In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that's been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA.

In this featured t21 clip from Food, Inc., we show you a fascinating history of McDonald's, from its start as a small, innovative drive-through venture in the 1930s to its position today as the largest purchaser of ground beef and potatoes in the country. We also meet a family struggling to eat healthy foods on a tight budget.

The U.S.'s food supply is controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of e coli--the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield Farms' Gary Hirschberg and Polyface Farms' Joe Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising -- and often shocking truths -- about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.

“We reduced funding for the FDA and rely increasingly on self-policing for all of these industries, and now we just have really lost our system.” -- Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-Colorado), one of the champions for food safety in D.C. “The irony is that the average consumer does not feel very powerful. They think that they are the recipients of whatever industry has put there for them to consume. Trust me, it’s the exact opposite. Those businesses spend billions of dollars to tally our votes. When we run an item past the supermarket scanner, we’re voting.” – Gary Hirshberg, founder of Stonyfield Farm. Hirshberg began with a seven- cow farm and grew his business into the No. 3 yogurt provider in the country.

Robert Kenner (producer/director) is an award-winning filmmaker who has worked for over six years to bring Food, Inc. to the screen. Kenner’s previous films have played theatrically, on television, and to President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore at the White House.

Prior to directing Food, Inc., Robert Kenner received the 2006 Peabody, the Emmy for exceptional merit in Non-Fiction Film-Making, and the Greirson (British Documentary) for his previous film Two Days in October. Two Days is characteristic of Kenner’s keen sense of authenticity and his passionate quest to present the truth.

The Boston Globe review noted that, “If you could watch only one program to grasp what the Vietnam War did to the U.S....Two Days...would be a great choice.... It is profound.”

Robert’s other notable work includes his co-filmmaking endeavor on the Martin Scorsese documentary, The Blues Series. His The Road to Memphis included interviews with legendary B.B.King. Newsweek called it, “as fine a film ever made about American music” and “the unadulterated gem of the Scorsese Series.” His exceptional documentaries for The American Experience include War Letters, reflecting on the experiences of American soldiers and their loved ones from the Revolutionary War to the Gulf War.

Other films include his numerous specials for National Geographic, including Don’t Say Goodbye, which was screened at the White House for President Clinton and Vice President Gore. It was the winner of The Cable Ace, Genesis, and The Emmy awards.

http://robertkennerfilms.com/

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Ten Things YOU Can Do To Change the Food System:
http://www.foodincmovie.com/get-involved.php

Sign a Petition to Reauthorize the Child Nutrition Act
http://www.foodincmovie.com/sign-the-petition.php

Food, Inc. Trailer:

• Food, Inc. website
  http://www.foodincmovie.com/
• Robert Kenner's website
  http://robertkennerfilms.com/
• The Obesity-Hunger Paradox, New York Times, March14, 2010
  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/nyregion/14hunger.html

Facts from Food, Inc.

