Food, Inc.

2008 Documentary

Documentary filmmaker Robert Kenner uses reports by Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser and The Omnivore's Dilemma author Michael Pollan as a springboard to exploring where the food we purchase at the grocery store really comes from, and what it means for the health of future generations. By exposing the comfortable relationships between business and government, Kenner gradually shines light on the dark underbelly of the American food industry. The USDA and FDA are supposed to protect the public, so why is it that both government regulatory agencies have been complicit in allowing corporations to put profit ahead of consumer health, the American farmer, worker safety, and even the environment? As chicken breasts get bigger and tomatoes are genetically engineered not to go bad, 73,000 Americans fall ill from powerful new strains of E. coli every year, obesity levels are skyrocketing, and adult diabetes has reached epidemic proportions. Perhaps if the general public knew how corporations use exploited laws and subsidies to create powerful monopolies, the outrage would be enough to make us think more carefully about the food we put into our bodies. more..

Director: Robert Kenner

Reviews

  • Food, Inc. is hard to shake, because days after you've seen it, you may find yourself eating something -- a cookie, a piece of poultry, cereal out of the box, a perfectly round waxen tomato -- and you'll realize that you have virtually no idea what it actually is.

    Owen Gleiberman - Entertainment Weekly

    11 May 2013

  • A mind-boggling, heart-rending, stomach-churning expose on the food industry.

    - The San Francisco Chronicle

    11 May 2013

  • I figured it wasn't important for me to go into detail about the photography and the editing. I just wanted to scare the bejesus out of you, which is what Food, Inc. did to me.

    Roger Ebert - The Chicago Sun-Times

    11 May 2013

  • Eating can be one dangerous business. Don't take another bite till you see Robert Kenner's Food, Inc., an essential, indelible documentary that is scarier than anything in the last five Saw horror shows.

    Peter Travers - Rolling Stone

    11 May 2013

  • If Wal-Mart, the Lucifer of multinational corporations in many liberal eyes, sees the fiscal sense in stocking an increasingly wide array of organic foodstuffs, consumer habits truly are changing. Not fast enough, though, for documentary filmmaker Robert Kenner.

    Michael Phillips - The Chicago Tribune

    11 May 2013

Awards

  • Best Documentary, Features

    Academy Awards (2010)

     
  • Best Edited Documentary

    American Cinema Editors (2010)

     
  • Best Documentary Feature

    Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards (2010)

     
  • Best Documentary

    Chicago Film Critics Association Awards (2009)

     
  • Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary

    Directors Guild of America (2010)