While the food industry has become a highly standardized process, as shown in Food Inc., efficiency for the manufacturers may not be the key to satisfying the health and safety of consumers. Our consumers lack the power to ensure that the products they are buying are free from harmful bacteria and disease, this is due to the lack of power that we as consumers have on the regulation of our products. Our government agencies are also being controlled by the big manufacturers and their money, making it a difficult task to provide a more valid regulation process. The film Food Inc. provides the viewer with a vast array of evidence behind the numerous issues that are at stake in this debate. Food safety for consumers may be at the top of the list, but it is the issues of power, money, and lack of the consumers and even the government’s ability to regulate the food process.

Food Inc. puts the power of emotion to use by displaying some of these issues in the documentary. The film’s aim is to show what’s, “behind the veil of corporate farming,” and it does so by providing the viewer with powerful evidence that demonstrates the authority that the big food corporations possess over their farmers, workers, and also regulatory agencies.  Experts such as Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, an investigative writer, Barbara Kowalcyk, a food safety advocate, and Joel Salatin, an American holistic farmer all give the film high credibility. After viewing the film, I felt somewhat dumbfounded by the things that I saw. First, comprehending the grasp that the big companies like Tyson, and Purdue have on their farmers disgusted me. Carole Morrison, a former farmer for Purdue, has had enough of what she has deemed to be immoral farming. She is interviewed about the subject and states, “I understand why farmers don’t want to talk, because the company can do what it wants to do as far as pay goes because they control everything.” This quotation, and the interview, shows how one sided these contracts with the big food companies truly are. Her contract was terminated due to her lack of interest in changing her chicken coups to Purdue’s standards, and her disgust with the antibiotics and abnormal growth of her chickens. Not only do they control the farming portion of the meat packing industry, but the film unveils a far more concerning issue. It explains how many of the members of the FDA and USDA are former members of the beef industry. Notably, during the Bush administration, the chief of staff of the USDA, James F. Fitzgerald, was the former chief lobbyist for the beef industry, and also the head of the FDA, Lester M Crawford Jr., was the former executive VP of the National Food Processors Association.

This portion of the film leads into one of the most heartfelt pieces of evidence, children dying of a particular deadly pathogen in contaminated foods. Escherichia Coli 0157:H7 is the strand that killed Kevin Kowalyck, son of Barbara Kowalyck, whose story is shown throughout the film. Kevin is a victim of a foodborne illness. He was only two years and eight months old, and the illness killed him in just twelve days. Barbara struggles to enact change in the government as we watch her bring the case of her son to state and federal courts to dispute new regulations. This horrifying story is also very closely related to a piece by Marion Nestle called, “Resisting Food Safety.” Nestle has a Ph.D, M.P.H., and is a professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU. In her research about issues of foodborne illness she enlightens the reader about the politics and power behind food safety. The piece provides data from the past thirty years of the number of outbreaks and deaths of certain pathogens, and brings forward the statement that the food corporations and the government aren’t doing their part to ensure the safety of the consumers. In addition, Nestle also gives us some insight into it being an unreasonable task for the FDA and USDA to oversee the entire food production in the United States. Only 700 FDA inspectors are responsible for overseeing 30,000 manufacturers, 20,000 warehouses, 785,000 commercial establishments, 128,000 grocery stores, and 1.5 million vending operations. To me this seems like a nearly impossible task, and the USDA doesn’t do much better considering that they have twice as large of a budget than the FDA and ten times the workers, according to Nestle’s research. The USDA only regulates twenty percent of the food supply, and just fifteen percent of foodborne illness is reported under their jurisdiction in 2000! Marion Nestle’s aim of her piece is to provide stakeholders perspectives on the issues and how each parties’ goals are not aligned. The manufacturers claim that profit is maximizing shareholder wealth, but there has got to be a consensus to make safety the number one priority.

Consumer Reports, “You Are What They Eat,” provides evidence of the things that are being fed to our food and how it is affecting us. This piece is aimed at the health conscious and concerned consumers, so it displays a variety of input from experts of science and other areas of expertise. The article’s purpose is to expose the benefits and risks behind the processed feed that is being given to our livestock. David Fairfield, the director of feed services for the National Grain and Feed Association argues that, “animal protein products, meat and bone meal, and blood meat are nutritional feed ingredients.” However, according to the CDC (Centers for Disease and Control Prevention) these processed feed ingredients have far more potential for being contaminated. The biggest issue that we are facing is linking the contaminations with actual human illness. There is just not a big enough system to control and inspect where all of the contaminations are originating from. In 1997, a feed ban was enacted by the FDA to prevent infectious prions, or proteins that could lead to mad cow disease. However, the FDA’s enforcement of this ban has been very slim. They admitted that the results of their inspections were “severely flawed” due to a lack of compliance by the manufacturers. With this type of system that we have in place where these companies can skew and deflect attempts at inspections and regulation, we are not going to be able to enact change. Our government needs to take control of the situation and spend the necessary capital to regain control of the food industry and ultimately provide safety to our consumers.