Food, inc Response

The main theme of the movie was where the food was coming from. That if we found out where it was coming from we'd be less likely to eat it, the movie tried to shed light on a very dark area. America's image of where food come from is very distorted, always a red barn, roaming cows, fresh grass and beautiful skies. In actuality which the movie aims at is that the cows are in very packed areas ankle deep in manure, corn fed, no grass at all that’s were probably 80% of our beef comes from. Chickens have it no different, packed conditions without any access to light standing in their own feces, if they're standing. Many chickens are modified to grow extremely large breasts and grow very quickly, three times as fast as they would normally grow causing them to be so week under the weight they usually fall down. The working conditions that many fast food restraints and large food companies have for their employees are very poor, for the meatpackers they get low wages virtually no health benefits and are injured excessively, about 1/3 of the workforce in meatpacking factories get injured a year. Chicken farmers are grossly in debt and fast food employees are paid very little and both the fast food and the meatpackers are consistently getting deskilled.

Corn is also in our diet much more than the average American knows the chemist in the movie stated that 90% of food on the shelf either has corn or soy ingredients, and allot of times they have both. The cheap food comes from corn feeding the cows instead of grass-feeding, as well as the low wages of workers and the large amount of government subsidies. This makes it hard for Mexico to compete with us in growing grain. The rancher on the more wholesome farm in Virginia believed that if we view these pigs, cows etc. as merely resources for us to take from and not living organisms we will treat others the same, we can see this in how these companies treat their workers.

I think the main difference in seeing the movie than reading book is that like any comparison when a book (or many) is made into a movie you can get more in depth information from the book. The movie however did offer a visual of what was happening, it's a much difference seeing cows covered in and half a foot deep in feces than it being read. The book also didn't get the very interesting view point of that one farmer in Virginia which I thought had a very interesting perspective on the massive food corporations.

Watching the movie did not help me much, especially after reading the very insightful book. The movie put a visual of what was happening, so instead of the just the facts I have a mental picture of how some of my food is made. This in many ways can be sometimes