Smells Like Money

One of the best lines in “Food Inc.” was spoken by the overweight hillbilly chicken farmer. He boasted that he owned about 300,000 chickens. The rest of the farmers featured in the documentary playing at the High Falls Film Fest deserve our sympathy as they slug it out with the monstrous agriconglomerates. Monsanto genetically altered and patented the Round-up Ready soy bean and they now own the plant. If you try to grow your own strain and your plants get cross pollinated by your neighbors’ Monsanto crop, they will see you in court.

The movie was heavy handed and preachy when it didn’t need to be. I was one of the only ones laughing as we watched an absurd parade of corn-fed chickens on assembly lines grow so fat they couldn’t take two steps without falling over and cattle up to their knees in their own shit on their way to a slaughterhouse that kills 400 cows an hour. There were flyover shots of endless corn fields that would make the earth artists envious. Corn is in everything now and they’re teaching farm raised fish to eat it for Christ’s sake. Near the end of the movie, after growing accustomed to bloated produce, hogs, chickens and cattle, we see diabetes ridden fat people that drive this market.

We rode home from the movie in Rick and Monica’s car and Rick suggested sausage shish kabobs for dinner. “A man’s gotta eat.”

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