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Food, Inc. | 
 enlarge | Director: Robert Kenner
Actor: Eric Schlosser
Studio: Magnolia Home Entertainment
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.98
Buy New: $6.83
You Save: $13.15 (66%)
New (49) Used (21) Collectible (1) from $6.48
Rating:  527 reviews
Sales Rank: 36
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Languages: Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 1
Discs: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Running Time: 91 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.5
MPN: 876964002165
UPC: 876964002165
EAN: 0876964002165
ASIN: B0027BOL4G
Theatrical Release Date: 2008
Release Date: November 3, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Explores how large corporations and government agencies control agriculture and food processing, and how those practices affect human, environmental,
Amazon.com
For most Americans, the ideal meal is fast, cheap, and tasty. Food, Inc. examines the costs of putting value and convenience over nutrition and environmental impact. Director Robert Kenner explores the subject from all angles, talking to authors, advocates, farmers, and CEOs, like co-producer Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma), Gary Hirschberg (Stonyfield Farms), and Barbara Kowalcyk, who's been lobbying for more rigorous standards since E. coli claimed the life of her two-year-old son. The filmmaker takes his camera into slaughterhouses and factory farms where chickens grow too fast to walk properly, cows eat feed pumped with toxic chemicals, and illegal immigrants risk life and limb to bring these products to market at an affordable cost. If eco-docs tends to preach to the converted, Kenner presents his findings in such an engaging fashion that Food, Inc. may well reach the very viewers who could benefit from it the most: harried workers who don't have the time or income to read every book and eat non-genetically modified produce every day. Though he covers some of the same ground as Super-Size Me and King Corn, Food Inc. presents a broader picture of the problem, and if Kenner takes an understandably tough stance on particular politicians and corporations, he's just as quick to praise those who are trying to be responsible--even Wal-Mart, which now carries organic products. That development may have more to do with economics than empathy, but the consumer still benefits, and every little bit counts. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 527
 Hard to watch, no matter who you are September 2, 2010
dnk (Boston, MA United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have been a vegetarian for almost all of my adult life and a vegan for the last few years. I started out for ethical reasons, but even if I stopped caring tomorrow I would still eschew animal products. The way they are produced is just too scary. I've been reading about these issues for over twenty years, so there was little that surprised me. For me, the value of the film was showing the human costs, both direct and indirect, in our food system.
Let's back up- this film and many others like it would have you believe that McDonalds, Walmart and Tyson invented the model for the farm, restaurant and supermarket as factory. They didn't. We've been mechanizing our food systems to the best of our ability since we started trading in and consuming sugar. The scary part now is that we can do it so much more "efficiently" than we could before because our technology has improved so much.
The hell of sugar was the way it not only depended on slaves but literally destroyed them. Slavery has been outlawed, but the conditions under which laborers in the food industry work are little better than what the slaves labored in. One of the farmers makes the point that "Big Food" previously depended on African American men to, literally, do their dirty work. Now it's undocumented workers. One of the prices our country pays for cheap food.
The story about the little boy who died after eating contaminated hamburgers- and then the inability of the corporation to apologize- drew both tears and indignant gasps. And well it should. Even worse, what people can say about food companies- Food, Inc- is heavily restricted. When someone can sew Oprah Winfrey for speaking out against a food company, no one is safe. And that's a shame.
It was the story about the small family trying to balance the costs of food and health care that showed what the true cost of our food system really is. Other organizations have cited that we spend the same 26% of our incomes on healthcare and food combined as we did forty years ago. The difference is that we used to spend 18% on food and 8% on healthcare; now it's reversed. Actually, the biggest difference is that we used to have a better quality of life when we did.
It's a powerful film, especially for children, especially for meat eaters (although the message is emphatically not that everyone has to become a vegetarian). But... it's not the comprehensive indictment of the food system I thought it would be. They focus on one quirky, independent farmer as part of the solution. What about more about CSAs? What about how to make all of that work in a city? (It felt like this, as well as many other films on the subject, was talking to someone in the suburbs.) And while I understood what they were saying about Walmart being potentially part of the solution, there's A LOT more to that story, such as how vulnerable businesses become when 40 to 60% of their business becomes dependent on Walmart- and keeping them happy.
This is a very good work and it should be required viewing in school. It's just not the final, most comprehensive resource.
 I Decided Not To Be One of the Majority September 1, 2010
Matilda Twain (Seattle, WA)
After seeing the movie, I decided to be a Vegan. I never would have dreamed I'd become one, but actually, I am feeling better physically and have lost weight!!!! Between watching the movie, reading "Eat to Live" and a book by Ruth Heidrich, who is vegan and a triathlete, I think I've made a healthy as well as "green" decision. Plus, I don't want to support those companies which were focused on in the movie and treated animals with such disrespect.
A remarkable movie August 29, 2010
J. Wrobel
This is a remarkable movie, and it will change the way you eat. It puts pictures to the words of some of the most important books books on the subject, such as Omnivore's Dilemma, Fast Food Nation, etc. and the imagery is very moving. Amazing what is hidden from the view of the public.
Food Inc. (the dvd) August 29, 2010
Carver
I think everyone in America should see this movie. It was
such a shock to see how only 4 companies control the
food that is produced in the United States and how greedy they
are and how they don't care if we get sick from the food they
produce.
The movie was very well done and I hope more people watch it and
maybe speak out on the behalf of the American public.
Finally...had to watch because of a friend August 29, 2010
MrQ (USA)
When I saw, "from the makers of the Inconvenient Truth", on the case, I thought, "I'll never watch that". Global warming (the man-made kind) is complete BS in my mind, and unless we resume testing atmospheric testing of h-bombs, I am very unlikely to change.
I say that only to illustrate the apparent inconsistency in giving this documentary 5 stars.
Film-wise, the film is very well done. The real-life characters were well chosen and seemed to be good down-to-earth Midwestern folks. That lent a lot of credibility IMO. Politically (a reason I do not watch similarly themed documentaries) I thought it more balanced than most. True, Bush 43's mug was mentioned as well as some in his administration, but Clinton was mentioned too.
It wasn't all-corporations-are-evil, all-the-time either. I liked the balance of one farmer who supposedly does it "the right way". Here, we could see the slaughtering of chickens, and to some this may appear as bad as the mass-production style of killing, but leaving the distinction up to the viewer was a good choice. I also liked the organic company who does business with Walmart. The CEO's sense of win-win, that is, making a profit while still adhering to the mission of no pesticides, fertilizer, etc., was a good choice too for the film.
The food system is so out-of-sight and out-of-mind in our lives that only the staunch nutritionists I know realize any of the things mentioned in the film. Consequently, I believe most of it is definitely true. One can certainly argue that it is impossible to feed 6 billion people without assembly-line techniques being employed. That is process-oriented change stuff though. When they start altering natural evolution at my expense, that is where I walk over to the "enough already" side.
The one thing this documentary does for me is confirm a belief I already hold: The United States government is nothing but a huge multi-trillion dollar whorehouse. Corporations pay the pimps (Lobbyists) who buy the whores (Congressmen, Senators, and the White House) who in turn forces their slaves (The American People) to bend over and take it.
This film achieved its objective I think as I will not be able to look at another food product again without reading the label and *this time*, researching what those unpronounceable ingredients are and how they affect my body. I see much more kale in my future now.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 527
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