Robert Kenner compares the politics and secrets that surround the food industry to those of Big Tobacco.

Robert Kenner says he didn't realize the political stew he was getting into when he set out to produce and direct Food, Inc. “I had no idea how litigious it [the food industry] was and how subversive it was,” he says. “I could have been doing a film on nuclear terrorism and had greater access [to information] than I did in this film.”

On the line with the Georgia Straight from Los Angeles, Kenner uses words like Orwellian to describe his filmmaking experience. The documentary, which opens in Vancouver Friday (July 10), goes inside America's industrialized food system and explores its impact on the public's health, the environment, farm workers, immigrant factory workers, and more. It isn't pretty. And according to Kenner, that's why corporate America works so hard to ensure consumers don't know about it. “We love this inexpensive food,” he says, “but we're not seeing the real cost.”

The film is coproduced by Eric Schlosser, who wrote Fast Food Nation and the screenplay for the 2006 fictional film of the same name. Food, Inc. also features extensive commentary by food activist Michael Pollan.

Kenner says he wanted to interview all kinds of food producers, from farmers to big agribusiness corporations, but he quickly learned that “ag[ri]business was not very anxious to talk to me.” He says that meat producers Tyson, Perdue, and Smithfield turned down his requests for interviews, as did chemical producer Monsanto.

Farmers and factory workers were also reluctant to talk. Kenner contacted “dozens and dozens” of chicken farmers before he found Carole Morison, who went on-camera to show how she raises chickens for Perdue. Morison subsequently lost her contract.

He realized the extent of the chill when he asked Barbara Kowalcyk—whose toddler died from E. coli poisoning after eating a hamburger—what she eats. “When she couldn't answer me because she was scared of being sued, I was in disbelief,” he recalls. “ 'Veggie libel' laws are there to stop you from disparaging a food product,” he explains. “If you cause loss of income to a corporation, they can sue you under veggie libel laws in 13 or 14 states.”

Kenner had to be careful he didn't get sued. “I ended up spending more on this film in legal fees than I did on my past 15 films—probably times three. And that doesn't even give a fair indication of how difficult it was, because we had to keep redoing things and we had to keep censoring ourselves, so it took us a lot longer to finish the film because we had to keep going through this legal sieve.”

Kenner claims he didn't have an agenda going in and was surprised by the food industry's resistance to providing information on everything from GMOs to hormones in milk. “We went to a hearing on whether we should have cloned meat,” Kenner recalls. “I didn't even know there was cloned meat. I don't come to this as a person who has been obsessed by food”¦.I'm a guy who ate pretty average kind of food before I started making this film.

“When the meat industry rep stood up and said, 'I don't think it's in the consumer's interest to have this kind of information because it just would become too confusing,' I kind of got goose bumps”¦.If we live in a free society and we have free markets, it's got to be based on information.”

The film shows how food-industry executives have infiltrated Washington and used their influence to pass industry-friendly laws to consumer detriment. Kenner likens it to tobacco: an industry controlled by a few powerful companies with lots of money and political connections that have allowed them to hide the damaging effects of their products.

“We were able to change tobacco when we learned about the negative health aspects of that product,” he says. “As we start to learn about the negative health aspects of food”¦.we will start to change.”

Although the film focuses solely on America, Kenner says the issues are just as relevant in Canada. “These are international corporations,” he says. “China's going to have a huge effect on how we eat. Unfortunately, because they keep lowering the standard, the American producers are saying for us to compete—and I'm sure the Canadian ones are saying the same—that we need to be able to compete on their low level. We have to be able to stop the race to the bottom.”

Kenner is optimistic that the Obama administration is open to change. “Michelle Obama is now a part of this fray”¦because she had the audacity to try to grow a garden without pesticides,” he says. “I don't think she had any idea that she was doing something so subversive.”

He notes that to address environmental and health-care problems, you need to address the food system. “Even if this wasn't a priority of Obama's it will become one.” He adds that people can vote for change not just at election time but “three times a day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner”.