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Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, Gary Hirschberg, Joe Salatin

Documentary filmmaker Robert Kenner uses reports by Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser and The Omnivore's Dilemma author Michael Pollan as a springboard to exploring where the food we purchase at ... read more read more...the grocery store really comes from, and what it means for the health of future generations. By exposing the comfortable relationships between business and government, Kenner gradually shines light on the dark underbelly of the American food industry. The USDA and FDA are supposed to protect the public, so why is it that both government regulatory agencies have been complicit in allowing corporations to put profit ahead of consumer health, the American farmer, worker safety, and even the environment? As chicken breasts get bigger and tomatoes are genetically engineered not to go bad, 73,000 Americans fall ill from powerful new strains of E. coli every year, obesity levels are skyrocketing, and adult diabetes has reached epidemic proportions. Perhaps if the general public knew how corporations use exploited laws and subsidies to create powerful monopolies, the outrage would be enough to make us think more carefully about the food we put into our bodies. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

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105 critics

PG, 1 hr. 34 min.

Directed by: Robert Kenner

Release Date: June 12, 2009

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DVD Release Date: November 3, 2009

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Flixster Reviews (4,257)

  • fb791220692
    April 13, 2012
    fb791220692
    Important. Scary. Effective. Food, Inc. is a documentary that lives up to its hype. It has a very clear message: The food industry is bad, and then it goes on to tell and show, in full view, how and why this is so. It may be a bit disorganized (after all, it has a lot to cover, f... read morerom seeds to cattle), and its also hard to tell how much of the information is exaggerated in order to scare audiences into taking action, but it is obvious that this film comes from a good place and has a noble goal. The film deserves to be watched based on that fact alone.
  • theunknownhobo
    October 11, 2011
    theunknownhobo
    This documentary is one that has stayed with me after viewing it, unlike many of its kind. It documents the true cost of mass produced food and gives you, the consumer, facts you never even thought you needed to know. As someone who did not eat meat for three years and now does, ... read morethis film definitely had me questioning everything that I not only purchase but eat. It made a fool of everyone I know and whatever you think you know about mass production, this movie sets the wrongs to right. A truly inspirational and precise documentary about human kind in general and the price we put on profit. Exceptional.
  • PedroPauloA
    September 2, 2011
    PedroPauloA
    You'll never look at dinner the same way again

    Interesting

    Like most documentaries; which I have become more fond of lately, they are almost always very intresting. Food Inc. is a game changer, like its tagline dictates "You'll never look at dinner the same way a... read moregain " and to be honest this comes out to be quite true.

    The documentary is about the enigma and the corruption behind fast food, and food itself. It follows the different processes that our food undergoes and the disgusting corruption that is behind it.

    I think everyone should give Food Inc. a chance, its a movie that has lots to tell, its very interesting, and it gives out a great lesson and changes the way you will eventually look at things. I liked it and I think many people will like it too.

    Narrator: The way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000
  • LoughnerWasLucid
    August 5, 2011
    LoughnerWasLucid
    im sympathetic to things that are unfortunate and that effect the majority of my country but i've been eating shit for too long to stop eating shit now. and apparently, the shit i eat has traces of shit in it. im not pleased by this but i will continue to eat my shit covered shit.
  • spielberg00
    July 21, 2011
    spielberg00
    An upsetting, sometimes even disturbing film about how food is processed. If you are a docu-craver, a fast-food junkie, an avid learner, an education-maniac, a person in need for some information about how chicken nuggets and hamburgers at fast food "restaurants" come to be ther... read moree; if you are a person who needs to see something that will change your personal, ultra-general perspective on your own dinner...this is an absolutely must-see for you.
  • xXGiNoBiLiPRXx
    May 6, 2011
    xXGiNoBiLiPRXx
    You'll never look at dinner the same way again

    Very important information and highly true, everyone should at least recommend this film to someone and do there part to contribute to the food industry that directly affects us and our family members.

