BLA Documentary Response

Our group read the book Fast Food Nation and then watched the documentary film Food Inc. Both the book and the film discussed how a handful of companies now control the entire food industry in the United States. They look at how this affects our lives and analyze changes we can make to improve the food quality and safety in this country.
Fast Food Nation, written by Eric Schlosser, deals with mainly the meatpacking industry and the success of the McDonald's Corp. His book gives the history of the fast food industry, then explains how that changed the entire way food was produced and distributed. Now, the company has a few plants that grow and produce all the potatoes for the fries, the meat for the burgers, and the chickens for the McNuggets, in order to be uniform in all restaurants. This has created many problems however due to the size of the plants that produce the food, as well as the workers that they hire. The plants can now grow and produce millions of potatoes, cattle, or chickens each year. The speed and conditions in which the livestock are raised are birthplaces for diseases such as E. Coli 0157:H7, which can contaminate the meat and lead to the deaths of many people. Schlosser also makes the argument that the government has been to lax on regulation of the food companies, pointing out the FDA does not have the ability to issue a food recall. This has allowed the food companies to get away with tremendous profits, but while hurting consumers.
Food Inc., which is directed and produced by Robert Kenner and co-produced by Schlosser, delve into similar topics in the food industry. The film highlights how large food companies have taken over the industry and now control most of the nation's food supply. However, it puts its focus not only on meat, but all parts of the food industry. It shows the meatpacking plants, but it also talks about how the vegetables and fruits are affected by the diseases that can infect those foods as well. It also includes stories about people who create food in clean ways, such as one farmer in Virginia who feeds cattle grass and lets them roam on the fields, unlike the large factories that feed cattle grain and have them living with very little space. It also shows how spotty the USDA and FDA are on food regulation, because a process such as the farmer's is cleaner and natural, but is considered contaminated by the FDA, while a large plant that feeds unnatural grain and can foster diseases is considered more safe. It also discusses the topic of food cloning, something just being introduced to the food industry. Similarly, it discusses how Monsanto is becoming the one company which farmers can buy seeds from because natural seeds are no longer able to compete with Monsanto's new genetically modified seeds.
Both the book and film make the argument that the government needs to take charge and put pressure on the food companies to clean up their acts. They also believe the USDA and FDA should have powers that have not yet been granted due to lobbyists of the food industry paying many congressional members. The book makes the argument McDonald's is controlling too much of the lives of Americans, and does not like how the McDonald's way is now being spread overseas. The film makes the argument that creating organic foods and cleaning up the system would not hurt the giant food companies but rather would help them and make their products better and safer. Food safety is a very important topic in the United States and both Fast Food Nation and Food Inc. show how our food system is broken in many ways.