IF YOU HUNGER FOR THE TRUTH

By Jess Kapadia

Robby Kenner doesn’t claim to be leading the common man’s exodus, Braveheart-style, into a globally recognized healthy food movement. He—along with the rest of us who excite at the prospect of a grass-fed steak—is, however, rallying the troops. E. coli and salmonella in tomatoes, spinach, jalapeños and peanuts now affect vegetarians, previously invulnerable to the deadly oversights of the meatpacking industry.

It’s official: We’re all in this together. Kenner’s new documentary, Food, Inc., encourages us to take a more active role in our country’s collective digestive system. And he does it without putting you entirely off your chicken.

In an opening scene, a family in Baldwin Park, California, is having dinner. The father, Alfredo, a diabetic whose medication costs hundreds of dollars each month, leans out the window of their minivan and orders clearly into the drive-thru speaker. They eat their cheeseburgers in the car. Later, at the supermarket, one of the children is told to put back fresh pears, which, at 99 cents a pound, aren’t in their budget.

“You can find chips that are cheaper,” says Maria, the mother. “The sodas are really cheap. Sometimes you look at a vegetable and say, ‘OK, well, we can get two hamburgers over here for the same amount.’”

“It dawned on me,” says Kenner, “that because of the economy, people would realize that the financial and food crises are the same capitalism gone berserk. The same people who derailed the economy out of greed can sell you terrible food.” Resigned and unsatisfied, the Baldwin Park family is a symbol of how America’s food is clearly failing us.

For many Americans, corporate-subsidized corn and oil-fueled meat and produce are the only means of staying fed. “We’re eating things that aren’t healthy and we’re being lied to,” Kenner remarks, “but the biggest thing I came away with is the right to choose what we think is best based on information. We’re being denied that information—I didn’t realize that even existed in this country. Organic farmers are sued for not using rBST (a bovine growth hormone). People don’t have to label cloned food.”

A notion that has surfaced as a result of the economy and the everrising cost of living is that organic eating is elitist, inaccessible to many who would otherwise take advantage of a healthier lifestyle. Organic groceries can cost up to twice as much as their conventional counterparts, forcing consumers to make the decision between healthier food and something else. When big companies have filled stomachs, human and animal alike, with what’s least expensive for everyone, their work is done. The subsequent harm to consumers’ health, like the ever-looming possibility of an E. coli outbreak or the plight of the meatpacking worker, would be difficult to defend onscreen. Now, about that gratuitous slaughterhouse reel. Although Kenner, in the spirit of Fast Food Nation and Supersize Me, does include (minimal) footage from Tyson chicken farms and Smithfield killing floors, he strives to turn heads, not stomachs. “I wasn’t out to keep your eyes closed. As a matter of fact, we took out most of the grotesque things.”

Rather, in a captivating juxtaposition of bottom lines, “beyond organic” farmer Joel Salatin of Virginia’s Polyface Farms is shown contentedly beheading and dressing his poultry. A second-generation farmer, Salatin describes the delightfully unconventional—and hugely successful—ways to raise natural beef livestock: “They actually eat grass, forage. You know: clover, grass, herbs. They’re herbivores.

“We’ve allowed ourselves to become so disconnected and ignorant about something that is as intimate as the food that we eat… if we put glass walls on all of the mega-processing facilities, we would have a different food system in this country.”

The recurring theme of corporations that declined to be interviewed keeps a steady beat throughout the film. Finally, one unlikely candidate steps forward. Kenner refers to this as a “smart business move.” Wal-Mart’s involvement with Food, Inc. will likely work to its benefit as its customers—a crucial demographic in measuring national consumer trends—begin and continue to buy honest food. Bright green tags mark organic products, sold at Wal-Mart’s signature low prices, and companies are grateful for the exposure. Gary Hirshberg, CEO of Stonyfield Farms, can attest to this.

“When we started out, we were a seven-cow farm. We wanted to prove that business could be part of the solution to the globe’s environmental problems and at the same time, we had to prove that we could be highly profitable.” Now the number three brand of yogurt in the United States, Stonyfield Farms, can be found in the dairy section of many Wal-Marts. While the company has “been vilified probably more than any retailer in our current economy,” according to Hirshberg it now serves as a symbol of partnership, catering to the consumer.

“When a Wal-Mart enters the organic space, I’m thrilled,” he says. “I have dreamed of the day when I could sit with corporate titans and have conversations about organics and sustainability.”

There are two facts that appear to be inextricably linked for the time being. The first is that we as humans enjoy a larger variety of readily available food than ever before. The second is that we have fallen prey to turning that abundance in strong favor of corporations. They benefit from our trust, so long as the supermarket shelves are stocked. If you are outraged on your way out of the theater, Robby Kenner has made his point. The mother who spends a few cents more at Wal-Mart for organic yogurt, the elderly couple who drives 100 miles to get “the best” meat from Polyface Farms and the child who knows that pears are healthier than fast-food cheeseburgers will all keep contributing to the momentum of this movement. In the meantime, nobody with any buying power should feel left out.

Jess Kapadia is a recent graduate of the Annenberg School for Journalism at USC. After hosting a cooking show, editing the Daily Trojan’s dining guide and working in her mother’s Ojai restaurant, she moved to New York to intern at Saveur Magazine. She currently resides in New York City and continues to blog and freelance for food publications.