Comments on: What Food, Inc. Can Teach Us About How We Treat Animals

By: Shannon

Shannon — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:27:14 +0000

Thanks for posting the link for Food, Inc., coming out in theaters June 12, in San Francisco, New York City, and Los Angeles(other play dates available here: http://www.magpictures.com/dates.aspx?id=3e3938d1-b785-4286-9ae0-8eb5952f1480)! You can watch the trailer here:

http://www.youtube.com/v/c2sgaO44_1c&hl=en&fs=1

There is also a book companion to the movie, Food, Inc. available at Amazon.com. The book explores topics that were discussed in the movie, such as the industrialization of our food supply and the benefits of local and organic eating. Food experts including Marion Nestle, Eric Schlosser, Michael Pollan, and Anna Lappé, take these topics to another level through thirteen fascinating essays, some of which have been written especially for this book. Check it out!

Shannon Matloob
Participant Media

By: chowmama | Weekly Digest

chowmama | Weekly Digest — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:05:08 +0000

[...] What the new film Food, Inc. Can Teach Us About How We Treat Animals (via Civil Eats) [...]

By: Li

Li — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:15:33 +0000

Kate – The from what I’ve read Food, Inc doesn’t lump Polyface in with BigAg, in fact to promote Polyface as an ideal. Pollen’s work is supposed to feature prominently and he is decidedly for ethical meat eating. The original review on Civil Eats by Dave Murphy seems to be much more well rounded than this one.

This particular blogger is affiliated with the HSUS, which is a decidely pro-vegan organization. The HSUS does have some involvement with the movie, but so does Slow Food USA, Heifer International and Sustainable Table, all whom support livestock rearing for food purposes in the manner you describe.

By: Kate

Kate — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:32:44 +0000

I eat local, sustainably produced meat and dairy products, produce most of my own vegetables, and keep laying hens on a mini-rotational grazing system in my suburban backyard. I cook 99% of all the meals my family eats from scratch. That should tell you where my inclinations and views lie.

I have yet to see the film. However, I do wonder about the motivation behind the making of this film. No argument: feedlot operations are a horror and a moral/environmental travesty. But when a place like Polyface Farm is lumped in with big ag because they don’t slaughter their chickens with Zen reverence or an intravenous drip to calm the birds before dispatching them – you’ve lost my sympathies.

Life is valued by quality, not quantity. No one reading these words has any guarantee that they’ll be here to read them tomorrow. Salatin’s animals have X good weeks or months of life, and one bad morning or afternoon. How many of us can say the same? Life doesn’t promise any creature that the end will be a painless or happy occasion, particularly if said creature is wild. A wild songbird died in my backyard a few days ago from a prolapsed uterus. Was that a better death than the Polyface chickens had?

Salatin’s domesticated animals are raised for human consumption, provided with wholesome feed, protection from predators, and the ability to express their full range of natural behaviors. So now Polyface is to be criticized over the last few moments of those animals’ lives? Spare me. Show me a better method of killing a few hundred animals at a time on a regular basis, or just admit that this is 100% pure radical vegan propaganda.

By: JUNE GARDEN & HOMESTEAD | Little Homestead in the City

JUNE GARDEN & HOMESTEAD | Little Homestead in the City — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:58:59 +0000

[...] at Civil Eats they had this interesting review. Jordanne, who’s every perspective, had exactly that same insight over the Salatin [...]

By: Li

Li — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:29:48 +0000

If you are familiar with the works of Pollan and Schlosser at all, you would know that they are not vegans.

By: Fred

Fred — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 01:35:27 +0000

Much of this is troublingly oversimplified. Tell me of a single ecosystem that is self-renewing without animals in it. Animals are a vital ingredient in healthy ecologies. So if if read some of the comments acurately what we are saying is that we should get rid of the animals so that we can all drive more? The animals were here before cars. Think about it. Besides there are other ruminants besides cows and sheep. What about the deer, the antelope, the bison? Do we kill them all off too so that we can drive more?

By: Leslie

Leslie — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:54:52 +0000

Just so you know, I saw this movie, (it’s a film-not tv) and listened to a discussion with the director for an hour. I’m not vegan, although I don’t eat dairy because it makes my allergies/asthma much worse. I eat meat in small amounts because that just makes my belly feel better.
So-
Pretty much everyone knows that field corn is for animals. The point is that if we didn’t use those fields for field corn, we could be growing food for humans in the same space. The average American needs to see where their food comes from, since most people are so far removed. My first CSA farmer fed 60 families with only two acres, plus she also had extra to sell at two farmer’s markets.

I hope people will also become concerned with the “meat” served to school children every day. It made me very glad that my son would never eat a school lunch. And how long will we continue to let children die from ecoli?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:41:37 +0000

no movie can tell you what you need to know about where your food comes from. visit a soybean farm for a few days, then visit a farm like polyface for a few days, and consider which one you’d rather have next door.

By: M. Haley

M. Haley — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:29:35 +0000

Ahh, the wounders of TV. Through editing anything can look bad! Unfortunately Food, Inc. only shows the side that vegan activist want the public to see, and stretch (and even lie) about the truth to do so!
I will only address one of the points here, but all of them are very biased. Yes, we feed corn to farm animals. This is not the corn that most consumers would buy, this is field corn, its alot harder and does not tast like sweet corn. Ither than corn bread, muffins, and a few other uses field corn must be processed in order for us to eat. Farm animals effeicently convert hay and corn into a form that we love – meat!