Experiential Journal: Looking into the Food Industry

By Anthony Smith

For my CEC assignment, I watched the documentary film “Food, Inc”  and read the book Fast Food Nation. The film was made by documentary filmmaker Robert Kenner. The film and the book are connected because the film uses reports by Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser to expose where our food bought in grocery stores really comes from. 

The film also goes on to discuss how future generations may be affected by the parts of the American food industry that people would most likely rather not see or know about. By exposing this, it becomes clear that the government is more concerned with business making a profit than protecting the health of people and the environment.

The USDA and FDA are supposed to protect the public, aren’t they? It really makes you wonder why these government agencies, agencies that are supposed to work in the best interests of the people they serve, allow big corporations to put profit ahead of health of the American farmer, worker safety, and the environment.

You see chicken that is now genetically engineered so that it won’t go bad, allowing companies to make more money, yet the consumers of these “products” are put in jeopardy. The film really does a good job of exposing the problems that the food industry is creating for today’s society. After watching the film, it is my hope that the public opens their eyes to the problems at hand and stand up for what is right. 

The film outraged me, and maybe if the general public knew how corporations pulled off these inhumane stunts, the outrage would spread and hopefully create a change for the better and people would be more conscious about the food we put into our bodies.