corn has become a great raw material since it can be reassembled and created into a totally new food product. Corn not only can be used to create food, but it can also be fed to animals. It is so cheap to produce corn that companies rather give it to animals like cattle, chickens, and hog. Since corn is cheap to feed to these animals the price of the meat also becomes cheaper. It may seem as if corn is a positive ingredient to the industrial food production, but in reality it harms cattle. Yes, corn is cheaper to feed cattle and it makes them fat, but they are supposed to eat grass in order to be healthy. Allen Trenkle, a ruminant nutrition expert, examines a cattle’s stomach and states, “there is microorganisms, bacteria millions of them.” Trenkle goes on to claim that “high corn diet results in E.coli that are acid resistant, these would be the most harmful E.coli.” The way cattle are kept in industrial owned farms makes it possible for more cattle to become infected with E.coli. Cattle are standing in their own manure and covered in it, and at the same time closely interacting with all the other cattle. So if one cow had E.coli the others become

Barbara Kowalcyk, a food safety advocate, became involved in the fight to regulate safety in the food system after her two year old child died in 2001. Kevin, Barbara Kowalcyk son, was diagnosed with E.coli after eating three hamburgers from a fast food restaurant. His kidneys quickly started to fail after the incident. Kevin died in twelve days, it took that one time after eating a hamburger to end a precious child’s life. Because of cases like these some meat plants have to put their meat into ammonia in order to keep the bacteria off. Another problem that American families face is the growth of fast food consumption. The documentary presents a family who challenges with this problem. They rather go to a fast food place and spend a few dollars, than have to spend more time and money in making homemade food. The increasing consumption of fast food not only encourages the mass production of industrial food, but also increases the risk of American deaths. When the American Family in the documentary goes to the supermarket they realize that a hamburger is cheaper than buying a couple of fruits and vegetables. The food system has leaned towards the bad calories, since those are the ones that are being produced extensively. The mass production of industrial food creates cheaper prices, which in turn encourages people to buy these unhealthy