Food, Inc.
The way we eat
has changed more in the last 50 years
than in the previous 10,000.
But the image that's used
to sell the food,
it is still the imagery
of agrarian America.
You go into the supermarket
and you see pictures of farmers,
the picket fence, the silo,
the '30s farmhouse
and the green grass.
It's the spinning
of this pastoral fantasy.
The modern American
supermarket
has on average
There are no seasons
in the American supermarket.
Now there are tomatoes
all year round,
grown halfway around the world,
picked when it was green,
and ripened
with ethylene gas.
Although it looks
like a tomato,
it's kind of
a notional tomato.
I mean, it's the idea
of a tomato.
In the meat aisle,
there are no bones anymore.
There is this deliberate veil,
this curtain,
and where our food
is coming from.
The industry doesn't want
you to know the truth
about what you're eating,
because if you knew,
you might not want to eat it.
If you follow
the food chain back
from those shrink-wrapped
packages of meat,
you find a very
different reality.
The reality is a factory.
It's not a farm.
It's a factory.
That meat is
being processed
by huge multinational
corporations
that have very little to do
with ranches and farmers.
Now our food is coming
where the animals and the workers are
being abused.
And the food has become
much more dangerous
in ways that are being
deliberately hidden from us.
You've got a small group
of multinational corporations
who control
the entire food system.
From seed
to the supermarket,
they're gaining
control of food.
This isn't just about what we're eating.
This is about what
we're allowed to say,
what we're allowed
to know.
It's not just our health
that's at risk.
The companies don't
want farmers talking.
They don't want
this story told.
How about a nice chicken club sandwich
made with fresh cooked chicken?
You know,
that's a nice idea,
but I think what
I'd really like
- is a burger.
- All right.
My favorite meal to this day
remains a hamburger
and french fries.
I had no idea that
a handful of companies
had changed what we eat
and how we make our food.
I've been eating
this food all my life
without having any idea
where it comes from,
any idea how powerful
this industry is.
And it was the idea
of this world deliberately
hidden from us.
I think that's one
of the reasons why
I became
an investigative reporter,
was to take the veil--
lift the veil away
from important subjects
that are being hidden.
The whole industrial food system
really began
with fast food.
In the 1930s,
a new form
of restaurant arose
and it was called
the drive-in.
a very successful drive-in,
but they decided
to cut costs and simplify.
So they fired
all their carhops,
they got rid of most
of the things on the menu
and they created
a revolutionary idea
to how to run
a restaurant.
They basically brought
the factory system
to the back
of the restaurant kitchen.
They trained each worker
to just do one thing
again and again
and again.
By having workers
who only had to do one thing,
they could pay them
a low wage
and it was very easy
to find someone to replace them.
It was inexpensive food,
it tasted good
and this McDonald's
fast food restaurant
was a huge
huge success.
That mentality
of uniformity,
conformity
and cheapness
applied widely
and on a large scale
has all kinds of
unintended consequences.
When McDonald's is
the largest purchaser
of ground beef
in the United States
and they want
their hamburgers
to taste, everywhere,
exactly the same,
they change how
ground beef is produced.
The McDonald's corporation
is the largest purchaser
of potatoes
and one of the largest
purchasers of pork,
chicken, tomatoes,
lettuce, even apples.
These big big
fast food chains
want big suppliers.
And now there are essentially
a handful of companies
controlling
our food system.
In the 1970s,
the top five beef-packers
controlled only
about 25% of the market.
Today, the top four
control more than 80%
of the market.
You see the same thing
happening now in pork.
Even if you don't eat
at a fast food restaurant,
you're now eating meat
that's being produced
by this system.
You look at the labels
and you see Farmer this,
Farmer that--
it's really just
three or four companies
that are controlling
the meat.
We've never had
food companies this big
and this powerful
in our history.
Tyson, for example,
is the biggest meat-packing company
in the history of the world.
The industry changed the entire way that
chicken are raised.
Birds are now raised
and slaughtered
in half the time
they were 50 years ago,
but now they're
twice as big.
People like to eat
white meat,
so they redesigned
the chicken
to have large breasts.
They not only changed the chicken,
they changed the farmer.
Today, chicken farmers
no longer control their birds.
A company like Tyson
owns the birds from
the day they're dropped off
until the day that
they're slaughtered.
Let me go to the top.
- This is the Chicken--
The chicken industry
has really set a model
for the integration
of production, processing
and marketing
of the products
that other industries
are now following
because they see that we have achieved
tremendous economies.
In a way, we're not
producing chickens;
we're producing food.
It's all highly mechanized.
So all the birds
coming off those farms
have to be almost
exactly the same size.
What the system of intensive
production accomplishes
is to produce
a lot of food
at a very affordable price.
what's wrong with that.
Smells like money to me.
sit here.
And Chuck's son has
four over the top of this hill.
The chicken industry
came in here
and it's helped
Here's my chicken
houses here.
I have about
What do you want?
We have a contract
with Tyson.
They've been growing chickens
for many many years.
It's all a science.
They got it figured out.
If you can grow
a chicken in 49 days,
why would you want one you gotta grow
in three months?
More money
in your pocket.
These chickens
never see sunlight.
They're pretty much
in the dark all the time.
So you think they just
want to keep us out?
I don't know.
If I knew,
I'd tell you.
It would be nice if y'all could see
what we really do,
but as far
as y'all going in,
we can't let you
do that.
I understand why farmers
don't want to talk--
because the company can
do what it wants to do
as far as pay goes
since they control everything.
But it's just gotten
to the point
that it's not right
what's going on
and I've just
made up my mind.
I'm gonna say
what I have to say.
I understand why others
don't want to do it.
And I'm just to a point
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"Food, Inc." Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 25 Oct. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/food,_inc._8384>.
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