How certain are you about the food you buy from the supermarket?

My wife and I watched this film, Food Inc, this weekend and I already shared my brief viewpoints on it on Facebook, but I thought we learned so much that it is worth sharing more information. Here is a brief synopsis:

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Here are some interesting statistics also featured in the film:
-- In 1972 the Food and Drug Administration conducted 50,000 food safety inspections; by 2006 that number was down to 9,164.
-- In 2007 there were 73,000 people sickened from the E.coli virus.
-- The average American eats over 200 pounds of meat a year.
-- 70 percent of processed foods have some genetically modified ingredient.
-- One in three Americans born after 2000 will contract early-onset diabetes; among minorities the rate will be one in two.

I know that shopping for all natural or all organic is typically more expensive. But we are in control as consumers. If we all choose to purchase these products, the market will shift and make these options more affordable. The true cost is your health. With rising cost of health care, the best thing to do is to stay healthy. My advice is to make sure you not only know what you are eating but where it is coming from. Apparently there are a lot of businesses that spend a lot of money to make sure we do not know this information. Remember, you have 3 times a day where you can place your vote.

How certain are you about the food you buy from the supermarket?