How "Veggie Laws" Limit Your Right To Talk Freely About Food?

Veggie Laws limit your right to talk freely about the food you eat. As unnerving as this may seem, people like filmmaker Robert Kenner and Oprah Winfrey have had to spend considerable money on legal matters related to the way they talked about food. If they are any example, you might want to be careful how you talk about food as well. Saying the wrong thing about food could get you sued, especially since laws have been adopted to curtail your ability to speak negatively about food. These so-called "veggie laws" protect major corporations' profits and ensure people know their place when talking about food.

David Brancaccio interviewed director Robert Kenner of Food, Inc. to discuss the documentary that explores where our food comes from. One key point made in the interview is how some American food corporations project an image of the old American farm, while behind the scenes the image is quite different. Have something negative to say about these large corporations? Be careful—your right to talk negatively about them has been removed.

In the interview, Kenner talks about how people are able to purchase the kind of food that makes them sick at a considerably cheap price. But, he warns, the cost of purchasing this food is actually quite immense when you consider the hidden costs of subsidies (paid for by your tax dollars) and the health care costs that follow from feeding your family this food.

Food, Inc. also highlights how many consumers feel powerless to do anything about their food situation. The filmmakers of Food, Inc., however, suggest shoppers should not feel this way.

In one segment, consumers are told how their purchasing decisions are like votes of confidence. For example, when you swipe your card for an item, in essence, you are telling the corporations you support a specific product. The more times you purchase this product, the more apt a corporation is to focus on the production of that specific product. When you make a decision not to buy a product, you are sending a very clear signal to the corporation in a way the corporation is sure to understand.

This is part of the reason Kenner says Food, Inc. includes Walmart in the film. Walmart, suggests Kenner, is acting largely in response to what Walmart believes the consumer cares most about. As a result, the mega-corporation is seeking to fill its shelves with healthier food products to grab a larger market share.

Kenner believes the reason that most food corporations were unwilling to be in the film Food, Inc., is that these companies really do not want consumers to think about where their food comes from. The interview with PBS suggests that this is one of the reasons that food companies have created so called "veggie laws" which prohibit people from talking badly about food.

One person who learned about the food companies' power was Oprah Winfrey who, in an episode about Mad Cow Disease, made a remark about how she felt she would never want to eat another hamburger again. The result was that Oprah was caught up in a lawsuit that took her years to fight. Finally, she won, but as Kenner points out, many others have simply settled from not wanting to take on these mega-giants, their powerful legal teams and their deep pockets. Kenner also mentions how he spent more on legal coverage of his Food, Inc.film than ever before.

Watch the interview with PBS's David Brancaccio to learn more about Robert Kenner's discoveries and his documentary film Food, Inc.