Food Inc. + Active Consumers

I found the presentation of Food Inc. very interesting for a few reasons. I had never seen the documentary before, but felt more informed and more intrigued by the idea than I had before watching the film, so in that sense, it accomplished its goal. Along with that however, I felt the film to be very black and white when there tends to be a blurring of gray with the food and pop culture topics.

On one hand the film showed the horrors of the meat processing factories, the poor working conditions of the employees, and the manipulation of chicken farmers property and wealth. On the other side, they show the organic farmer, his small production, and his privately managed property. It makes me wonder if there truly isn’t anything in between. Having not done extensive research on the topic, I can’t honestly answer that questions, but I would like to think that a blend of the two worlds could produce healthy food products while maintaining good working conditions/salaries for workers.

            It might be slightly naive of me to say that the pros of each industry can be combined, but I simply wonder what our understanding of food within pop culture would be if that were to happen. I am a strong supporter of the active consumer, and when one steps back to examine both the pros and cons of each industry presented within the Food Inc. documentary, it seems to boil down to just that. People have a choice to make at this point as to whether or not their food comes from one of the four mass production giants of meat, or from a small organic farm. Active consumerism, its our responsibility to decide.