Interview with Food Inc. Director Robert Kenner

INTERVIEW

July 9, 2009


 

 

 

From Hallmark commercials to Emmy winning documentaries, director Robert Kenner has recently taken on one of the greater challenges that America currently faces: food. His new documentary Food Inc. reveals the hidden world of food production, as well as the politics, economics and science of what we put into our bodies.  Starring foodies like Eric Schlosser of Fast Food Nation and Michael Pollan of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Food Inc. is helpful and informative, to be sure-- but more than that, this film is a necessity. Motivated by the food production secrets disclosed in Food Inc., YAH took the chance to ask Kenner his advice about how to help change our personal and national consumption habits.

 

 

 So, what do you order in a Chinese restaurant?


When you travel and you’re out and going to restaurants-- and Chinese restaurants becomes a good one, you have to try to eat more vegetables when you can.  The hard part is that the meat you’re going to eat is not going to be fairly raised, generally.  I might violate my rules and have a taste of it, but very little.  That’s what I would recommend, but I’m not perfect.  Other people might do better than I do.

 

 

In your opinion, is eating responsibly more a matter of knowing or of caring?


I think as you start to care you start to know.  And it’s hard to know because we’ve been denied this information for so long.  There’s been this illusion that everything is the same as it has always been, when in fact our food has been fundamentally transformed in the past 40 years.  The fact is that we go to the supermarket and you walk down the aisles, it looks very similar to how it’s always looked, but in reality the food has been transformed.   Hopefully Food Inc. will help people realize that they have to start to learn more, because I think people ultimately do care.  They certainly care about their well-being, and hopefully they’ll care about the earth’s well-being and the people who made the food and the animals that go into the food.

 

 

What brands can be found in your kitchen pantry?


Hm, well, I know we have rice cakes.  I love the farmer’s market, we’re lucky living in California that we have such great produce.  The stuff is just so freaking good.

 

 

I know I miss it. When it comes to winter, I’m just not used to having oranges year-round.

 

The beauty is learning to eat locally.  We all sort of gravitate towards the food we grew up with.  So for me I miss the things from the east coast.   But when it comes down to it, the nutritional difference of eating locally is extraordinary. 

 

 

What about grocery stores like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s? Are they okay by your standards?


The answer is that we shop there, you know, because reality is involved.  There was a NYTimes article with Deborah Solomon a few months ago and I talked about how I liked Trader Joe’s.  I got a lot of grief because they don’t package their stuff well and they don’t buy locally.   I think we have to keep asking for local foods, organic foods and better packaged foods whenever possible.  As we show in the movie, if we can change WalMart we can certainly change Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s.  There are many spokes in the movement; there are many spokes in the wheel.  And they might not be perfect spokes, but they’re all helping to bring consciousness.  So, are we going to look at it and say they’re perfect? No. I think it becomes negative to think that everything must be perfect.  They’re certainly part of a solution, and hopefully they’ll become a better part as we continue to change things. It’s up to us as consumers to demand more.

 

 

What’s your favorite healthy-but-fast meal?  If it exists...


I’m lucky-- my wife’s a great cook so she can take simple things and make them tasty.  But I think the real trick is that if you eat at home you’re going to eat a lot healthier.   I was just reading a book called The End of Overeating by a former head of the FDA [David Kessler], and the amount of sugars, salt and fat that goes into our foods is off the charts.  

 

 

There seem to be a lot of politics surrounding the soy bean, and yet it’s championed as a dairy alternative.  How do you feel about soy products?

 

The problem is that we’ve become dependent on so few crops and so few varieties of those crops.  Soy and corn have become dominant.  All other vegetables are called “specialty vegetables.”  They’re not eligible for any sort of subsidy.  I mean I love edamame when I got to a Japanese restaurant-- it’s just that they’ve become so abundant.  Like with the corn, it’s not the corn you eat.  Iowa is the breadbasket of the United States.  There were all these farms and all this wonderful food, and now if you put a fence around Iowa the people who live there would starve to death because you can’t eat that corn.   

 

 

One of the people you follow in the film is a teenage girl.  I imagine that this was to reach out to a younger audience.  What were some other tactics you used to reach that youth demographic, such as with the film’s graphics or marketing?

