At the Fork

With the organic grocery chain Whole Foods' backing (and founder John Mackey on camera), one might suspect John Papola's documentary of being something of a promo piece. But At the Fork actually serves up a passionate and well-made plea for conscientious eating. Papola introduces himself as a meat-eating Italian-American filmmaker, constantly urged by his wife to go vegetarian. So, the pair embark on a cinematic road trip to investigate the dysfunctional and dismal processes involved in factory-farm agriculture, specifically looking at the treatment of pigs, chickens, and cows. Even on the best “humane” and free-range small farms, where hogs are able to run through forests in the rain just as in the wild, the point is still made that these animals are being raised for eventual slaughter as food. At the Fork features some hard-to-watch scenes of castration and mother-offspring separation, and the camera also follows a farmhand on his routine of “culling” (killing) perfectly good birds who don't conform to commercial specs. In addition to comments from interviewees—including authors and animal-welfare experts Temple Grandin and Wayne Pacelle, along with Iowa governor Terry Branstad—the film ultimately details a three-point program on reducing meat and dairy in the diet (and, by extension, the accompanying animal exploitation). Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)