Food, Inc.

I like a good conspiracy theory.  One day I needed some background sound while cleaning my office so I streamed “Food Inc.” from Netflix.  It's a documentary that was to tell me how big food companies are taking over the world.  The last news I heard was that the oil companies were in the world domination market so I thought it would be nice to hear someone other than oil producers get it for a while.

Most disturbing to me was a segment about a family of four consisting of a mom, dad, son and daughter.  The kids looked 10 or 12 if I remember right.  They were all overweight.  They seemed to be a normal middle-class family.  They leave the house at 6:00am and return home after 9:00pm.  This doesn’t leave them time for home cooked meals so they pack in 2000 calories each of fast food from drive-through windows at each meal.  They further claimed that they could eat fast food for $3 per person at a burger dive and it was impossible to find a meal for $3 in a grocery store.  To prove the point, each person was given their $3 and sent to a grocery store.  Sure enough, they couldn’t find a meal for that amount of money.  They failed to mention that grocery stores sell meal components, not meals.  It’s like going to Lowes to buy a bedroom.

The film never explained what the people were doing from 6:00am to 9:00pm every day.  They didn’t seem to be poor.  Maybe a responsible parent would make time for decent meals?  That would include planning meals, packing lunches and all the other horrors that come with it.  I’m sure these kids would faint if they had to eat a ham sandwich instead of a Big Mac. 

This conspiracy was DOA for me.  It slid right in the same file as Roswell and Kennedy.  If you really dig fast food, hate cooking and spending any meaningful time with your family, there’s now a convenient avenue of blame for you.  Burger King and Uncle Sam are keeping you down!