This Academy Award nominated film is a powerful eye opening documentary about the truth behind America's food supply. It questions whether America's industrial food system produces healthy, nutritious, life-sustaining stuff we call food. If you take one look at America's current health care crisis you might ask the same questions.

Food Inc., features several poignant interviews that caution us about  the nutritional value of America's food supply and question if our food products, including processed foods, fresh meat and produce, are in fact a threat to public health and safety. Interviews include Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma) (two food movement heroes), sustainable, organic farmer Joel Salatin of Virginia's Polyface Farms and mother, Barbara Kowalcyk. Kowalcyk's 2 1/2 year old son died 12 days after eating a hamburger contaminated with E. coli.

The documentary also raises serious questions about ethical business practices of food giants Monsanto, Tyson, Perdue and Smithfield companies. When these companies were asked to tell their side of the story to filmmakers, they declined to comment.

This past week California public health officials issued another recall on ground beef products sold at WinCo food stores in six western states, stating it could be contaminated with E. coli.

Despite some of the heavy issues Food Inc tackles, the film is driven by visionaries of alternative businesses and activists that are leading the food movement to delicious, healthy, safe food for America.

Read More On America's Food Safety Issues:

Monsanto’s Seedy Business

Tyson Foods Lied To Consumers About Drugs Used To Raise Their Chickens

FDA Fills New Position with Monsanto Hormone Guy

Monsanto is Hogging Hawaii’s Water

Big Agribusiness Dictating U.S. Food Safety

A Chemical Reaction to the White House Garden

E. coli Outbreak and Our Contaminated Food Supply

Most Chicken Producers’ Safeguards “Inadequate”

Russia and China Say Thanks, But No Thanks, to U.S. Poultry

Antibiotics: Tyson Chicken Wants to Lie to Consumers

USDA Allows Contaminated Chicken in Stores

Sara Lee quickly responded to the Cornucopia Institute's charges by changing some language on the brand's web site and issued a clarification statement. The company stated that its claims about being better than organic was a "misunderstanding" and the company has been "completely transparent about the environmental benefits" of the Eco-Grain™ growing methods.

Charlotte Vallaeys, a Food and Farm Policy Analyst at The Cornucopia Institute states in their press release, “Corporations like Sara Lee clearly want to profit from consumers’ interest in ecological and healthy food production.  But unlike organic companies, Sara Lee is doing practically nothing to ensure its ingredients are truly ecologically produced...... It's a crass example of a corporation trying to capitalize on the valuable market cachet of organic, while intentionally misleading consumers—without making any meaningful commitment to protect the environment or produce safer and more nutritious food.”

The single feature  that Sara Lee ran with and turned into a huge greenwash campaign, is the production of Eco-Grain™. The Eco Grain farmers use satellite imagery that reduces their fertilizer usage by 15%. It is known as “precision agriculture” or “variable rate technology”  that helps apply precisely the right amount of fertilizer every time to maximize yield and grain quality.

The Cornucopia Institute, points out that the production of Eco-Grain™ differs very little from most conventional grain producers who use petroleum-based fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides, and have little in common with certified organic farmers.

In contrast, federal law prohibits organic farmers from using synthetic fertilizers and toxic pesticides that are commonly used on wheat fields, including the Eco-Grain™. The Cornucopia Institute's press release states, "One such pesticide typically used in conventional wheat production is 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), which EPA researchers have correlated with numerous birth defects of the respiratory and circulatory systems, as well as defects like clubfoot, fused digits and extra digits.  Other research has linked the use of toxic pesticides on wheat fields to increased cancer mortality rates."

Organic farmers enrich the long-term health of their soil and food by using natural fertilizers, compost and crop rotations, instead of damaging the earth and contaminating food with toxic chemicals.

The Institute also strongly objected to the Earth Grains' campaign statement  (now removed), Eco-Grain™ farming methods "...have some advantages over organic farming" - in that Earth Grains bread requires less land than organic farming. This claim however is not substantiated by scientific research.

The whole campaign as it stands now, still makes some broad sweeping claims about saving the earth. When you compare the Eco-Grain™ growing methods to organic farming, there is no comparison.  Sara Lee is still using toxic chemicals that poison the earth and our food supply.

Perhaps if the folks who invested the money in the satellite precision technology for Eco-Grain™ had invested it in certified organic production, they might have saved a few dollars, had a bigger impact on the earth and green consumers.

