Working for a natural food company that makes mostly vegan, organic energy bars and food, it’s easy for me to forget that there’s a lot of bad stuff in our food system—stuff I don’t want in my body. Seeing a screening of Fast Food Nation (based on the acclaimed investigative book by Eric Schlosser) was a vivid wake up call.

The movie isn't a documentary, but is instead a fictional story with characters in the very real-world of American fast food and the meat-packing system. While the plot could be described as chaotic—throwing a lot of people and issues at you at once, this is in fact a great representation of reality: our industrial food system is complex.

We may not realize it, but what we eat often reaches us after following a messy path of industrial farming laden with chemicals, animal mistreatment, cruel, dangerous, and unsanitary animal slaughter, poor treatment of workers (especially immigrants), sexual harassment, thousands of miles of travel, and more…

In the story of the movie, there's no Hollywood happy ending or hero. Just like real life: very nice people can get involved in things that aren’t very nice at all; in immoral systems that are bigger than they are.

My take-away: the only way to make meaningful change is to vote—for leaders that have the will to make a difference, but even more importantly, to vote with your dollar, buying from companies that are trying to do business in a better way.

And meat-eater or not, you should see this film. It's a wake-up call that we all need.

Diana is CLIF Bar's Green Business Grrrl (aka Sustainability Manager)