New movie: Food Inc.

One of the joys of living in Charlottesville is being able to get a more personal view of our food (although thanks to the farmers market in Sacramento, we got to know several of the farmers in that area, too), and to learn about small-scale agriculture.

I was just reading this Q&A in Denver's Westword tied to an upcoming movie, "Food Inc." (The photograph is from foodincmovie.com.) I was struck by this quote (to read the whole Q&A, click here):

It's a minor miracle, and we (Americans) spend less on our food than at any point in history, but this low-cost food comes at a really high cost. I thought it would be interesting to talk to all the producers from Joel Salatin (owner of Polyface Farms, which is near Charlottesville) to big companies, but agribusiness does not want us to know where food is coming from.

I didn't realize this, but they didn't want us making this movie. From their point of view, they don't want you thinking about this stuff. There is still the white picket-fence illusion and from their point of view, they don't want you to know it's coming from a huge factory.

It all relates to the tobacco analogy, where there were powerful organizations with connections to government. They totally lied about what smoking did to your health. There are total similarities. There is this misconception that we have many options for food, but it's all coming from a few big companies.

Food for thought, eh?