Reflection on Food Inc.

Food Inc. certainly had the power to churn ones stomach. A look into our national food industry was purely disappointing. This makes me think about how each time we put something in our shopping cart, we are making a vote for the company that produces that good to stay in service. However, since the 1980's food is being produced by a significantly smaller group of corporations. This limits our ability to make decisions at the grocery store. Government subsidization of corn has placed parts of the starchy vegetable in all of the food we eat. Our health is being compromised by our government and by food producers because they have limited our food choices, they have engineered foods that are addictive, and they produce food that stimulates our most basic desires.

I will admit that after watching Food Inc. I wanted to become a vegetarian again. It is hard to obtain foods that contain enough protein without eating meat. Most meat products produced in America are raised in factory farms and treated terribly. Often times this meat is terrible unhealthy for us and we as Americans eat 4 times the amount of red meat that is recommended in our diets. However, when I lived on campus and even now that I live off campus it is hard to find food with enough protein in it to sustain a healthy diet without meat. I am concerned that the new food movements that may have developed because of ideas shared in this and other documentaries are not strong enough. Supermarkets will continue to carry cheap and unhealthy foods as long as people are purchasing them. When I spent time in D.C. it was far easier to eat healthy. Smaller Whole Foods and Trader Joes shopping centers lined the streets.


While most of the food documentaries raise horrific points they fail to do one thing: they fail to provide a call to action. What exactly can we as citizens do to impact and change the larger food industry for the better? Farmer's Markets and organic foods have not yet become entirely affordable to sustain a weekly diet. I believe that as soon as I have my own home I am going to have a garden. For now, I am going to allow the horrific images from Food Inc. flash through my mind each time I reach for ground beef or chicken at the grocery store. Perhaps, even a slight reduction of meat consumption on my part can have a large impact.