This week, I watched a documentary called Food, Inc. I watched this documentary a few years ago when I was taking an Environmental Science course in high school.

This was one of the first food related environmental science documentaries and one that had really encouraged me to change my eating habits at that time. These documentaries expose really important parts of industries that people really don’t know much about.

What I want to focus on here, however, is why these large companies, such as Tyson, Monsanto, and Smithfield, always decline to comment in these documentaries. I realize they want to avoid these topics because it highlights them in a terrible light.

But, in my opinion, their refusal to comment just makes it seem worse to me. They are avoiding subjects that are becoming increasingly popular. It indicates to me that they are hiding something – that they know they are in the wrong. I’m sure it’s a PR thing for them not to respond, because it would be difficult to positively answer the questions they would be asked. But maybe they need a wake up call.

Following from that, in Food, Inc. there is a very interesting section about these large companies having major ties to the US government, the FDA and more, making it very easy for them to escape lawsuits and mold laws.

The craziest thing to me is that anyone who speaks out on these issues will be hit with a lawsuit. The documentary calls them “veggie libel laws.” If saying something causes a loss of profits to these companies, you get sued for it. I think that’s insane. People should be allowed to have their opinions on this. People should be allowed to speak the truth on how awful these foods are to people and the environments.

To me, even the fact that these companies sue people over this because they lose profits makes them look like a company I want nothing to do with. The companies that are in documentaries like Food, Inc. need to realize that the world is changing and so are the people in it. Their profits are going to begin to organically go down as people begin to learn the truth that the companies are so desparately trying to hide.

Watch Food, Inc. here to learn more about these corporations, the laws, and what the food industry is doing.