Last night we had the privilege of checking out an early screening of Food Inc, a documentary that visually realizes all of the finest points of Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma — and then some. It’s starring all the usual suspects, Pollan himself, Eric Schlosser, Joel Salatin, Gary Hirschberg from Stonyfield and a handful of famers’ — the good and bad kind — talking frankly, radically and practically about the nightmare that our food system has evolved into over the last 50 years.
Some highlights:
Carole Morison, a farmer in South Carolina, effectively blowing the whistle on Tyson Foods. She maintained a concentration camp for chickens and was more or less enslaved by this horror show, thanks to Tyson. How?
- The average farmer in this scenario carries $500,000 in debt to meet all the “regulations” installed by Tyson, which is contracted to purchase their birds.
- The average farmer’s actual income: $18,000/year.
- (After talking to the filmmakers, she was dropped by Tyson. We must find her, thank her and see what she’s doing to get by these days.)
A look inside Beef Products Inc, which processes meat from dozens of feed lots across several states and “CLEANS” it with ammonia.
- Because, of course, this reduces bacteria!
- And because it’s OK to eat ammonia?
- The visuals on this were particularly vile. There has been very little coverage by the press on this practice, but here’s one “academic” document I found on it — and this news item, about a woman who *died* while working at BPI. From ammonia exposure.