Film Fest shows Food, Inc.

BY ED FELIEN

Michael Pollan, author of “The Ominivore's Dilemma” and other books about the food industry.

Taxes done?  Not quite May Day? It must be time for the U Film Society International Film Festival! It looks exciting this year.  Over 140 films from all over the world—fun films from Scandinavia, a documentary about Wounded Knee using footage shot 35 years ago and some great independent American films. “Food, Inc.,” a passionate documentary by Robert Kenner, will be shown this Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 9:20 at St. Anthony on Main, and it will have a commercial run at the Lagoon Theaters after the festival.

The film is a convincing indictment of the corporate food industry, and it cheers the attempts by small farmers and consumers to resist it.  Just a few years ago our food came from many diverse sources.  Today almost all of it comes from a handful of major corporations.  We used to get energy from fruit and vegetables, now our energy comes in an aluminum can with fructose sugar supplied by Cargill.  We used to feel secure in our beef and poultry.

Now E. coli and mad cow’s disease are a constant concern.  And you can’t talk about it.  If you speak out or criticize the practices of the food industry
you run the risk of a long and painful lawsuit.  It doesn’t matter if you’re right, ordinary citizens simply cannot afford the time and money to defend
themselves from a lawsuit by agri-business.  One of the few that tried and succeeded was Oprah Winfrey.  She prevailed against the Texas beef industry,
but only after spending a million dollars of her own money.

The research that guides the film was done by Michael Pollan in “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and Eric Schlosser for “Fast Food Nation.”  Their interviews in the film show how government subsidies to corn growers produce cheap junk food like pop and burgers that are destroying the environment, that are harmful to workers and that result in one in every three kids born after 2000 getting type 2 diabetes. But there are some bright rays of hope in the film as well.  Joel Salatin operates a poultry and pig farm in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia.  He shows how much fun it can be to operate on a smaller scale, without corporate pressures to produce more and more in a factory-like setting. And there are things we can do: Shop locally.  The Wedge and Seward Co-op can be trusted and the supermarkets can’t.  It’s as simple as that.  Supermarkets are run by corporations that are only concerned about short term profits.  Co-ops are owned by your neighbors, and they’re concerned about good food.  There are lots of farmers’ markets springing up.  Support them.  Their food is local and almost always organic. 

Join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture).  They produce organic food.  The price is less than you’d spend in a store, and it’s delivered to a location close to you every week.  Here’s a directory of 39 CSAs in Minnesota:
http://www.mda.state.mn.us/food/minnesotagrown/default.htm.

Read labels.  If you can’t say it, you probably don’t want to eat it.  Avoid products with high fructose corn syrup.  That’s the stuff that gives you diabetes.

Grow your own food.  Start a garden.  Begin with a couple of tomato plants. Work into broccoli, spinach and lettuce.  It’s not that hard.  It’s fun.

And it’s good for you. Educate yourself.  Read Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser.  Learn about the chemical poisons the corporate food industry is trying to make you eat. South Minneapolis is fortunate.  There are plenty of people here who want good, wholesome, organic food. Life is too short anyway—don’t make it shorter by eating bad food. And go see the film.