Our Daily Bread DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: DVD Documentary Offers Shocking Peek at Food Industry

If you’re considering becoming a vegetarian, you might like to check out this documentary which offers an unblinking peek at the lethal logistics of the high-tech food industry. Welcoming you to a world of callously-efficient production from conception to harvest, this emotionally-detached expose’ makes an eloquent case against cruelty to animals, and without reliance on any editorializing or judgmental commentary of any kind.
Simply allowing authentic workplace acoustics to serve as the soundtrack, the film effectively positions the viewer right inside the killing fields of assorted futuristic slaughterhouses as an almost involuntary eyewitness to the callous butchery. Our Daily Bread graphically depicts not merely death, but the mistreatment doled out to these unfortunate factory animals at every stage of their lifecycles.
What could be more shocking than to see a baby calf birthed not from its mother’s womb, but from a gaping, man-made hole arbitrarily gouged in the cow’s side? Maybe the sight of baby chicks being jettisoned out of pneumatics tubes at breakneck speed onto conveyor belts which then drop the bewildered newborns into crates which, in turn, cart them off to another equally-mechanized, indoor environment for fattening.
Then there are the scenes of fish, hogs and cattle being shuttled to their fates, to be drawn and quartered assembly line-style, with their carcasses carefully hacked away in a fully- automated process which makes use of virtually every bit of their bodies besides the tail. The few employees featured in the film have deadened eyes which ostensibly reflect their having long since capitulated spiritually to their soul-draining line of work. None exhibits even an ounce of compassion for any of the creatures in their care.
A most perturbing environmental clarion call guaranteed to haunt you for meals to come.

Excellent (4 stars)
Unrated
Running time: 92 minutes
Studio: Icarus Films

To see a trailer for Our Daily Bread, visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhLesXW8S_8