Troubled by what he had been reading about his dinner, documentary filmmaker Robert Kenner embarked on a 6-year, cross-country journey to expose the nation's agribusiness industry. "Food, Inc." (see the trailer above) features interviews with authors Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan and quotes from some of the heads of Big Farming from Walmart to Tyson. Kenner examines recent salmonella scares, chats with organic farmers and calls his film -- which hits the big screen next month -- "entertaining and hard-hitting." We caught up by phone with Kenner in L.A. to chat mutant chicken nuggets, Oprah's legal issues and his quest to leave you "delightfully disturbed." What made you want to make this film? We spend less of our paycheck on food now than at any time in our history, which is great, but it also comes at a great cost to us ... I made a film that I hope will leave you delightfully disturbed.
What do you mean by "a great cost to us"? One out of every three babies born after 2000 will develop early onset diabetes. A lot of that is attributed to corn and corn byproducts. We can't sustain that. There are environmental costs and ultimately it is a cost to the consumer. You might be paying less money, but you are paying additional [health] costs that are becoming very, very expensive.
Men in suits, their strawberries and Oprah after the jump.
As a documentary lover, I am so excited about two food documentaries coming out this fall. Both Flow and Food, Inc. deal with the way two basic necessities, water and food, are handled by big industry.
Food, Inc. sets out to expose the truth about the food industry. Most of it will probably be familiar to anyone who's read anything by Michael Pollan, who is featured in the film. The film delves into who makes food, how it's made, and what the consequences are to various groups of people. Eric Schlosser (author of Fast Food Nation), Gary Hirschberg (the head of Stonyfield Farms), and Joe Salatin (the head of Polyface Farms) are also featured.
Flow looks into similar issues with water. I heard about this the other day on Bob Edwards' Weekend on NPR, and saw that it is opening in a few weeks at my local art cinema. It is about issues surrounding water and whether it should be a public asset or privately controlled. Flow also delves into what is in our water, what is in the bottled water, and what local communities are doing to take back their water supply.
Before there was Supersize Me, before Eric Schlosser penned Fast Food Nation, Matt Malmgren was busy acquiring Big Macs for his Burger Museum. According to a video that has spread like wildfire throughout the blogosphere, Malmgren purchased two McDonald's hamburgers on Jan. 1, 1989. He ate one and placed the other in his jacket pocket and forgot about it. A year later the video tells us in large red text "It looked and smelled EXACTLY the same!"
Since nobody believed him, gasp, he proceeded to amass more burgers and now has the world's largest, and probably the only, collection of Immortal Big Macs, double cheeseburgers and hamburgers. As an ominous soundtrack plays, the video lists the "secret ingredients" that make such immortality possible. Among them are 1,1,1-trichloroethane, chloroform, ethyl benzene, styrene and toluene. In the interest of full disclosure, it also notes that the ingredients were taken from the FDA's report on pesticide residues in fast food. The Web site that hosts the video even has directions on how to make your own Immortal Hamburger. It bears pointing out the Web site, Best Day Ever, is a promotional vehicle for a raw foods guru. [via Neatorama]
We've been waiting for some time now for Fast Food Nation, the theatrical version of Eric Schlosser's popular book from about 5 years ago, to hit theaters. Fortunately, we don't have to wait much longer as the release date is November 17th.
The Washington Post has an interview with Schlosser and director Richard Linklate, who co-wrote the loosely adapted and fictionalized screenplay with Schlosser. Instead of only taking questions from an interviewer, however, they opened the floor to some curious readers from around the country so that they could ask their own questions about what went into making the film and what issues Schlosser has had to deal with since writing the original book. For example, one wants to know how many lawyers they needed to "cover-their-ass," while another wants to know if Schlosser has seen any big changes since the first publication of the book.
The interview doesn't offer as much food for thought as the book, but it's still enough to whet the appetitie for the movie's premier.
Unless you've been off the grid for the past few years, you know that fast food has been taken to task for it's being, gasp, horrible for one's health. Those laying the blame have included most notably writer Eric Schlosser in his scathing book that indicts Mickey D's et. al. and filmmaker Morgan Spurlock.
Now a lawsuit in California against Burger King Holdings and CKE Restaurants, which operates more than 1,000 Carl's Junior Restaurants, may spell trouble for operators that flame-broil their burgers.
The suit alleges that the companies violated the state's Proposition 65 by not alerting their customers that charbroiled hamburgers could contain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which have been implicated as potential carcinogens. The plaintiff says that if the court rules in its favor it may sue other restaurants. If the case succeeds, the restaurants will either post warnings or install cooking devices designed to remove PAHs from food.
PAHs are created by incompletely burning organic substances. Long-term exposure to PAHs has been linked to cancer in humans. Not to make light of cancer but I'm not terribly worried about this carcinogen. Here's why: PAHs are created whenever any meat is grilled. How could something as good as a strip steak possibly be bad for you?
The Guardian recently featured several excerpts
from Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser's new book Chew On This, a kid-oriented exploration of the
fast food industry. Schlosser uses plain English and, of course, plenty of alarming statistics to show young readers the
basics of fast food marketing and food processing. The Guardian samples focus on television marketing (American kids
watch an average of 25 hours of TV each week, Schlosser says) and how McDonald's has changed the soft drink industry.
According to Schlosser, 20 percent of one- and two-year-olds in America drink soft drinks daily and the average
American adult drinks 500 cans of soda each year.
According to the Guardian's News Blog, next Saturday's
edition of the paper will come with a DVD copy of Morgan Spurlock's fast-food-bashing documentary Super Size
Me. The DVD giveaway was also mentioned in a recent Guardian article about Fast Food Nation
author Eric Schlosser and the alleged "crisis management" responses from McDonald's concerning Schlosser's
upcoming children's book Chew On
This and a film adaptation of Fast Food Nation. The Guardian blog post asks readers to send in their
recommendations healthy fast food options in Britain.
Fast Food Nation, the movie based on Eric
Schlosser's book about America's food industry in relation to fast food, is currently in production. I thoroughly enjoyed Schlosser's book, and was captured by the level of detailed
research he put into the text. The movie has just been picked up by Fox Searchlight, and it will not
be a documentary. Rather, it will be a character study based on facts. I think this will be an interesting movie,
and a little more riveting than Super Size Me, which I thought had some biases in its execution. Hopefully
they don't mangle a lot of the factual information presented in the book.
As a documentary lover, I am so excited about two food documentaries coming out this fall. Both Flow and Food, Inc. deal with the way two basic necessities, water and food, are handled by big industry.
Before there was Supersize Me, before Eric Schlosser penned Fast Food Nation, Matt Malmgren was busy acquiring Big Macs for his 
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Unless you've been off the grid for the past few years, you know that fast food has been taken to task for it's being, gasp, horrible for one's health. Those laying the blame have included most notably writer 
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According to the Guardian's 
Fast Food Nation, the movie based on Eric
Schlosser's book about America's food industry in relation to fast food, 
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