    The current method of raw foo... read mored production is largely a response to the growth of the fast food industry since the 1950s. The production of food overall has more drastically changed since that time than the several thousand years prior. Controlled primarily by a handful of multinational corporations, the global food production business - with an emphasis on the business - has as its unwritten goals production of large quantities of food at low direct inputs (most often subsidized) resulting in enormous profits, which in turn results in greater control of the global supply of food sources within these few companies. Health and safety (of the food itself, of the animals produced themselves, of the workers on the assembly lines, and of the consumers actually eating the food) are often overlooked by the companies, and are often overlooked by government in an effort to provide cheap food regardless of these negative consequences. Many of the changes are based on advancements in science and technology, but often have negative side effects. The answer that the companies have come up with is to throw more science at the problems to bandage the issues but not the root causes. The global food supply may be in crisis with lack of biodiversity, but can be changed on the demand side of the equation.
  • groaningbitch
    April 26, 2011
    groaningbitch
    food, inc elaborates on great many aspects of why the instant food and the meat you purchase in the supermarket are corruptive for health when it comes to their problematic process of their manifacturing. (plainly, mcdonald sucks. food colborations stink!) if you're not the patie... read morent type who is willing to sit through two hours to be enlightened, here's my briefing:

    american government encourages the inland farmers to harvest corn-fields, and the corns are sent to be grinded into powders to feed chickens, bigs, cows and fish just to save more pennies while replying heavily on the nation-wide vehicle-transmittings. this revoluntionizes the manufacturing methods of food-processing because those land-animals used to be herded in the outdoors for grass-eating, now they're confined in claustrophobic spaces like factories, sent in a narrowed area to get pressed into efficient death. (quicker to kill more) one problem is that cow only eats grass and germs would be induced within cow's body if it's not fed right. and secondly, lots of animals are frightened into defication while they're being slaughtered, and imagine how much excrements have been stainted on their corporses which you feast daily. thirdly, the best way the manufacturer could produce when it comes to erasing the germs on the beef is to dip the meat in chemical water then sealed in paper-boxes.

    of course, they're also issues like the malicious monopolization of the insecticide when it comes to harvest the crops. due to the intellectual patent on live plants and animals, farmers have to use insecticide to grow those crops even when they don't want to out of moral concerns for the consumers' health. okay, if you really wish to know more in details, just rent the movie, which is surely more eloquent than me.

    i have two points of doubts over this. firstly, i think people who really care about the well-being of animals won't watch this and they surely won't eat meat. and it's kinda mawkish to emphasize over the cruelty on animals. but the point is how this process of making food could be damaging to human health, which is prior to animal health. secondly, in the ending, it advocates you to only eat and buy organic food. as a matter of fact, there're also false organic-food sellers who simply pastes the tag of "organic food" on the regularly made food just to make a dough of people who believe in this vegatarian ideology. (becasue i met one before!)...so organic food could also have the chance of being counterfeit.

    my comment after this movie is: GEE, AMERICA IS JUST AS CRAPPY AS CHINA! mainland china has been notorious for having the corrupted poisonous food in its private market, and i even saw an illustration of how a restauranteer shapes rats into chickens, added with proper seasonings, customers won't even know the differences without realizing they're gnawing a piece of RAT(gross)..but those people are just small family-owned private sellers who are willinh to ignore their conscience just to make a quick buck and get a bit farther from extreme poverty. because they're two bit small-timers, their inside stories are exposed quickly and people all are warned of the rotten food in mainland china...BUT the scary thing about america's corrupted food is those manufacturers are powerful elites who have enough money, influence and groups of lawyers to whitewash themselves and justify their deeds of evils, systematically breached through legal briberies with governmental bureaucrats. in other words, CHINA'S FOOD-SELLER IS THE SMALL-TIME ANARCHY WHILE AMERICA IS THE BIG-SCALE ORGANIZED CRIME-FACTORY. which is scarier? okay, to me, the latter, because you would be dealing with orgainzed evil who utilizes the advertisings to produce an enforced ideology within your head, so flashy, so glamourous that you won't even care to take a second look at what you're eating. to me, that's more evil. america is just as awful as china, who produces rotten food, yes, who has sweat factories, yes, who mistreats human rights, yes. BUT who says america isn't the same? of course, america has much more glamourous coat to shield away the rots. (whatever some people in china have done, and they've earned the notorious publicity they deserve! and the big-timers are hidding under the shadows smirking with complacency)