Today, in a struggling economy, corporate integrity is more important than ever, particularly if you want to capture the growing  "green"  consumer dollar. The  "green" consumer is getting more sophisticated and can't be fooled by a veil thin "green" campaigns like this.

An Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis Of Global Warming will be available in April. The 208-page book, created for children 11 and older, will be published by Viking Children’s Books/ Rodale Books.

“There is no doubt that young people today are more aware of environmental problems than my generation ever was,” says Gore, who will donate all of his profits to the campaign to fight global warming. “As this new generation comes of age, it faces the enormous challenge of solving global warming. That’s why I felt it was so important to adapt An Inconvenient Truth for them. In order to fix this crisis, everyone needs to be involved. I have faith that young people have both the ability and the enthusiasm to put a stop to global warming.”

Doug Whiteman, president of Penguin Young Readers Group, is excited about bringing Gore’s message to a younger audience.

“As I sat in a theater watching Vice President Gore deliver his message on film,” he says, “it struck me that if we are to make an impact on the problem of global warming in the near future, we must find a way to bring the message to a younger audience—to the generation that has the opportunity to effect real change.”

Torbjörn Törnqvist, PhD, an associate professor of earth and environmental sciences at Tulane University in New Orleans, says rising sea levels—the result of melting polar ice caps—pose a greater threat to Louisiana than the sinking of his state’s land. His research appeared in a recent issue of Eos, the prestigious journal published by the American Geophysical Union.

According to Dr. Törnqvist, coastal Louisiana’s sea level has been rising up to 400% more rapidly in the last century than the rates recorded over the last 1,000 years. And, he warns, this rate is expected to at least double in the next 100 years. This increases the area’s vulnerability to hurricanes and storm surge.

The solution, Dr. Törnqvist asserts, must focus on reducing global warming—the primary cause of rising sea levels. In addition, scientists must restore the loss of wetlands and barrier islands, as well as build better levees.

“The emphasis in the whole debate over the past couple of years about the future of coastal Louisiana has been strongly focused on the question of how rapidly the land is sinking, but there has been too little concern about sea-level rise, which is a global problem that could have a big impact here,” Dr. Törnqvist stated in a Tulane interview. “I think we should be more worried about that than we are.

“If we want to slow this down,” he continues, “we have to stop global warming. If we don't succeed in doing that, the long-term future for coastal Louisiana is extremely grim. Nearly all coastal cities in the world are going to face these problems. We are facing them earlier because we are the lowest-lying major city in the U.S. So, simply by investing in new and smarter coastal defense systems, we’ll gain a lot of experience that will be critical once we have to do similar things for other cities.”

Note: OrganicAuthority.com publishes science news so organic consumers have access to the latest studies on climate change and threats to our environment.

According to the Earthwatch Institute, most of the world’s 17 major ocean fisheries are in decline, coastal habitats are disappearing at an alarming rate, and climate change and pollution are harming coral ecosystems possibly beyond recovery.

“Consider that a single molecule of seawater can and will circulate around the entire world ocean over the course of seven years,” says Dr. Wallace J. Nichols, a research associate at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, president-elect of the International Sea Turtle Society and a former principal investigator for an Earthwatch sea turtle project in Mexico. “That means that what we do on one coast does matter to the people living on another coast half a world away. Animals like sea turtles, elephant seals, bluefin tuna and white sharks connect the ocean through their thousand-mile migrations.” (Please check out Dr. Nichols’ compelling essay, One Ocean, Indivisible.)

“The world ocean is in trouble, and if we do not solve some of its myriad problems, our beloved whales and dolphins will continue to spiral into ever greater danger,” adds Dr. Bernd Würsig of Texas A&M, a principal investigator of Earthwatch’s New Zealand Dolphins project. “This is our greatest challenge, from regional over-fishing of salmon in the North Pacific to all-encompassing issues of global warming. Are we, as humans on this fragile Earth, up to the challenges of saving a significant part of this huge ecosystem?”

Click here to find ways to celebrate World Ocean Day. For a list of Earthwatch events around the country, click here (PDF file). And please read Organic Authority’s feature article on which fish are fit to eat.

Photo by Peter Dutton/Earthwatch Institute: A just-hatched leatherback sea turtle heads for the sea. Earthwatch volunteers are needed to monitor sea turtles on the beaches of St. Croix, Trinidad and Costa Rica.