Food Inc
This month I’m participating as a judge in the first annual Tasty Awards. The awards celebrate achievement in food, culture and fashion film, tv, video and pod-stuff. As a tv junkie, I’m probably the ideal candidate for a judge. But in order to fully complete my duties, I had to catch up on a few items on my “must watch” list.
At the top of the list was Food Inc, a Tasty nom and the most talked about food documentary of the year. The controversial film explores the big business of food in America. In a large part, the doc was created to illuminate the producers’ big beef with beef (and pork and chicken)–the most popular proteins in the country.
Although I felt that the feature offered several hopeful moments, (like the story of Stonyfield Yogurt and the fact that the promotion of organics at Walmart go a long way toward cleaning up the planet), overall the film swung too far to the left for my taste before descending into a pit of doom.
It isn’t that I’m particularly conservative and it probably isn’t fair to say that the film was leftist. Frankly, I found it far more socialist in its message. I’ve lived in Australia. I went there, did that and I know that socialism is not for me.
What upset me about Food Inc was an underlying message that the government should be protecting our health. I was shocked that even Michael Pollan, who is a highly educated, brilliant advocate for the planet, made a comment in the film that implied that the government should be taking responsibility for our health. Had he said the government should be and is not providing us with the tools and education to make choices for ourselves, I could embrace the assertion. But that, I am afraid, was not the message.
Anyone who has listened to my shtick on aphrodisiacs and health knows that my health industry guru is Dr. Mehmet Oz. What I love about Oz’s message is that he teaches the public to be proactive and insists that we take responsibility for our own health. This is how I firmly believe every able-minded adult should approach their well being.
In what I thought was a much less significant role in our personal well-being, my platform as a culinary educator has always upheld this idea. I went into the specialty of aphrodisiacs with the goal of encouraging and inspiring people to make better food choices–(both better for the body and more pleasurable for the soul.) I actually chose aphrodisiacs in a large part because I thought, “What better way to get people excited about food than to get them excited?!”
But after seeing this film I realize that what I and my fellow food educators, the cooking teachers, authors and speakers like myself has a social significance and even true importance to overall health (beyond that of bringing physical and mental pleasure through our favorite topic.)
Food Inc did not inspire me. In fact it scared me. But it didn’t manage to scare me into action, either. I felt like the film sent a message that we should question the role of our government in our health, not become proactive about our own health. The film’s tag line is “hungry for change?” But the film made me feel more like the change I need to make is fleeing Canada, Fiji or any place where citizens are more protected from the money-hungry American food industry than to become an active participant in changing the ills of the American food business. Sad, I know, especially since the film was full of well-researched information. But the delivery? Food Inc only succeeded in filling me with an unshakable sense of doom.