Last week, we watched the documentary Food Inc. It's a sobering exposé into the corporate food industry. Before watching the film, I half expected to simply see a lot of gruesome images into the inner workings of meat processing facilities. While they did show some of those things, the bigger picture we took away from the film was the horrible conditions in which these animals are subjected to. The film points out that a veil has been placed between us grocery store shoppers, and the distributors of the food we buy. We aren't aware of where are food really comes from, only that most food packaging have pictures of rural America, farmland, and "the good ol' days".

The reality though is that animals are mistreated and abused. With regards to chicken raising, the film points out that the miracle of antibiotics and growth hormones has allowed us to create a very efficient chicken which produces larger breasts than usual and is fully grown in only two-thirds of the time. While that is great for us chicken eaters everywhere, these chickens are raised in close quarters that allows each chicken only 0.7 sq ft. of space. Not a problem when you consider that each chicken has become so fat and plump that they can only take a step or two before falling back down.

The sheer number of animals in a small confined space produces a very large concentration of animal poop which must be disposed somehow. Legally, the only place for farmers to dispose of this is in their fields which has brought its own share of problems. Two of the biggest problems that the film presented was the introduction of antibiotics and disease into vegetable fields. With these issues, some analysts have discussed a growing population that is immune to antibiotics. Furthermore, in the past decade we've seen several outbreaks of E.Coli in spinach. Odd since E.Coli is primarily a bacteria growth in animals.

I could go on, but all this is to say that it's really caused Carolyn and I to take a long hard look at what we eat, and where we get our food. For starters we've started to look at grass-fed beef, more specifically, meat from animals that have been raised humanly. Whole Foods and local farmers markets seem to be a good place to start. Though I remember a few years ago a professor telling me that Whole Foods gives the aura that eating organic is only for the wealthy. However, I realize now that it's only because technology has allowed food to become so cheap that eating natural now seems so expensive. Fifty years ago, Americans were spending close to 35% of their budget on food. Today, that number is closer to only 10%. Food is cheap, but in reality when you factor the health and environmental impact of cheap food, it's really not cheap at all. Farmer Joel Salatin says it well:

“When you add up the environmental costs, societal costs, health costs, industrial food is not honest. It’s not priced honestly. It’s not produced honestly. There’s nothing honest about that food.”

It's sobering to think about what we put in our bodies since soon I will be responsible for feeding a newborn. We live in a world where diabetes and obesity is commonplace. But while global change won't come overnight, the movie leaves you with its strongest empowering point: "You can vote to change the system... three times a day."

There are many resources online discussing the food industry and how you can eat healthier. Here, here, and here are a few of them.