EC  Food, Inc.

I just watched the whole movie and I am shocked. I can’t believe that people can be so greedy and cruel. The fast food industry controls not only the meat production, but also the production of food for the animals, the vegetable and fruits’ production. These businesses not only monopolized the food industry in USA, but they created the mentality of looking for convenient and easy way to eat. The package of the food showing the old ranch and a farmer is a lie. The food that is inside the package and we eat has nothing to do with a ranch, a farmer, and a rooster on the roof. The truth about how the American food has been produced has been hidden from the consumers. The farmers are not allowed to tell the truth about the way the food is produced. The purpose of the movie is to show the reality of the industrialized food production in our country.

I saw animal abuse in the industrialized farms for raising chickens, cows, and pigs. A chicken farm with thousands of chickens put in such a small space that they do not have a place to move. This is with a purpose. The chickens grow very fast from the food they eat, that their bones can’t bear the heavy weight. They make a few steps and plop on the ground, full with feces and dead chickens. The food the farmers are feeding the chickens is full with antibiotics. The farmer herself became allergic to all kinds of antibiotics. The workers of the company that picks up the chickens for processing are mostly illegal immigrants, so they would not have the rights to complain. They go at night, while the chickens are asleep, so they would not have to fight them. The workers throw them in the trucks like subjects, not caring if they are dead or alive.

The cattle farm is even more disturbing. Thousands of cattle put in very small space. They can’t even turn. I could not believe my eyes, when I saw a big hole in a cow’s body. A farmer put food and bacteria in the hole for faster digestion. When the reporter asked him if the cow doesn't suffer, his respond was that it doesn't feel a thing. How does he know that? The cows that could not walk were taken by the feet by a lift and bumped in the process machine still alive.

The pigs still alive are put in a compressor machine. Two thousand pigs are killed for a day in the slaughter house. The workers are mostly African-Americans, brought to the slaughter house by a bus. They are specialized to do only simple tasks for minimal wages. They get injured very often and infected, but they do not complain because they can be easily replaced.

The movie starts with the story of a family of immigrants which eats fast food every day. The parents work from 6 am till 9 pm, and they do not have time to cook. They buy for them and their 2 daughters the dollar menu food from Burger King. When they go the grocery store and look at the prices they realize that it is less expensive to buy soda and candy than fruits and vegetables. The father is already diabetic, and there is a fear that the youngest child might be diabetic too. The family is facing the dilemma: should they buy the diabetic medications which cost $200-330 a month, or spend the money for healthy food.

The movie talks about the health risks of eating fast food. It shows statistical data for increasing diabetes in adults, and especially children. For me the most shocking fact was that 1 in every 3^rd American born after 2000 will be diabetic. The numbers change to worst for minorities -1 in every 2^nd American.

The factories for processing the food look like big factories for making cars. Most of the processes are automated and done by machines. The processed meat is bathed in ammonia to kill the E. coli bacteria. This made me sick to my stomach. I would not be able to eat meat for a while.

The food industry is ruled by a couple of big corporations. These corporations have their representatives in the congress. They make the laws in a way to serve them, not the consumers. The movie shows a heartbreaking story of a mother who lost her two years old son, Kevin, because of E. coli infection. The child went from healthy to dead in 12 days. There is video of Kevin playing on the beach, while the mother was telling how he got bloody diarrhea after eating a hamburger. Then he went into kidney failure and was put on dialysis. Kevin was begging for water before he died and they were not allowed to give him. Kevin’s mom and grandmother are republicans. They are sewing the big corporation that sold the diseased meat for 7 years with no result. They are trying to pass a law, called: “Kevin’s law”, which will require is a case of contamination, the selling company to stop distributing the contaminated meat in the market. They do not have approval from the government to pass that law yet.

The environment is polluted with pesticides and herbicides. There is a big corporation company for producing seeds for soy beans. It is the same company that produced Round up. It manufactured genetically modified seeds (GMOs) and now 90 % of the produced soy been in USA is from that brand of seeds. I could not believe the story about the punishment of the farmers who dared to gather the seeds. They were prosecuted like criminals. I did not know that there are laws in some states that you could be prosecuted for saying in public something against the food certain corporation produces. This is such an injustice!

I did not know that corn can be transformed into so many products, even dippers. The movie shows how the low price of our corn ruined the farmers in Mexico. The Mexican farmers came to USA to work in the slaughter houses of these same companies that ruined them. After fifteen years of working very hard and dangerous jobs for minimal wages, the monopoly company that employed them, called the immigration services and the immigrant workers were send to jail or extradited. There were no legal consequences for the employer of the Mexican illegal workers. As an immigrant this injustice brought me to tears. I think that most of the immigrants come to our country to find a better life for their families, not to be abused.

    

The movie introduces to the viewers local farmers, who refuse to work in industrialized corporations. Some of them agreed to work with big corporations like Wal-Mart, some refused. They are doing everything in their power to survive financially. The movie is asking the consumers to think when they purchase food where they want to send their money-to local farmers or the big corporations. 

The message of the movie is to help our environment, our local farmers, our children and our future by taking actions. We, as consumers, have the power to choose what kind of food we want to eat, to ask our government for information, for laws that will protect our rights, not the rights of the big food industrial corporations.