Photo courtesy of food inc.

If you haven’t seen Food Inc, you should. The documentary was featured on Oprah this week and on Oprah.com last year. The film is powerful, and guaranteed to change the way you shop and look at food forever. Here’s what one of our followers on Twitter, @ginarau said about the movie:

“Food, Inc was brilliant, horrific, inspiring, frustrating, moving…overall an emotional experience that I hope non-foodies see”

So, here’s 10 simple things you can do to change our food system:

1. Drink fewer sodas and sweetened beverages.
2. Eat at home more often, instead of eating out.
3. Support the passage of state and local laws to require chain restaurants to post calorie information on menus and menu boards.
4. Tell schools to stop selling sodas, junk food and sports drinks.
5. Meatless Mondays or Meatless Wednesdays. Go without meat one day a week!
6. Buy organic or sustainable foods with little to no pesticide use.
7. Protect family farms; visit your local farmer’s market.
8. Make a point to know where your food comes from (read labels!)
9. Tell Congress that food safety is important to you.
10. Demand job protection and fair wages for farm workers and food processors.

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won’t go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Dr. Nishant Rao is a co-founder of WellWire.com. He is a well-traveled naturopathic doctor and new father, practicing an integrative approach to create wellness in and around Los Angeles. Become a patient or discover his practice.