Food, Inc. Reaction: Brian vents his rage

     I'd seen Food, Inc. once before.  I watched it for a class last spring that dealt with suburbanization and how that has negatively affected many aspects of our country since then.  I thought that I appreciated the movie, but after watching it last Thursday, it had a much more profound effect on my life.  After reading about food for the past 9 weeks, Food Inc. was a graphic and riveting portrait of today's American food system.  From many of the topics the movie covered, the role of agricultural companies in the system has really been troubling me.
     The first of these is the role that large agricultural firms have over our food and farms, with the meat market being a great example.  The concentration of the top four firms in the beef, chicken, and pork industries was all over 80%, which was very troubling to me.  With a select number of firms holding such a large share of the market, I see nothing but trouble.  The reduction of competition in our marketplace has resulted in an America where we have very few choices as consumers.  For example, we may see many different brands for beef when at the supermarket, but there are only a few different producers that control these brands.  And since such a select number of agro-giants control the meat market, they are able to cut corners in the way the raise and process their product (note: 'product' instead of 'animal').  The way they cut corners was clearly evident in the film, like in the way that chickens live in the dark, grow to become full adults about 40 days, and can't even walk because they're so fat.  The even scarier part: we wouldn't even know about this if one chicken farmer out of dozens hadn't stepped out to voice her opinion.  When big corporations are controlling your food rather than a local farmer, the transparency of the process is lost and the integrity of the process is lost.
     Aside from the meat market, the dominance that one company has exerted in our country has absolutely disgusted me.  This company is Monsanto.  The way in which they've used their soybean seed patent, gangs of private investigators, and money in order to force farmers to bow down to them has made me absolutely incredulous.  To see that people like Moe Parr, who make an honest living through an incredibly simple and sensible practice like seed cleaning have been crushed by a chemical company makes me wonder who our government is representing.  Oh that's right, they're siding the agricultural interests that ensure that they're elected and stay there.  Many in the government who work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the FDA have been past executives for agricultural giants; making perfect sense as to why our food system seems to have a blind eye toward the consumer. 
     I'm now just to the point where writing this has made me pissed off beyond belief.  I like to think of myself as a pretty positive person, but at this moment I have nothing positive to say.