Reference no: EM132168266

Sociological Film Analysis Food, Inc.

Adapted from Ecoliteracy's Discussion Guide

Instructions: Take notes while watching the 2008 documentary, Food, Inc. (Watch the Trailer now, a link to the whole film will be provided later.) After watching the film, select Theme A or Theme B to conduct a sociological analysis on food production and consumption. The questions below should provide fodder for your analysis. In other words, build your essay around addressing the broader issues presented in the questions, do not attempt to answer the questions verbatim.

Theme A: Should access to healthy food be a right for everyone?

• Do you think healthy eating should be a right, a responsibility, or a privilege?

• Would it be okay with you that healthy food is only available to people who can afford it?

o If so, what might be the consequences of that-both to individuals and society? (For example, by eating less healthy food, low-income individuals have more health issues, are sick more often, require more health care, miss more days of work, and have lower job performance.)

o If not, how might we make healthy food available to everyone?

• The film gives the impression that food is either cheap or healthy. Do you think it is true that food is either one or the other, or is this a false dichotomy?

• In the film, the mother, Maria Andrea Gonzalez, says, "We're really tight from either paying for his [Alfredo Orozco's] medicine to be healthy or buying vegetables to be healthy." Which should she choose if she cannot afford both?

• How have our government policies affected the types and costs of available foods?

• How does the cheap price of processed food affect low-income families? Is this fair?

• How do you think the way your grandparents used to eat differs from how you eat today?"

Theme B: When deciding what to eat, how much should we consider the workers who pick, process, and transport it?

• In the film, union organizer Eduardo Peña says, "We want to pay the cheapest price for our food. We don't understand that it comes at a price." Do you agree or disagree with him?

What evidence do you see in the film that led you to agree or disagree? What evidence do you see in your life that informs your position as well?

• Whether or not you think illegal immigration (or the influx of undocumented workers) is a problem, how is illegal immigration connected to the food we eat?

• If you think it is okay for companies to recruit foreign workers this way, what might be the repercussions of that?

• When a person chooses to eat meat, who else does that decision affect?

• You've seen in the film how the production of some of the meat we eat affects the workers involved in the production. It portrays these people as having no choice because farmers in other countries can no longer farm as a result of our food system. Assuming it is true that there aren't local people to do this work, do you think companies have the right to recruit foreign workers to come into the country, as you saw in the film? What do you think of that?

• What alternative might the companies have if they can't find local people to do the work?

• Author Michael Pollan uses the phrase "Vote with Your Fork" to mean that consumers have the ability to influence companies by what they choose to eat.