Food Inc.: What is the Food Industry Hiding?

Food, Inc. is a mind-blowing, stomach-twisting, eye-opening and ultimately heart-breaking film. See it today (Limited engagement at The Film Forum).

Filmmaker Robert Kenner "lifts the veil" on our nation's food industry. Our food supply is now controlled by a handful of for-big-profit corporations who seem to be far more concerned about making money than our health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of their workers or our environment.

This film contains more than horrifying scenes of overcrowded slaughterhouses, where animals are forced to graze in pools of their own manure. This movie, for me, is about our most basic rights. We are being just as manipulated by the largest corporations as the food we are being sold. Wake up!

The manipulation of foods and the feeding of livestock have manifested bigger-breasted chickens. 50 years ago it took 70 days to raise a chicken to slaughter. Today it takes 48. It's unnatural.

The country's top four meatpackers control 80 percent of the beef market. One single fast-food burger might have come from 400 different cows.

The gut of a cow fed on corn breeds the deadliest strains of E. coli, a harmful bacteria that makes an estimated 73,000 Americans sick annually; including the tragic death of Barbara Kowalcyk's young son Kevin, who died from e coli earlier this decade from an outwardly harmless fast food burger.

Farmers are subsidized to overproduce corn, which then goes into Coke, Sweet & Low, diapers, Motrin and cattle feed.

Obesity is at epidemic proportions, and diabetes is on the rise among children and adults alike.

You will be shocked to learn about what you eat, how it is produced and who we, as a nation, have become.

Our freedoms are being taken away from us. Open your eyes.

10 things YOU CAN do! (source: foodincmovie.com)

1 . Stop drinking sodas and other sweetened beverages. You can lose 25 lbs in a year by replacing one 20 oz soda a day with a no calorie beverage (preferably water).

2. Eat at home instead of eating out. Children consume almost twice (1.8 times) as many calories when eating food prepared outside the home.

3. Support the passage of laws requiring chain restaurants to post calorie information on menus and menu boards. Half of the leading chain restaurants provide no nutritional information to their customers.

4. Tell schools to stop selling sodas, junk food, and sports drinks. Over the last two decades, rates of obesity have tripled in children and adolescents aged 6 to 19 years.

5. Meatless Mondays--Go without meat one day a week. An estimated 70% of all antibiotics used in the United States are given to farm animals.

6. Buy organic or sustainable food with little or no pesticides. According to the EPA, over 1 billion pounds of pesticides are used each year in the U.S.

7. Protect family farms; visit your local farmer's market. Farmer's markets allow farmers to keep 80 to 90 cents of each dollar spent by the consumer.

8. Make a point to know where your food comes from--READ LABELS. The average meal travels 1500 miles from the farm to your dinner plate.

9. Tell Congress that food safety is important to you. Each year, contaminated food causes millions of illnesses and thousands of deaths in the U.S.

10. Demand job protections for farm workers and food processors, ensuring fair wages and other protections. Poverty among farm workers is more than twice that of all wage and salary employees.

Spread the word ... NOT the icing,
Janice
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Janice Taylor is a Life & Wellness Coach, Hypnotist, Award-winning Artist and Writer, and Seminar Leader. She lives in New York City.

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Comments

[traveler501]

no doubt...and from what we see in the trailer, this is only the tip of the iceberg. in the last 200 years (post industrial revolution) we have destroyed virtually every aspect of healthy existence at the individual, family and community levels. you don't need to even get into global warming, or for that the warming of virtually every small body of water from each local industrial plant, or dead zones in the seas. Or get into limited food species, or genetic engineering or hormones, anti-bacterial agents, fertilizer runoff ...well the list goes on and on...and on. anybody think about how we all live in one giant magnetic field with constant bombardment of transient peaks? borrow a gaussmeter..and walk around inside your house and outside yard. Compare those numbers to Swedish (not American Power industry) studies. corporations are going to be the death of us all...sounds pretty crazy doesn't it? LOL

[HeWhoReads]

Yeah, our food industry isn't pretty. I saw a movie similar to this a few years ago and made some changes. I've gotten my family to mostly switch to organic foods. Not everything, but we're working on it. We also grow some of our own food like garlic, tomatoes, peppers, papayas, bananas, mangoes, and cherimoya. Variety is essential lol. I'll try to get some of my more stubborn friends to watch this movie. They need a wake-up call, complete with visual.

[Janice Taylor - Huffpost Blogger]

Great that you are making steps toward health for you, your family and friends.
You are truly spread the word ... NOT the icing!
Janice

[cat123]

Thank you, Janice. As disturbing as this info is, I'd rather know than bury my head in the sand!

[Janice Taylor - Huffpost Blogger]

Yes, see the movie, tell your friends, know what you are eating!
Thank you for writing!

Janice

[CaveatMagnusFrater]

Hi Janice,

Thanks for bringing up this movie. I'm hesitant to watch it because to a certain degree, I don't want to see what I know. Until our government watchdogs like the FDA and USDA are given back their previous level of authority and Antitrust laws are returned, we will be powerless against the large faceless corporations. Sure we need to take action on ths front, but it is only one facet of the corporate deregulated country we've become.

