Munchers saw selections of the documentary "Food, Inc." and learned about the impact fast food chains such as McDonalds have on the food industry and on farming. We learned about the huge market for hamburger McDonalds creates due to their immense size and their desire to sell the same styled hamburger everywhere in the USA and the world. This has lead to the development of CAFOs (Centralized Animal Feeding Operations) that grow cattle as fast as they can and as fat as they can despite risks to the animals' health, and ours.
We also discussed the difficulty of eating a whole food, plant based diet when vegetables are more expensive than federally subsidized corn and the industries (meat and processing) that thrive off that subsidized product: when a burger at McDonalds or junk food in a grocery store costs less than a bunch of broccoli. That is when we remembered the CSA farm we visited yesterday (Van Thun Farms is a Consumer Supported Agriculture farm). We discussed how the Hispanic family of four in the film could join a CSA farm, if they had one near them, and then get cheap, table-to-farm produce to help them combat the father's diabetes and eat well.
The film gave a good overview of the problems that arise when concepts from industries, such as the auto industry, are applied to growing food.
Here is a link to a web site about "Food, Inc." (We watched it on Netflix)
Food, Inc. Link
Here is the PBS POV site that originated the documentary.
POV link
Here is a link with some criticism of the film.
Food, Inc. criticism
