Justin Thorn

Over the weekend Lauren and I finally checked out Food, Inc. It has been setting in our Netflix queue for a while. It is a documentary about the dangers of our nation’s growing food industry and the health risks associated with it. The film focuses on the contrasts between two types of farms our food comes from today.  Factory farms that mass produce most of our meats and dairy products using “food science technology” like growth hormones. Traditional “organic” farms raising animals in their natural environments without additional stimulants and additives. Food, Inc. goes beyond the obvious nutritional differences of these two methods while also highlighting the political, financial and ethical issues involved.

Several years ago the popular documentary Super Size Me shed light on the truths of the fast food industry by documenting Morgan Spurlock eating McDonald’s for all his meals 30 days straight. Clearly fast food is not good for your body. Especially on a constant basis. While I knew this to be fact before watching Super Size Me I was still amazed to learn the process behind fast food and its origins. Food, Inc. is very similar in nature for the nutritional message it delivers with one key difference. While Super Size Me focused on fast food Food, Inc. focuses on food we buy in our grocery stores everyday. Food that has been inspected by the USDA and FDA that would shock you to learn its true contents. Fun Fact: Did you know that one package of ground beef can have up to 1000 different cows mixed in it and that 70% of our meat has ammonia treated meat mixed in to help kill bacteria from fecal matter? Needless to say everyone should take the time to watch this film once. It even has a whopping 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. You can watch it streaming on Netflix or you can pickup the DVD at Amazon for $15. Check out the trailer below for a quick overview.

If you don’t have 90 minutes of free time to watch Food Inc. You can check out this series called The Meatrix. It was an award winning animation released in 2006 that quickly highlights many of the issues discussed in Food, Inc. As you probably guessed from the title it is a parody of The Matrix. While the dialog can be a bit corny at times its message is very clear. To learn more about Food, Inc. and how it has changed the way we shop for food head over to my wife’s blog and read her latest post summarizing everything. She is much better at that than me.