Today I saw the film 'Food Inc', which seeks to "lift the veil" on the American food industry.
It's a good film for anyone who knows little about the US food industry, although I must admit I was pretty much aware of most of the points made. Two things did surprise me: one, that 1 on 3 Americans born after 2000 will develop Type 2 diabetes, and two, the extent to which major food companies use litigation to silence criticism or even scrutiny of their practices. I'm not sure why that should have come as such a surprise to me, but it did.
I don't think the Australian food industry is quite so bad but it's certainly something we need to be vigilant and informed about.
I think this film makes a good companion piece to Michael Moore's 'Sicko' about the managed care health "system" in the US and the more lighthearted but still eye-opening 'Supersize Me' about the fast food industry. All three films lift the veil on the way important aspects of life in this supposedly democratic nation have come to be controlled by powerful corporate interests to the detriment of the people, especially the millions of poor and lower middle classes. This is not the sort of political and economic system that we Australians should be seeking to aspire to.
