Inspired by writer ERIC SCHLOSSER’s Fast Food Nation, new documentary Food, Inc lifts the veil on the food industry. Film journalist Jan Gilbert caught up with Schlosser during his recent trip to London where he chatted about veggie libel laws, the huge cost of legal bills, and Polish hog factories.
MMM: How much of an issue was finding funding to make Food, Inc
Schlosser: Funding was a difficulty because we really needed to ensure that the movie was financed in a way that it would be truly independent. Very early on there was interest from various American TV networks because Fast Food Nation was so successful, but we didn’t want to accept any funding that had strings attached or would involve any kind of exterior pressure to change the contents of the film. That’s one of the reasons it took so long to secure the funding.
We were very fortunate ultimately to get it fully funded by two production companies – Participant Productions, which is devoted to doing socially responsible films and put up the money for An Inconvenient Truth; and River Road, which is also trying to do socially responsible things. They put up all the money and then we were completely free to make the film we wanted to make.
Author & filmmaker, Eric Schlosser
MMM: The film deals primarily with the American food industry, but how do you think things compare in Europe, for example, the UK?
Schlosser: I’d love to say this is a film about America and that it’s interesting because of what it tells you about America. But sadly it’s a film about what’s happening in the rest of the world and America is just the most extreme example of it and is furthest down this road, not just of industrial agriculture, wiping out small independent producers, but also of a certain kind of unchecked corporate power, which is ultimately at the heart of the film. The film is about food, but it’s also about what happens when we have concentrated economic power and how corrupting it can be.
I think in Great Britain things aren’t quite as bad as they are in the States yet. All these same trends are unfolding here and I think people need to look very closely at some of the changes in the food system in Great Britain where you have a different kind of concentrated power, which is the power of the supermarket chains, which is having a terrible effect on farmers and producers.
And there’s enormous pressure to introduce GMOs in Great Britain with the argument that if you don’t the world is going to starve, which I find quite cynical, since in the US the principal benefit of the GMOs has been the sale of more pesticides because pesticide companies also make the GMOs.
You don’t have the equivalent in the Britain of the enormous hog factories shown in Food, Inc, but they’ve built the equivalent in Poland and Romania so this sort of meat is going to be shipped throughout the EU. So these are global problems and unfortunately the US is at the cutting edge of them but you can see a preview of the coming attractions in Great Britain if you don’t choose a different path.
MMM: The film mentions what it calls veggie libel laws…
Schlosser: Ironically these veggie libel laws have been deliberately designed by the agri-business industry and pushed by their lobbyists to make American libel law more like Great Britain’s libel law, and some of them are actually modelled on Great Britain’s libel law.
Oprah Winfrey is one of the wealthiest and most popular women in the United States, and I think they [the meat-packing companies] figured that by going after her they could send a message to everyone else, sort of like if you’re going to be in a bar fight, knock out the biggest guy at the bar then everyone else gets the message. I think that by going after Oprah they were sending a message to everyone else.
Is big business getting in the way of our food?
Now in Great Britain, the libel laws are significantly worse than even the American states which have veggie libel laws. Companies from all over the world are coming to Britain to sue their critics – it’s called libel tourism – because the laws here are so favourable, not only to big companies but also to the powerful interests, whether they’re political or economic interests. So, there’s all this discussion of freedom of speech but particularly these big companies feel very threatened by it, and they want to control access to information as much as they can. To me it’s a very dangerous trend in a democracy, and that applies enormously in Great Britain as well as in the US. It’s an absolute disgrace.
MMM: How has it affected your work?
Schlosser: I do my very best to ensure that what we say is true, and in my writing as well. I like to be accurate for its own sake, but because over the years my work has criticised such powerful companies, I have to be extra-extra-vigilant to get the facts right. I have my own libel attorney who reads all my work.
In the case of this film we had a very prominent libel attorney involved from the very first day of production, and in every aspect of the editing and assembly of this film we had an attorney involved. The director, Robby Kenner, has said that his legal bills for this documentary were greater than for all his other films combined, and he’s been making documentaries for 20 to 25 years.
