Movie Review | Unser täglich Brot (Our Daily Bread) by Nikolaus Geyrhalter

Do you have a strong stomach? The movie, Unser täglich Brot (aka Our Daily Bread), may put yours to the test. Chef Ian recommended it to me and said it would "blow your mind". It definitely did. The film has no dialogue - only strong images of how our food is processed by factory workers and the sounds that result from them working. It is brilliantly filmed. You are left to form your own judgments on the process.
 
First off, I thought this might be enough to force me to become a vegetarian. Then I watched how vegetables are processed - not that great, either. While I can appreciate that technology helps to deliver food to the growing population, I don't understand why animals have to be treated in such inhumane ways. There are disturbing scenes in the movie. Crates upon crates of baby chicks are scooped up by workers and tossed down a shoot onto more conveyor belts. They are treated like inanimate objects. What burned me most in the film was a tractor that drives through pens of squashed cattle and literally sprays them with feed - right into their eyes. Why does this have to be done? Is there not a better way to feed them? It appears that there is no respect and no thanks being given to these animals. It is mind-blowing how workers have to be completely suited up and masked to spray vegetables.

What do you think the message of the film is? How far we have progressed and how efficient we have become? Or, is it: look at the crazy conditions in which we bring up livestock and grow food to get what we want - cheap, disease-free(?) food?

On a similar topic, cloned milk and meat? I thought growth horomones were bad enough. Where exactly are we headed?

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