[Janice Taylor - Huffpost Blogger]

Please do see the movie and talk about it.
Awareness first! Thanks for writing.

Janice

[TheBlackCat]

This movie looks very informative. Frankly this sounds like stuff I already know myself - I'm a vegetarian, eat locally produced foods whenever possible. My husband's family owns the Adams Angus Ranch in Alabama, where their animals are completely free range. They have owned their farm for three generations and produced some of the best angus beef in the country. Their animals have acres upon acres to graze on, the babies are never separated from their mothers, they are fed only natural foods like grass and hay, and never given growth hormones or anything like that. These are the kinds of farms that we need to work hard to preserve and protect...yet many experts predict that such farms will be extinct within the next couple decades.

But this documentary sounds very informative, I will definitely see it and get friends to see it as well.

I hope this documentary makes the point that just because packaging states "organic" or "all natural" does not ACTUALLY mean that the animals necessarily were living in humane conditions or that the the food actually came from a small farm as opposed to some factory farm.

Know where your food ACTUALLY comes from, and recognize that "organic" and "natural" is big marketing tool right now, and that just because those words are on the package does not necessarily make that product safe, humane, or environmentally sound.

[Janice Taylor - Huffpost Blogger]

Yes! We need to understand and know where our food originated. How it was raised or grown. Awareness on every level is greatly appreciated. Thanks for your note!

[TheBlackCat]

Thanks for this post!

[thinktankdiva]

I will definitely make sure I see the film -- and try to bring along a friend or two -- you are so right -- we all need to get information so that we are aware of what goes into our body and the bodies of those we care about. It doesn't ever mean that you have to agree with everything -- what I believe is that we should always be open to learning and make sure that when it comes to our health that we listen to differing points of view -- check out the facts versus myth and ask questions -- then make what we consider an informed decision that will be of benefit to us .

It is also important to support our local farmers

[DharmaDudette]

And besides all those horrors, no mention in the film of the dangers of the widespread use of GMO ingredients?

[Janice Taylor - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks! GMO - labels needed! We deserve to know what we are eating. It is or right to know.

[jmpfjoy]

You forgot one thing-

#11- Urge Congress to pass legislation requiring labels on foods manufactured with genetically engineered ingredients. Europe already does this. This is one of the reasons we are seeing the highest allergy counts in history.

[Janice Taylor - Huffpost Blogger]

Thank you! Yes, genetically engineered ingredients should be noted! Great info.

[Atra]

Thanks for the heads up, I'll keep an eye out for this.

[Janice Taylor - Huffpost Blogger]

Yes, and go with your friends!!! This is a truly important film.

[mlaiuppa]

Try cutting high fructose corn syrup out of your diet.

Just try.

You have no idea how many products its in.

[KCFreedom]

It's in almost all mainstream salad dressings. Strange thing, that, as I don't think most of those salad dressings even had SUGAR in them before they added the corn syrup. Guess some food marketeer thinks we all want sweet salad dressings. I say "blah".

I usually buy the more expensive ones with natural ingredients like the "Cindy's Kitchen" brand, or I make my own with a salad dressing shaker.

[Janice Taylor - Huffpost Blogger]

Making your own salad dressing is a great idea. A good way for us to begin to take responsibility for what we are putting in our mouths.

[Janice Taylor - Huffpost Blogger]

According to Food Inc., HFCS is approx. 90% of our products.
It's important to READ the LABELS!!!

[screamingbanshee]

this is the sh*t that keeps me awake at night.
feel...hel­pless...to­o...big...­to...fight­...nothing­...changes­...

[Janice Taylor - Huffpost Blogger]

You can do something about the Food Industry. Your 'vote' counts. Each and every time you BUY ORGANIC, your vote is being counted at the supermarket register. We have the power. We need to make our voices heard and we need to spend our dollars wisely!

[KCFreedom]

It's time for us to start having our own chicken coops in backyards again. Perhaps a squab cage, too.

[Janice Taylor - Huffpost Blogger]

I'm headed to Vermont this weekend to meet w. an organic rancher. Should be an interesting happening for this city girl. In the meantime, as a gesture to get in touch w. the process, I am planting an herb garden in my city window! More to come on that!!! Any advice, greatly appreciated.

A farmer in the making!

[spartancaver]

There is so much wrong with your list Janice, I don't know where to begin. I am opposed to House Resolution 875 and Senate Bill 425 as currently written. They both say basically the same things and will drive the "local" organic family farmer out of business with the demands to track and label all food he grows. Items 6, 7, 8, 9. are all covered by the bills. But as with Congress, they do not consider the impact on small local farmers. Not even the White House can cook and serve to the public visitors the vegetables grown in the White House garden, if these bills go through un-changed. Both are backed under the table by Big Ag businesses. google "lose your property for growing food" You get over 300,000 return hits. The same thing has already happened to the hand-made cottage industry with CPS Act of 2008. Congress uses a shot gun approach for everything. And the shells are provided by Big Business.

[Janice Taylor - Huffpost Blogger]

I appreciate hearing your concerns/your voice. I'm wondering if you have seen Food Inc.? Would love to know what you think after you see the movie! Thanks for writing!