    when it comes to human rights, the documentary also mentions how america defeated mexico's corn-manufacturers who cannot beat america's vast industrialization on agricultural processings. thus america's triumph over mexico creates lots of un-employed mexicans who illegally immigrate to america as slaves in slaughter-houses. see how much respects it has for human rights? or human right is only a term invented for arian americans? or put it in a more objective way without racial discrimations, RICH AMERICANS. okay, i think i'm being a bit too cynical here, better stop.
  • fb732260458
    March 22, 2011
    fb732260458
    Offering a shocking look at how most of the food is produced and marketed in the U.S., Food, Inc. is eye-opening in its uncompromising exposure of the corporate greed and federal corruption that fuel the immoral and illegal functions of the bloated and money-grubbing food industr... read morey. You may not like what you see - but you should watch it anyway.
  • CloudStrife84
    March 21, 2011
    CloudStrife84
    Deep-going and informative, yet appalling in content. This is one of those documentaries that I'd probably have been better off not watching. On one hand it deserves praise for all the frightening truths it's brought to light about the food industry. But on the other it invites y... read moreou to a world I'd be happier not knowing. I won't be looking at supermarket items the same way again, that's for sure. In any case, it's a compelling and visually interesting documentary. Beautiful in some scenes, stomach-revolting in others. But altogether a relevant piece of film-making, that entertains and shocks at the same time. Definitely a must-see, provided that you're ready for all the facts that it unveils without reservation.
  • rjayhutchinson
    January 18, 2011
    rjayhutchinson
    Documentarian Robert Kenner tackles his thesis, the notion that food conglomerates are harming America, in a clever manner here. A handful of ten-minute-long mini-documentaries make up the whole of the film, each one showing off a new, supposedly horrifying misdeed of the food in... read moredustry. The idea is that even if the viewer isn't shocked and outraged by everything shown, there will likely be at least one or two parts that will get the viewer riled up. And I won't deny that there were some fairly compelling stretches of the film.

    One important question, however, looms over the film the whole time, remaining unanswered the whole way through. How would we survive without the industry's mass production of food? The film tells us at one point that at the beginning of the 20th century, an average farmer could feed "six or eight people," but that now, the average farmer can feed 126 people. That's a bad thing? To keep up with our rapidly growing population, it seems to me that the largeness of the food industry is necessary if we Americans wish to keep our leisurely lifestyle.

    When asked how they would keep up with consumer demand if they were the only food providers, one organic farmer, one of the "good guys" of the film, tells us, "We're very ingenious people. We'll deliver."

    Yeah. That's assuring.

    In the end, when we take a look back at our food system as a whole in this country, we can't deny that compared to other countries in the world, we've got it pretty damn good. Films like this only serve to create an unnecessary stir about an issue that, on a macro level, isn't really an issue.

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Critic Reviews

Cliff Doerksen
August 20, 2009
Cliff Doerksen, Chicago Reader

Smart, gripping, and untainted by the influence of Michael Moore. Full Review

Roger Moore
July 8, 2009
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel

After you see what IBP is doing to cattle, what Tyson is doing to chickens, what farmers are doing to us and what Monsanto is doing to farmers in the new documentary Food, Inc., you may never eat again. Full Review

Amy Biancolli
June 26, 2009
Amy Biancolli, San Francisco Chronicle

A mind-boggling, heart-rending, stomach-churning expose on the food industry. Full Review

Tom Long
June 26, 2009
Tom Long, Detroit News

If you are what you eat, we are mostly genetically modified, poorly regulated, unhealthy meat byproducts generating profits for a few gargantuan corporations. Full Review

Colin Covert
June 25, 2009
Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Food, Inc. tackles a vast problem, but sends us home with glimmers of hope. Full Review

David Denby
June 22, 2009
David Denby, New Yorker

An angry blast of disgust aimed at the American food industry. Full Review

Kirk Honeycutt
June 19, 2009
Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter

A riveting if distressing look at the essentially unregulated American food supply.

Liam Lacey
June 19, 2009
Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail

If you're planning on seeing Food, Inc. as a date movie, make sure you have dinner beforehand. Full Review

Ann Hornaday
June 19, 2009
Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

This absorbing film looks terrific and does a superb job of making its case that our current food ways are drastically out of whack. Full Review

Jason Anderson
June 19, 2009
Jason Anderson, Toronto Star

An invaluable primer, Food, Inc. covers a wide array of factors and concerns without becoming excessively polemical or deadeningly earnest. Full Review

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