Every urban street in America is filled with popular fast food chains whose main attraction is the easy availability of products, and people barely give a second thought to the process of transporting food from farm to table – or even more likely to a take-out box.
Host Robert Scheer was joined on this week’s Scheer Intelligence by two people who devoted their latest film, “Food and Country,” to understanding the process behind food in the United States and how big business, as usual, has almost total control over the system. Celebrated former Times and New York Times food critic, former Gourmet magazine editor, cookbook and memoir author, and PBS food guru Ruth Reichl and filmmaker Laura Gabbert discuss some of the film’s biggest takeaways.
Gabbert argues that the problems begin with the strong grip of the industry by large agriculture. Its lobby is one of the largest, and Gabbert explains that it has no incentive to try to remedy the problems resulting from the monopolization of an industry so vital to human survival. “I think that’s really the crux of the whole problem – money in politics,” Gabbert says.
Reichl returns to the events after World War II and how the US government attempted to fight communism by lowering the prices of the food production process, which resulted in the transformation of farms into factories. “Almost everything that is wrong with America can be traced back to these policies. We have destroyed our health, our environment and our communities,” Reichl tells Scheer.
At the heart of their story are the farmers themselves, who, despite being responsible for the most important aspect of human survival, still struggle with society’s biggest problems. Reichl explains their importance in the film, stating, “I just wanted us to be able to hear their stories about what happened to them and what the American system did to them.”
Information about the screening can be found on the film’s website.