Any urban street in America is guaranteed to be lined with popular fast food chains, the readily available nature of their products being the main attraction, with people barely giving a thought to the process behind getting the food from the farm to the table — or more likely, the take-out box.
Joining host Robert Scheer on this week’s Scheer Intelligence are two people who dedicated their recent film, “Food and Country,” to understanding this process behind food in the United States and how big business, as usual, has almost complete control of the system. Renowned former food critic for the La Times and New York Times, former editor of Gourmet magazine, author of cookbooks and memoirs and PBS food guru, Ruth Reichl and film director Laura Gabbert discuss some of the key takeaways from the film.
Gabbert asserts that big agriculture’s firm grasp on the industry is where the problems begin. Its lobby is amongst the biggest and Gabbert explains that there is no incentive to try and remedy the problems that come from this monopolization of an industry so essential to human survival. “I think that is really the crux of the whole problem, is money in politics,” Gabbert says.
Reichl takes it back to what happened after World War II and how the U.S. government made an attempt to fight communism by cheapening the food making process, which turned farms into factories. “Almost everything that's wrong with America comes from that policy. We've destroyed our health, our environment, our communities,” Reichl tells Scheer.
The heart of their story lies with the farmers themselves, and how, despite being in charge of the most important aspect of human survival, they still tend to struggle the most in society. Reichl explains their significance in the film, stating, “I just wanted for us to be able to listen to their stories that they tell themselves about what has happened to them and what the American system has done to them.”
Check out the film’s website here for screening information.