 

That was the hardest story for me to crack and I spent the most time on that story, though I only filmed that family for a few hours.   The fact of the matter is, I didn’t want to make a film that was elitist.  I wanted to show that it was important for everyone to be eating good food and that the low cost food that we’re buying is going to end up being really expensive for everybody-- whether you’re eating that food or not.  But I also wanted to reach out and try to figure out how to turn the film into a more theatrical experience, using both music and animation.  I loved working with the guys who I did the graphics with.  It was really important to create a tone-- someone called it “delightfully distressing.”  

 

 

I think that’s fair.

 

How to make a lighter tone about a serious subject?  That was something that we were very conscious of throughout.   Story-wise, there were many different factors that we had to solve, and on some level we have too many stories.  Of course, there were plenty more that were really interesting that we could have put in.  But we were trying to connect all the dots to add up to something that was more than just the sum of its parts.

 

 

What suggestions do you have for younger people who are restricted to the food served in their dining halls?


I think people should start to organize and let it be known that these dining halls have to change.  One way is to buy a percentage of local foods to support farms.  I do think these dining halls are going to be susceptible to pressures, but obviously the food they’re buying is cheaper and they’re not going to want to spend more money in such a tough economic time.  People need to say that this is a priority.  Its not only the food but it also determines what kind of communities we live in. 

 

 

Though you follow some major advocates for better food laws in the film, the final lines of the film remind us that we each have a chance to change the system three times a day.  What are some other ways to help, for those of us who want to do a little more than responsible shopping but a little less than Eric Schlosser?


You might want to join an organization like Farm Aid or Food & Water Watch.  It’s very hard to figure it out on your own, so I would say become involved one or two organizations.  

 

 

Have you been sued yet?


I have not been sued.  I just went to the Aspen Idea institute and Food Inc. was shown there, and it happens to turn out that Monsanto is a sponsor there.  Then they had a panel with Monsanto two days later.  A number of these organizations have put out websites to, in their minds, correct the false statements of Food Inc. I find their statements very misleading.  But then there are others, like Cardill which is a huge corporation, who say hey, we recognize the power of Food Inc. and we think we should be engaging in this conversation.  I think that a number of companies will want to enter the conversation-- and some of them will keep stonewalling.  But I’ve heard from people at major PR companies from places like Shell Oil who think Monsanto is making an incredible mistake by the way they’re dealing with this.  Our audience in Aspen was made up of Republicans and Democrats and Supreme Court Judges.  [Monsanto] didn’t get a sympathetic hearing and that was from a very mixed audience.  So they’re really going to have to start to change.  But it sure has taken a lot.  They’ve put up a real veil to stop us from knowing about our food and from talking about it.  Hopefully that will change and Food Inc. will start that conversation.

 

 

I think you’ve done a good job of that.

 

In a funny way, the film transcended food-- and I that was something I really didn’t know was going to happen when I started.

 

 

 

Hungry for change? Food Inc. has teamed up with Take Part to facilitate better eating.  Take Part includes links to sites that help you find restaurants in your area that use local and sustainable products, guides to building your own garden, as well as petitions for safer farm working conditions and healthy food choices in schools.

 

 

In Food Inc., farmer Joel Salatin comments on how people at the farmer's market are sometimes shocked at the price of $3.00 for a dozen eggs, while they're holding a 75-cent can of soda.  Our own Chef Frankie is a big fan of farmer's market eggs from Union Square's Greenmarket.  He recommends keeping a flower box of herbs (thyme, parsley and basil are his favorites) and a dozen eggs.  The fresh herbs (dried herbs will also work) do wonders for simple scrambled egg to make the perfect quick, high-protein and inexpensive meal.   


 


Posted in FOOD on July 9, 2009 8:34am by Madeline | 1 comment



Comments

Christine8:28am | July 9, 2009

Hey guys! Great interview - I always feel so guilty for shopping at "normal" grocery stores and I think I'm doing my part by buying organic at Trader Joe's, but I know it isn't enough. Too bad my wallet isn't big enough to be all local all the time yet - and it's tough in NYC. When I was back visiting family in LA, I got so jealous of their farmers markets. Someday I hope!


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