Again, it’s outrageous to me that you have to live in fear of losing your homes and losing everything you have simply for criticising companies that make hamburgers. As a writer, when I write a book, I get terrible reviews. I had a play in London a few years ago and the critics just tore me to bits, but I didn’t hire a private investigator or try to look into their lives or sue them for libel. Part of being a member of the public debate is to be part of give-and-take and criticism, and these companies are so big and rich and yet, I think, are ultimately so wimpy in being sensitive to criticism.
The Head of Monsanto, one of the companies which is really criticised in the film, has recently admitted that it would have been better for him to participate in the film, and I think that’s true. I’m not a fan of Walmart, but they appeared in the film and there are some people who see the film and agree with Walmart’s point of view, and there are some people who see the film and are critical of Walmart.
But what Robby Kenner tried to do, and what I try to do in my own work, is to make an argument that’s complex, that’s interesting, that’s not a diatribe, it’s not a simplistic black-and-white depiction of events; and I think these meat-packing companies should have agreed to be interviewed and participated in the film.
MMM: Food, Inc’s been nominated in the Best Documentary category at the Oscars… how important is that for the film?
Schlosser: It’s a huge honour, not because the Oscars are the ultimate arbiter of what’s good and what’s bad, but there’s so many good documentaries released every year. So to be singled out among them feels good, and I think that it raises the profile of the film and that’s all good.
Schlosser's favourite food is burger and fries, though he's careful where it comes from
MMM: Do you see change coming anytime soon for this industry? Do you feel optimistic?
Schlosser: Hugely optimistic. I know it may seem like this film is depressing in its subject matter, but ultimately it’s meant to be empowering. I’ve been immersed in this subject for more than a decade and I’m not depressed. I’ve seen huge changes for the better since I first started reporting about these issues – the sustainability movement and the organic movement in the States have become a genuinely strong social movement, and food has been one way to offer a critique of mainstream American society that a lot of young people on college campuses are embracing.
The president of the US, I think, understands these issues and is appointing officials who are very good on these issues, but the Republicans in Congress are going to fight tooth-and-nail food safety reform to prevent the labelling of GMOs, but I’m very optimistic in the States.
In Great Britain I’m a little bit disturbed about the backlash against organics. In the US, a decade ago when Fast Food Nation came out, there was a real effort to label me an elitist and label the kind of movement I wanted to have in the US for sustainability as elitist, but I think that argument never took hold in the US. But I detect in the British media this dismissal of organics as being for celebrities and the well-to-do, and for me it’s almost an Orwellian argument. The well-to-do are always going to eat well; they’re always going to get the best foods.
This is about a movement to bring healthy, nutritious food to everybody, particularly the poor and ordinary working people who are suffering the worst consequences of the system. As you saw in the film, the worst obesity is being suffered by the poor and these low-paying jobs are penalising the poor. This whole centralised corporate system is hurting ordinary working people and the poor.
So I’m optimistic here in Great Britain here as well, but I think there needs to be a real concerted effort to fight the misinformation, the disinformation that’s being spread.
MMM: In the film you say that your favourite meal has always been hamburger and fries, but has what you know about the food industry affected how you eat?
Schlosser: My basis diet really has not changed all that much. I have a pretty healthy diet but I also do like chips and hamburgers, but I’m much more conscious of where I buy them, and who’s produced them. And I try to use the money I spend on food to support companies who are doing things the right way, and not give my money to companies and people who are abusing animals, abusing their workers, and selling a product that I think is somehow destructive to the world around me. I’m a much more conscious consumer. I try to buy locally, try to buy organically, and avoid the big fast food chains.
MMM: If the saying ‘you are what you eat’ is true, how would you describe the world today?
Schlosser: I would say dangerously synthetic and in need of a return to basics.
**To find out when Food, Inc is screening near you, check out the film’s website.
