Three members of the Advocacy for Animals staff went to see the movie Food Inc., a documentary about the major sources of the food produced in the United States—including animals raised for food. Here are the reactions of each staffer: A vegan, a vegetarian, and an omnivore.

First staffer (vegan):

To be honest, I didn’t really want to see Food, Inc. From reading the reviews, I knew what it had to say, and I wasn’t sure I could take hearing it all again.

I’ve read a lot, written some, and seen other films (such as the excellent The Future of Food [2004]) on the subject of how food is produced in North America. I’m left feeling powerless by the huge economic and political forces that work to keep the profits rolling to enormous chemical, agricultural, and food-processing companies who benefit from having Americans eat a certain way. The frustration is made worse by knowing that those forces also work to keep us in the dark about the real costs involved and collude to keep people at all levels—such as farmers, consumers, slaughterhouse workers, union leaders (and, of course, these groups overlap)—from having any place to redress their grievances.

That’s one reason why I do my best to live a vegan lifestyle (in addition to my empathy for, and solidarity with, the animals whose lives are hijacked for use and abuse in animal agriculture and other economic sectors); it’s a relief to me to be able to sit out at least a portion of a system that is dishonest, environmentally damaging, and exploitative of animals and workers alike.

Food, Inc. made all of the above very clear, but as angry as viewers will and should be, its presentation is not that of a dire, overly earnest, relentlessly depressing documentary. It is made visually interesting by the use of graphics and animations (such as charts and moving text), and it tells a number of human stories that bring the material to life. I hope that people will see Food, Inc. but that afterward they won’t be quite as frustrated as I sometimes am by the way the world works.

One thing I’ve realized from watching this film and learning the stories of people affected by our national food policy is that even if you don’t win the war, it’s important to keep fighting whatever battles you can. Small but effective actions—such as speaking out against corporations that are doing wrong (and have used the legislative process to make sure they can sue us if we complain), or boycotting products from companies that hurt animals, harass farmers, and scapegoat undocumented workers—help carve out a space where we don’t have to buy whatever they’re selling no matter how it was produced; a space where we still have choices.

Second staffer (vegetarian):

I became a vegetarian in 1990, partly because I found myself convinced by philosophical essays on animal rights by Peter Singer and others and partly because a few vegetarian friends offered me living proof of how easy it is to avoid eating meat.

The story told by Food, Inc. is appalling and outrageous, and that is putting it mildly. The control of all aspects of food production in the United States by corporate monopolies has resulted in a system that tortures millions of animals a year, harms the environment and human health, abuses workers, manipulates regulatory and policy-making bodies for its own benefit, and creates global food shortages that impoverish millions. These consequences are dire but in fact not very surprising, given that corporations exist not to perform useful social functions but to maximize profits; if under-regulated or allowed to form monopolies they will do so at whatever social cost may be entailed.

But even people who recognize these truisms may be startled to see the extent of the harm that the corporate food monopoly has caused to animals, humans, and the environment throughout the world. For me, the most striking aspect of this story was how government at all levels overtly acts to protect the profits of food corporations at the obvious expense of the public interest. This is due partly to the longstanding practice of staffing regulatory agencies with former executives and lobbyists of food and agriculture corporations, as the film well documents.

Because government now acts chiefly as a promoter of the food industry rather than a servant of the public, it is not surprising that the USDA has lost the power to shut down plants that repeatedly produce contaminated meat, that the INS ignores the recruitment of undocumented Mexican workers by U.S. meatpackers (and even coordinates with meatpacking plants so that its raids on the homes of workers do not disrupt production), that Clarence Thomas, a former lawyer for Monsanto, upheld the legality of patents on genetically modified life-forms, and that several state legislatures have passed obviously unconstitutional “food disparagement” laws that forbid the false criticism of beef.

Third staffer (omnivore):

As an omnivore, I feel it is my duty to investigate the source of the meat products I buy so that I am not abetting cruelty by supporting companies that subject animals to miserable lives and brutality.

Food, Inc. made me realize how out of date my image of animal agriculture is. My parents’ families lived on farms, and I remember their interactions with the animals—my grandfather calling the cows in from the pasture to be milked, my Uncle Harry feeding the pigs, my grandmother gathering eggs from the henhouse. These animals were destined for the pot but they were not mistreated and lived their lives in the open air. The chickens wandered around pecking for food and the cows went out to graze in the pastures every day.

I was revolted by the deformed chickens in the movie that were barely able to walk–a triumph of breeding for quick growth and lots of white meat in a creature that would be unable to forage for itself or run from a predator. Now we can all have inexpensive chicken—a dish that a few generations ago was reserved for Sunday dinner. But at what price?

The reality today of industrial agriculture is that the farmer has very little control over most aspects of his animals’ life and death. Most farmers are in hock up to their eyebrows for the expensive equipment and housing that they must buy. The corporations that they contract with to market the animals they raise have the power to dictate every aspect of the business, including what type of animals are raised, what they eat, the drugs they are given, and how they are housed.

I came away from this movie realizing how much I still had to learn about industrial agriculture and how important the choices I make are in supporting the type of agriculture that respects land, animals, and farm workers. Each purchase is a choice and it should be a conscious, informed choice.

Images: (Top) Bar-code car from the Food, Inc. movie poster; (below, from left) author and professor Michael Pollan, director Robert Kenner, and journalist and author of Fast Food Nation Eric Schlosser at a screening of Magnolia Pictures Food Inc., June 9, 2009, in New York City. Credit: Charles Eshelman

—FilmMagic/Getty Images

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