What's Wrong With Your Food?

What ingredients really go into the food that you eat? They're all listed on the packaging, but what are ascorbic acid and xanthan gum anyway? Food, Inc. is a new documentary that explores where the typical American meal comes from, and according to filmmaker Robert Kenner, it isn't pretty. Food, Inc. heavily criticizes the food industry and may make you worry more about your diet, but one source says the situation isn't as bad as it seems.

In a PBS interview with Robert Kenner, David Brancaccio covers several points from Kenner's documentary, including issues like the cost of fresh food versus fast food, the legality of criticizing food producers, and the problems with corn. The film's message is "go local, go organic" for your health.

But is the food industry really that bad? Kenner thinks so. In Food, Inc. he brings up the problem of cost, showing how the food industry has made it cheap to eat fast food and other meals that range from unhealthy to downright dangerous. Essentially, he says, they have hidden the true costs of food in healthcare and tax subsidies, making it only apparently cheap.

One of the sources of our problems, Kenner says, is corn. Many of the products we put into our bodies include corn derivatives such as high fructose corn syrup, and many of these, according to Kenner, are unhealthy, causing problems like diabetes and obesity.

Food, Inc.'s goal is to reform the food industry by calling attention to its abuses.

Whether corn is the source of our health problems is debatable. Certainly it is not the sole source, and the corn industry argues that products like milled corn may even be good for you. They would deny that there is a need for reform.

Agricultural consultant Steve Savage takes a more balanced view. In an interview with EcoFactory, he admitted the food industry has problems, but said that the solution lies more in personal responsibility than in reforming the industry.

If the food industry's problem is that it gives people what they want in huge quantities, then Steve Savage has a solution: Control what you want, and control what you eat. According to him, eating a balanced diet with less meat and plenty of fresh produce will solve most health problems that Food, Inc. blames on the food industry.

And while Food, Inc. claims that eating well has been made too expensive by the food industry, Savage told EcoFactory that eating well and eating cheap are in fact possible. If you shop smart, it is doable.

As for "go local, go organic," Steve Savage had two things to say: Buying local is impossible, and going organic isn't healthier. This goes against media trends, he said, and it would be difficult to find many sources to confirm his statements, but they seem to make sense. Buying local produce is impossible large-scale because places like Los Angeles have neither the land nor the rainfall to grow enough crops to support their populaces. Meanwhile, areas like Iowa have everything necessary to easily grow food for the rest of the country.

"Factory farms," he noted, are the norm because few people have the resources, know-how, or will to grow food on a large scale. Though he couldn't comment on animal farms, he noted that grain farms and the like are typically run by one or two people using leased land, and are run the way they are because it makes sense in terms economics and infrastructure. Farming, he said, is by no means romantic, and a return to the "farmer John" of supermarket packaging is impossible.

Organic food, meanwhile, is not necessarily healthier than food produced by traditional farming. Surprisingly, organic farming still uses pesticides—they're just natural pesticides—that are sometimes more toxic than standard pesticides. Many organic foods found at the grocery store may also have a larger carbon footprint because they are more labor-intensive and require methane-producing composted manure as fertilizer.

In short, there is no easy fix for the problems Robert Kenner sees in the food industry. You'll have to decide whether the food industry's answers are valid, and whether Steve Savage's middle ground is acceptable, but Savage's solution, at least, is a lesson everyone can benefit from: Eat right and stay healthy. In short, if you don't want high fructose corn syrup in your body, don't drink soda.