'Food, Inc.' documentary delves into fast food

A good reviewer does his level best to approach any new film with an open mind and an impartial perspective. But when you love cheap, tasty, bad-for-you food as much as I do, sitting down for a documentary called "Food, Inc." is a dubious task.

I managed to avoid the zeitgeist that was Morgan Spurlock's "Super Size Me" several years back for fear that it would kill my appetite for Burger King and Long John Silvers.

And I never picked up Eric Schlosser's book "Fast Food Nation" nor saw the subsequent dramatized film version, turning a blind eye to the investigative look into food production.

So it was with trepidation that I prepared myself for "Food, Inc.,"an unabashed agenda-pushing piece of propaganda from director Robert Kenner that may be the most important film of this decade.

"Food, Inc." is absolutely everything you fear it will be: a preachy, political diatribe on the deeply flawed system of food production that has developed in the last 50 years. It features conversations with eco-conscious liberals who lambast the policies of the Bush administration that have contributed to what amounts to a food crisis.

However, those individuals don't fit the stereotype of long-haired hippies taking breaks between their bong hits to rail against "the man" (In fact, in the case of chrome-domed authors Schlosser and Michael Pollan, two of the primary narrators of the film, long hair is clearly not an issue).

And like documentarian forebears like Michael Moore, "Food, Inc." is artfully made, with careful storytelling structure and clever graphic devices to support its thesis. But unlike Moore, this doc manages to mostly avoid heavy-handedness and blatant political leanings. In fact, the same folks who condemn Bush's policies also lay much of the blame on the Clinton administration's appointees to agencies like the FDA and the USDA, whose affiliations with food production companies call into question their fitness to run a food regulation body.

As with any good film, documentary or not, Kenner finds some compelling and even colorful "characters" to feature. There's the incredibly articulate farmer Joel Salatin, a "Where's Waldo?" look-a-like who had the revolutionary idea of feeding his livestock natural grass instead of the pervasive corn feed most widely used. Or the grieving mother Barbara Kowalcyk, a lifelong conservative who has become a food safety advocate after losing her 2-year-old son to E. coli. Or countless other farmers, ranchers and workers who fruitlessly stand up to massive conglomerates like Monsanto and Smithfield intent on homogenizing our food in order to sell it cheaper and less naturally.

Of course, with any "message" film, one has to read between the lines. None of the "big, bad" companies were willing to speak to the filmmakers on camera, but a more investigative look would have at least allowed for that point of view to be contrasted with their own. Plus, it seems a bit disingenuous to have Schlosser, who is painted as one of the "heroes" of the film, not only serve as an on camera subject, but as a narrator and, if you look at the credits, a co-producer.

Finally, the only thing more overwhelming than the depressing facts about how our food is made in America, is the long list of things every single person seeing the film needs to do in order to initiate change. Idealism is wonderful, and I for one hope a film like this has as big or bigger an impact as, say, "An Inconvenient Truth," but my fast food tastes and grad student budget make even small changes seem daunting.

Nevertheless, just like healthy, naturally grown vegetables, a film like "Food, Inc." may not be our favorite thing to swallow, but we should, because it's good for us.

ryankathman@dailynebraskan.com