Review by John Delia
We all eat food in some form or another. And we trust that it comes to us in a safe and wholesome way to feed our bodies. In fact, a good percentage of us are choosy of what we eat, how it is cooked, and how it’s served. But, when a business needs meat quick and plenty of it, or wants to keep prices down, they may be buying it from factory farms. Enter the documentary Eating Animals, an investigative look at raising chickens, cattle and hogs for human consumption.
Well if you really want to know what the biggest industry in our country doesn’t want you to find out? Focus your eyes on this probing food documentary. I’m sure you are thinking that it’s just another expose to scare people into being vegetarians like the title may suggest. Well I’m pretty sure you are, as that’s what I thought.
Before I continue with this film review, please note that the documentary states facts that may or may not be genuine and that my opinions in the article are based on what they say. The video of the farms, stock yards and preparation facilities do not look doctored or set up to make their best argument. However, that doesn’t mean that some of it may have been staged. Be warned that what you will see may disgust you, want to make you rant about what you see on the screen and even make some people ill.
According to the film “In the 1970’s, Americans turned toward food that was cheap and convenient. The methods that traditionally guided agriculture were replaced by a new industrial system that became known as factory farming. The factory farms swelled to dominate 99% of the market and the 1% of farmers who have successfully resisted now matter more and more.â€
Like a sickening scene from a horror film the movie shows workers at these factory farms dragging huge live pigs across a warehouse floor on their way to slaughter. Huge tubs of live piglets are tossed about like footballs and slammed against a wall to knock them out. In another slaughter house we see workers bring a quick death to cows that can no longer give milk. They are on their way to becoming ground beef or steaks for someone’s barbecue.
But, that’s not all as in some cases shown in the film, there’s certain food factories that have created health related issues in the form of run off ponds. They have been found to infect the aquafer in some areas of the country. Also in 2008 the Humane Society took undercover footage of former Hallmark/Westland slaughterhouse. The beef sold from this facility was involved in the largest recall of beef in US history.
All this and more gives viewers an up close look at what the filmmakers have dug up on the mass animals as food “factoriesâ€. They include chicken farms that are a horrifying sight of rows upon rows of the birds tethered to stations where they eat and lay eggs day after day. Words like “genetically engineered†to increase production are thrown around in reference to the animals as well.
In 2008 the movie Food, Inc. arrived in theaters and made nearly $4.5 million at the box office. If you divide that by an average ticket cost of $7 per person it may give you some idea that about 650 thousand people saw the documentary in a movie theater. That’s pretty good and should fall around 175th in the top 607 plus movies that were released that year. The subject matter is very similar to Eating Animals and almost seems like a sequel to Food, Inc. by adding other issues that are tantamount to the industry. While Food, Inc. added other food stuffs like corn as a cheap substitute commodity and the tainting of products like peanut butter, Eating Animals concentrates on the brutal processing of food, conditions of the factory farms and contamination of our underground water sources.
In 2011 the movie Forks Over Knives came out that targets food by comparing the US with other countries like China and their diet. Their eating regimen seems to be avoiding many diseases that contribute to the heart and body. The movie also deals with doing healthful things like exercise and eating plant based foods that do not work against your body. It did not fare well at the US movie box office however, bringing in around $750 thousand. If you divide that by around $8 average admission in that year, we can figure about 94 thousand people saw the film.
More recently in 2014 the documentary Fed Up came out and deals with avoiding food additives like sugar. It advises that sugar becomes addictive, and people look to things like candy to feed their habit. The same year filmmakers released the documentary That Sugar Film that basically reveals the same information. However, the sugar factor targets the hidden sugar in products like ice cream and even fat free products that allure dieters. Fed Up says that sugar leads to overweight and other serious health problems like Diabetes. And, it points the finger at the greed of the sugar industry. That Sugar Film uses a unique idea of telling their story involving pregnancy to unveil the problems behind the tasty white substance. Fed Up did make over $1,500,000 at the box-office and with an average admission of $8 would make attendance nearly 188 thousand. I could not compare it with That Sugar Film however, because no box-office tallies were available from my sources.
I can go further mentioning docs like Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead and of course talking more about this film, but I want you to see it for yourself. Each of the films mentioned here make strong arguments and if you have a chance to check this one out, you should. If the filmmakers can get more people to see their films, maybe it would make a difference to Americans and their healthful eating habits. Thinking about the movie’s title, maybe teens may wander into the movie thinking it’s horror flick and get a dose of what’s going on with their food instead of watching human guts and gore. That would be a good start
Eating Animals has not been rated by the MPAA, but contains some language, unpleasant scenes in a slaughter house, crippled animals, chickens being processed for food, and similar content throughout the film. Be cautious when deciding to take immature children as they may get food neophobic from watching it. Especially if you still plan to take them to McDonalds, Chic-fl-a or a Bar-B-Que restaurant afterward. One important note; except for one incident related in Eating Animals, I found no evidence in the movie that any end users like restaurants were at fault in preparing the food for consumption and it was not made an issue.
FINAL ANALYSIS: A good reminder that the food industry needs to get “healthy†and less greedy. (3.5 out of 5 Stars)
Additional Film Information:
Narrator: Natalie Portman
Directed by: Christopher Quinn
Genre: Documentary
MPAA Rating: Not Rated, contains animals being killed, language
Running Time: 1 hr. 34 min.
Opening Date: July 20, 2018
Distributed by: IFC Films
Released in: Standard Format