.jeri.

I walked into the theater to see Food, Inc. carrying a soda and some popcorn, fully knowing that I'd probably feel guilty about that food choice by the movie's end. I was right, somewhat, and because of that, I'd recommend that if you don't want to come face to face with what's going into your mouths at meal time, then it may be better to live in ignorance than to see this movie and then feel guilty about what you're eating. In this documentary, the main goals seem to be to educate the audience about where food comes from and what efforts are being made to improve the food industry. Like An Inconvenient Truth, it even ends with suggestions of what actions the audience members may want to take now that they know more about food.

This is a topic that could probably be covered with a weekly tv series. There are so many avenues to explore. It begins with corn: what corn is being used for in our food, how more animals are eating corn (especially ones that aren't naturally supposed to be corn-eaters), how the upswing in the corn industry in America is affecting other countries, and how the altering of corn's genetic makeup affects small farmers and seed cleaners. It moves on to McDonald's and the unintended consequences of an an assembly line of food production that grew to enormous sizes that eventually altered the entire food industry. It shows us the chicken farming industry, cows and slaughterhouse industries, a mother battling for Kevin's law, connections between the food industry and our government, and more and more and more. The list goes on and on. In fact, there just isn't enough time for this movie to properly cover all of the topics it wants to explore.

In some cases, the movie seems to assume that its audience is already well-educated in knowledge about the food industry. Some of the leaps they make leave the audience trying to catch up. But if they make these leaps, then is the movie basically made to preach to the choir? I'm not sure. Perhaps it's just careless narration in a couple of areas. At any rate, I was usually able to catch the gist of what was going on, and I think that even with those gaps in the movie, there was still plenty to learn and to consider.

The pacing suffers a little bit from time to time, which I think is a result of how much it's trying to cover. Once it was over, though, I was glad for the broadness, although I wonder if a couple changes in editing or sequence would have improved it a little bit.

None of that really matters, though, because the movie got its messages through to me. I walked out and drove to a new store that offers more health and organic foods. I went grocery shopping a few days later and sought out specific foods. I went to the farmer's market a few days later to check out the local farmer's produce. I went to the ranch market in La Habra and decided not to buy from them because everything seems to be imported from other countries. So, I'd say that means Food, Inc. did what it was supposed to do. I know it's affected other people I know in the same way, and for that, I'd say that the curious and concerned, it's definitely worth a viewing (although one in the theater isn't exactly a necessity).