In a hangar-like building, thousands of living chicken are being pushed into a metal tunnel. They come out unconscious. Dozens of hands then grab the unconscious bodies and hang them by the feet onto a series of metal hooks. Then they pass another metal tunnel, they came out completely plucked. The line of the bodies then move in a steady speed towards a number of different cutting posts, first the head is sliced away, then the wings, the thighs and so forth. This gruesome scene is not part of my nightmare. It is part of an eye opening documentary movie. “We feed the world” is a documentary movie that reveals the shocking truth of the world food production. It is unjust and unsustainable. Every self proclaimed gourmet should watch this documentary. So they know not only about the pleasure of eating, but more importantly the real (and sometime dreadful) process of food production. This is a movie that YOU really should watch.
Directed by an Austrian director, Erwin Wagenhofer, the movie takes us to different countries: Austria, France, Spain, Brazil and Rumania, in order to show the absurdity of our food production. It shows the fact about hybrid crops that produces the seeds that could not be sown for the next production; therefore it is completely an unsustainable production. It also shows how an area as big as Belgium and Holland (all together) was opened in the Brazilian rain forest to plant soy for feeding the European life stocks, while a significant percentage of the country population is starving. It also shows that the wasted left-over production of bread in Vienna, is actually enough to feed the whole population of the city of Graz. You would be continuously shocked by all the cleverly presented facts and figures along the movie.
By the end of the movie, I decided that I would not buy hybrid fruits and vegetable anymore, opt for free range chicken and non industrially-caught fishes. But, as consumers, how we could know precisely what we are buying? The content of our grocery bag (and our diet) is largely determined by the big buyer of the big supermarket. It is important for them to sell something that has longer shelf life and prettier appearance. In short, they need to create more profit. Though many of the European supermarket offer the bio lines, many are doubting the validity of those bio labels. The Bio production is a very lucrative business nowadays, who could guarantee the control over it?
How we could now that the fish on our plate was caught by small fisherman boat instead of the industrial fishing company? We, even sometime don’t know where the food actually came from as the label does not always say it. The fact is, it is almost impossible for us to know. How could we reclaim our right of information?
The Slow food movement that was initiated in Italy by Carlo Petrini, has been advocating the importance of a good, clean and fair food production. Good means it should taste good. Clean means that its production should not pollute the environment. Fair means that the actors who are involved in the production should be rewarded fairly. Thousands of people around the world had joined the movement. But then again, if we do not have the right information about the food that we eat, how could we guarantee that we eat well, clean and fairly?
The key is not only the proper food education for the people but also a supporting government. The fact is, that we need a strong governmental policy to control it, policy that enforces supermarket to sell fair food only, policy that enforces the fair food production, and policy to enforce food producers (also vendors) to give proper and truthful information about their products to the consumers.