Food Inc Notes

Back to Philosophy of Food

1. Facts that you are surprised by, think important, or are suspicious of.;

2. Questions raised by the movie;

3. Claims or thesis that the movie's documentary evidence seems to support.

Notes for Food, Inc.

• Agrarian images in supermarkets are ideological. Conceal reality of food production.

• Concentration of markets in a few large corporations. Control of production for larger market. 70’s top 5 meat packers: 25% 2008: top 4 80%. Not as much diversity as supermarket labels imply.

• Chicken Industry

• industrial chicken design: lots of breast meat and quick growth.
• 10min Vince: "Smells like money to me!" economics of industrial chicken ag. health issues. transparency issues: Tyson refused to allow cameras in.
• Carole Morison - dissenter - 15:28. Connect selection by price to chickens that can’t walk. Loses contract.
• price of commercial vs. Organic chicken: [1]

• Corn Story - Pollan. 17mins

• industrial foods as rearrangements of corn -- from 20 bushels an acre to 200 (I wonder what yield is for a modern organic corn field?).
• 30% of landbase to corn. Gov’t policy Troy Raush. Foreign policy and commodity crops.
• Food scientists: Larry Johnson. 20mins HFCS. Defining “industrial eating”. Making fish eat corn. Corn and effect on meat prices. Gov’t subsidy of meat.

• Jack in the Box Ecoli Story, gastric window segment,

• Kevin's Law - victim of J in Box event - 37min industrial meat plants footage. Making your burgers safe without removing fecal content. Ammonia and ammonia hydroxide.

• Family segment - fast food as a family economic choice. 39mins. Lots of calories for $12. Diabetes as a social justice issue.

• Joel Salatin Show -- Polyface Farms - 44 mins. - "honest food" includes externalities. speech on not maximizing growth to preserve food integrity (very interesting topic). Back at 58mins

• Hog Segment Smithfield processing plant - 55:44 32,000 / day recruiting from Mexico after dumping cheap corn there.

• Organic Industry Story — Natural Products Expo —

• Stoneyfield -- hippie origins, now in Walmart.

• 1900 farmer feeds 6-8 people, now 126.
• Monsanto and Seed Patents. - conventional seed culture. Roundup news: [2]

• seed cleaner

• Closing political argument "regulatory capture"

• Food libel Laws

• Oprah case -

• STUDENT NOTES
• -Treatment of chickens is not so cut and dry, very unclear about most practices
• -Fix it chemically rather than going back to the root
• -Big Money influences all decisions in the industry
• -Most amount for cheapest cost
• -Regulation is subpar
• -Corn is a huge commodity in the food industry, not just for Human consumption but for livestock as well