• In the 1970s, the top five beef packers controlled about 25% of the market. Today, the top four control more than 80% of the market.
• In the 1970s, there were thousands of slaughterhouses producing the majority of beef sold. Today, we have only 13.
• In 1998, the USDA implemented microbial testing for salmonella and E. coli 0157h7 so that if a plant repeatedly failed these tests, the USDA could shut down the plant. After being taken to court by the meat and poultry associations, the USDA no longer has that power.
• In 1972, the FDA conducted 50,000 food safety inspections. In 2006, the FDA conducted only 9,164.
• During the Bush administration, the head of the FDA was the former executive VP of the National Food Processors Association.
• During the Bush administration, the chief of staff at the USDA was the former chief lobbyist for the beef industry in Washington.
• Prior to renaming itself an agribusiness company, Monsanto was a chemical company that produced, among other things, DDT and Agent Orange.
• In 1996 when it introduced Round-Up Ready Soybeans, Monsanto controlled only 2% of the U.S. soybean market. Now, over 90% of soybeans in the U.S. contain Monsanto’s patented gene.
• Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas was an attorney at Monsanto from 1976 to 1979. After his appointment to the Supreme Court, Justice Thomas wrote the majority opinion in a case that helped Monsanto enforce its seed patents.
• The average chicken farmer invests over $500,000 and makes only $18,000 a year.
• 32,000 hogs a day are killed in Smithfield Hog Processing Plant in Tar Heel, N.C, which is the largest slaughterhouse in the world.
• The average American eats over 200 lbs. of meat a year.
• 30% of the land in the U.S. is used for planting corn.
• The modern supermarket now has, on average, 47,000 products, the majority of which is being produced by only a handful of food companies.
• 70% of processed foods have some genetically modified ingredient.
• SB63 Consumer Right to Know measure requiring all food derived from  cloned animals to be labeled as such passed the California state legislature before being vetoed in 2007 by Governor Schwarzenegger,
  who said that he couldn’t sign a bill that pre-empted federal law.
• Corn products include: ketchup, cheese, Twinkies, batteries, peanut butter, Cheez-Its, salad dressings, Coke, jelly, Sweet & Low, syrup, juice, Kool-Aid, charcoal, diapers, Motrin, meat and fast food.
• Corn, which is the main ingredient in animal feed, is also used as a food additive.
• 1 in 3 Americans born after 2000 will contract early onset diabetes; Among minorities, the rate will be 1 in 2.
• E. coli and Salmonella outbreaks have become more frequent in America, whether it be from spinach or jalapenos.  In 2007, there were 73,000 people sickened from the E. coli virus.
• Organics is the fastest growing food segment, increasing 20% annually. 
   

Interview with Robert Kenner

So, what does our current industrialized food system say about our values
as a nation?
RK: I met a cattle rancher and he said, you know, we used to be scared of the Soviet Union or we used to think we were so much better than the Soviet Union because we had many places to buy things. And we had many choices. We thought if we were ever taken over, we’d be dominated where we’d have to buy one thing from one company, and how that’s not the American way. And he said you look around now, and there’s like one or two companies dominating everything in the food world.

We’ve become what we were always terrified of. And that just always haunted me – how could this happen in America? It seems very un-American that we would be so dominated, and then so intimidated by the companies that are dominating this marketplace.

How are low-income families impacted at the supermarket?
RK: Things are really stacked against low-income families in this country. There is a definite desire of the food companies to sell more product to these people because they have less time, they’re working really hard and they have fewer hours in their day to cook. And the fast food is very reasonably priced. Coke is selling for less than water. So when these things are happening, it’s easier for low-income families sometimes to just go in and have a quick meal if they don’t get home until 10 o’clock at night. At the moment, our food is unfairly priced towards bad food.

And, in the same way that tobacco companies went after low-income people because they were heavy users, food companies are going after low-income people because they can market to them, they can make it look very appealing.

What have been the consequences of the revolving door relationship between giant food companies and Washington for the American consumer?
RK: Most American consumers think that we are being protected. But that is not the case. Right now the USDA does not have the authority to shut down a plant that is producing contaminated meat. The FDA and the USDA have had their inspectors cut back. And it’s for these companies now to self-police, and what we’ve found is, when there’s a financial interest involved, these companies would rather make the money and be sued than correct it. Self-policing has really just been a miserable failure. And I think that's been really quite harmful to the American consumer and to the American worker.

What was the most surprising thing you learned while making Food Inc.?
RK: As we set out to find out how our food was made, I think the thing that really became most shocking is when we were talking to a woman, Barbara Kowalcyk, who had lost her son to eating a hamburger with E. coli, and she’s 11 now dedicated her life to trying to make the food system safer. It’s the only way she can recover from the loss of her child. But when I asked her what she eats, she told me she couldn't tell me because she would be sued if she answered.

Or we see Carol possibly losing her chicken farm … or we see Moe, a seed cleaner who’s just being sued for amounts that there’s no way he can pay, even though he’s not guilty of anything. Then we realized there’s something going on out there that supersedes foods. Our rights are being denied in ways that I had never imagined. And it was scary and shocking. And that was my biggest surprise.

What do you hope people take away from this film?
RK: That things can change in this country. It changed against the big tobacco companies. We have to influence the government and readjust these scales back into the interests of the consumer. We did it before, and we can do it again.

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