Where does your food come from?

Rachel Branson

Friday, January 1st, 2010

Probably from the supermarket, but do you know the journey and process before it gets there? Do you know what the list of ingredients are and where they originate? Do you know how the crops are grown, how the animals are reared and how the employees are treated to get your dinner on the plate? Do you know if the food you are eating is nutritious or whether it contains as much nutrition as the plastic wrapper it came in? Do you just trust the information on the packaging as proof of origin?

Next time you buy your butter, milk, meat, cereal have a look at the images of the farmers, green fields, animals grazing and wonder if this is really a true representation of it's origin. Dig a little deeper and you will soon realise that this is far from the truth. A tomato still looks like a tomato but it has been radically transformed to meet the needs of the growing population and our demand for all year round seasonality.

Film producer/director Robert Kenner and investigative authors Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's dilema) lift the veil on the food industry in their powerful new film Food Inc. due for release in UK Cinemas 12th February 2010.

As I sat in a small screening room in London, I watched in sadness and disappointment that I know so little about the food I buy and eat. Our food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of farmers, the safety of workers and our own environment.

Food Inc. highlights that we have bigger breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soyabean seeds and that we have new strains of E. coli and are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children and an epidemic of diabetes among adults.

One of the most shocking aspect of the film, shows that much of the cattle are now given feed that their bodies are not biologically designed to digest, resulting in new strains of E. coli bacteria. Michael Pollen, author of "In Defense of Food" explains " Cows are not designed by evolution to eat corn. They're designed by evolution to eat grass. And the only reason we feed them corn is because corn is really cheap and corn makes them fat quickly"

Farmers speak out

Farmers have been afraid to talk about what is happening for fear of lawsuits, however a few brave individuals came forward to share their experiences and allowed filming of their facilities in the hope it will open the eyes of the general public and help them to make better and more informed choices and their food purchases.

Carole Morison, a courageous chicken farmer in Maryland lifts the lid on the conditions used for rearing chickens. It used to take a chick three months to grow to adulthood, but with the chemicals put into the feed by the big industrialised food companies, the chicks now grow in only 45 days and develop oversized breasts. Carole shows us how this has affected the chickens - some can no longer stand and die before they are bought to market. Shortly after the filming Carole lost her contract and may have to sell the family farm.

The film reveals how complicated and compromised the once simple process of growing crops and raising livestock has become. But, it also reminds us that despite what appears to be at times a hopeless situation, each of us still has the ability to vote on this issue every day - at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

What do you hope people take away from this film?

Schlosser: I hope it opens their eyes

Kenner: That things change in this country. It changed against the tobacco companies. We have to influence the government and readjust these scales back into the interests of the consumer.

Pollan: A deeper knowledge of where their food comes from and a sense of outrage over how their food is being produced and a sense of hope and possibility of the alternatives springing up around the country.