Food, Inc. (now at the Film Forum) is a stirring film, all right. It makes you never want to eat anything other than organic fruit and vegetables ever again. It quite rightly raises suspicions that poisons are coursing through your system. And let’s face it — if you’re any kind of meat-eater or frequenter of fast-food joints, they probably are. On top of which you’re probably a bit more of a porker than you should be. Don’t think corporate America isn’t down with that.

Food, Inc. director Robert Kenner and I talked things over for about 25 minutes yesterday. Here‘s the mp3.

Fatty carcinogen corporate food has been a part of the landscape for only about 30 years or so. I can remember when people generally used to be in shape in the ’60s and ’70s. We’ve since become a nation of carcinogenic seal lions. 64% of the U.S. is overweight, and a large portion of this group is flat-out obese. Young kids (even toddlers) are obese everywhere you look.

The victims, obviously, are the middle and lower-middle classes, who always eat the cheapest and worst food around. The fat and sugar and chemical levels in mass fast foods are appalling. That’s not an accident — it’s what the corporate food barons want. They’ve been living high off the hog from the profits for so long, and it’s hard to say no once you get used to a fatness in all its forms.

I love this David Edelstein quote in New York: “I gave up the thought of ‘reviewing’ the documentary and decided, instead, to exhort you: See it. Bring your kids if you have them. Bring someone else’s if you don’t. The sheer scale of the movie is mind-blowing – it touches on every aspect of modern life. It’s the documentary equivalent of The Matrix.”