Thank you. This is so informative.

Sorry, but while I thought this was an excellent movie, I was disappointed that organic and grass-fed dairy & beef farming was presented as the good alternative. Desertification will be the result of all those cows roaming the land and dairy is linked to colon & breast cancer, as well as osteoporosis by leaching calcium from bones from eating animal protein. Forget Stonyfield and free ranging cows. Go vegan! Dairy is poison and killing animals is cruel, no matter how you look at it. It’s very disappointing to see such a well-made movie ignore the obvious solution to the health & environmental problems.

I believe we should abandon obtaining milk from animals. Alternatives like rice, almond, and soy are sufficient for cooking needs. We only need milk as infants, we have human milk for that. Raising animals for consumption is extremely wasteful, the obvious is to abandon factory farming animals.

Desertification would be the result if we don’t responsibly raise beef and other animals. I have not seen the movie yet (opens tonight in Denver and I have my tix) so I don’t know if the Polyface farm gets any mention or not, but this is a very responsible way to farm to keep the animals happy, and to keep the land replenished naturally. It also doesn’t take a huge amount of land, that would allow farms like this to be opened in local areas to supply the demands of our population. We can change the way we live, if we change the way we think! I believe that we can consume meat and feel good about it. Do we need to cut back in the amount we eat yes, do we have to just totally abandon it, no. We have ate meat for 1000’s of years, and we can go on eating it. It’s about responsible farming, and responsible eating.

as a chef i have strongly to disagree to become vegan. our body needs animal protein to stay healthy (researchers in germany suggesting 4 ounces per WEEK is suffice. Most americans consume this for breakfast every day. triple meat prices and reduce the price for unadulterated organic vegetables and most of these problems would disappear. But we rather spend our money on gasoline and gadgets then a penny more for good healthy food

Udo, I don’t believe your comment that our body ‘needs’ animal protein to stay healthy is true. It has simply been disproven too many times for centuries.

I read something recently that highlighted how we are the only species on the planet who drink milk beyond our infancy and obtain it from other animals. funny when you think of it that way. Another comment posted talked about consuming meat and feeling good about it…..I always did feel good about it for years. …UNTIL I really took time with an open mind to research how it all happens in the slaughterhouses. Knowing full well that I can live without it, I don’t know now how I could feel good watching the animals live and die just so I can satisfy a taste craving. The sheer numbers of meat eaters means that sheer numbers of animals have to be slaughtered and slaughtered quickly. We are talking approx 1 million farm animals PER HOUR in the U.S. alone. How to feel good about that?

What a movie! I have known many of these truths, but always feel somewhat insignificant about what I can do to help. Our fruit and vegetable industries should be the ones getting subsidized, not the meat industry. We don’t need to eat meat 3 times a day. We should be eating it sparingly. I grew up on a large property where my parents raised a few farm animals, which we would kill and eat occasionally. It was a treat, not an everyday meal. What the meat industry has been getting away with is appalling. Let’s all pool our resources together and start a legal fund to help any farmer, who is being sued by the meat or crop industry, fight these giants in court and help theme keep there livelihood. $5 from a million people is 5 million. Oprah fought and won with a million. Let’s help the little guys who are doing right by society win!

Thank you Michael Pollan for opening my eyes, heart and mind about what is really going on in the food chain. I’m not sure I’ll be the same after reading Ominivore’s Dilema. Our children are looking like those chickens you talked about. Let’s save our kids!

Just saw the movie. Wanted to puke when seeing the ill treatment of industry farm animals, and wanted to cry for everyone who has been harmed, made sick, or has died because of America’s current food production policies and practices. Sincere thanks for the “what to do” advice at the end of the movie; we need to hear more about how we can “vote” with our food dollars for a more healthy, more natural farming system. Want to become more involved, first at home, then in my community. Many thanks for an intellegent look at this vital issue.

While I applaud efforts to green ranching practices or anything else, I believe that this article is missing a critical point of perspective.

Whether animal foods are produced with conventional or organic practices, they are always produced in a system that overlooks the inherent right of the animal to live its life without having to turn a profit for mankind. Human slavery is founded on overlooking this right in fellow humans, and the use of animals works on the same system and is equally repugnant to just societies.

Our publication read Food, Inc., the book, and wrote an extensive review of it at VeganReader.com and gave most of it wild applause. The creators of this book and movie deserve incredible gratitude and praise for these once-hidden issues that they have brought into the mainstream with a major movie. We were delighted almost out of our senses when we learned about Food, Inc’s wide release.

But, we do hope that the creators of this project will continue in their journey towards food freedom and justice by realizing that any food system that relies on the use of animals without their consent is neither sustainable nor ethical if we are all working for a better future for the human species and the planet. We’ve got to keep working on this.

Mim
Vegan Reader

Cows, chickens, and other domesticated animals provide us with protein and in exchange we protect and look after them. The trick is to do it in a sustainable way as evidenced by Polyface Farm. Soy, almonds, and rice and other grains can represent a mono-culture and industrial form of agriculture as destructive as any and destructive, as well, to large numbers of species whose habitat is destroyed directly through clearing or indirectly through pollution or water loss.

The issue isn’t what we eat but how we eat and where we get our food.