We figured that with all the talk about food and food sources (see the stirring documentary Food, Inc. or read The Omnivore’s Dilemma or Fast Food Nation) that people can make their own decision about where their McNuggets come from and if they want to munch on them.

PETA often creates outrageous ads and they definitely like to stir the pot. Their ads, seen or not, often start a dialogue which we like. Dialogue about our fast food nation – we’re loving it.

Best known as the author who brought you Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser is also an award winning journalist who had been writing about the food industry in the United States for many years prior to the publication of the popular book.

Publicity surrounding his new movie, Food Inc., urged me to revisit some of Schlosser’s earlier writings during his stint writing for The Atlantic Monthly and other magazines and journals.  This article was originally published in the July/August 2001 issue of Mother Jones and though it may be a few years old, it is well worth the time to read.

The article details the human side of the American industrial meat packing industry, and though the stomach turning descriptions of death and maiming rarely ever involve the animals, they don’t need to, there are plenty of human victims.  The accounts of workers being burned, cut, crushed, impaled, and debilitated from repetitive stress injuries are sad.  The accounts of those same injured, loyal workers being cast aside and cut off from medical care by their employers are heartbreaking.

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With Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser a co-producers and Omnivore’s Dilemma writer Michael Pollen one of the consultants (in addition to being on-screen participants) the film offers a solid, well presented structure that offers not only scary, gut wrenching even stomach turning scenes in meatpacking plants, chicken coops and but offers a silver lining into the future of food.

Producer/Director Robert Kenner weaves the film through the various food landscapes from the cramped chicken coops of Maryland to the aerial CAFO vistas to the open grasslands of Polyface Farms. Inside one of the chicken coops live chickens that wallow in their own filth and barely have room to move. Factory farm shots show downer cows being uplifted by forklifts to be transported to the slaughterhouse. The film makes a point of showing people how dangerous and unregulated our food system remains.

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“You’ve got a small group of multinational corporations who control the entire food system, from seed to the supermarket.”

A new documentary film, “Food Inc.“, exposes a frightening portrait of how dysfunctional and destructive our food system has become, and how dishonest corporations repeatedly compromise safety for profit. The movie illustrates how our nation is almost totally divorced from seasonal food, biodiversity and local production. We have entrusted the safety of our food system to a small handful of huge greedy corporations that are destroying us and the planet with massive monoculture factory farms and poisonous chemicals. According to Michael Pollan, this movie is “The most important film about our food system in a generation”. This excellent documentary was made by Robert Kenner and co-produced by Eric Schlosser, of Fast Food Nation fame; it is scheduled to be released on June 12 of this year.

Subway follows Taco Bell, Burger King, and McDonald’s by pledging to pay one cent more per tomato in order to give workers a living wage. However, the fight now turns to the growers themselves, who have objected to the campaign and refuse to pass the money on to the workers.

”We’re hopeful that the growers will stop resisting this change and help us to get the money to the workers, rather than setting up barriers,” said Julia Perkins, a Coalition of Immokalee Workers spokesperson. “With every new company that signs on, it provides a lot of incentive for a forward-thinking grower to be willing to pass on the penny per pound.”

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Several days ago, I read a story about how Peru’s butterfly exports had increased 43% from January-April of this year. These are the butterflies that are pinned into glass frames for sale as gifts and souvenirs. I wondered if all of these butterflies included those that are exported illegally and those that are endangered. Questions of this kind were on my mind as just several days earlier my family had passed by a street vendor who sold animals illegally.

One of the animals was a baby monkey, caged and frightened. We live in the highlands region of Peru, so the monkey was far from its former home in the rainforest. My wife, who in the past worked as a biologist throughout Peru, told me that she thought this was an endangered monkey. As we walked home, I wished I had brought my camera. This I thought, is a story that needs to be pursued.

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Food and food production was the first topic I tackled. I haven’t read it yet, but Michael Pollan’s new book, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, sounds excellent. I enjoyed listening to a recent interview with him on Talk of the Nation and have it on hold at my local library. Michael Pollan also did a fantastic job with An Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. Many people are familiar with Pollan’s writing, but I wanted to make you aware of some titles you may have missed.

I believe I stumbled up Fat Land by Greg Critser first. Being a health and wellness consultant, the subtitle, “How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World,” is what caught my eye.

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