Wow, I’ve discovered a surefire diet program to lose weight fast. Really, I’m not kidding. Here’s the secret: If looking for a weight loss program that works immediately, go see the latest movie, “Food Inc.” It’s playing now at a theater near you.

The movie is a jaw-dropping, eye-opening documentary uncovering the secretive world of the raising of and processing livestock for human consumption. The film itself is a wonderful piece produced and directed by award-winning filmmaker, Robert Kenner. And as impressive as it is as a film, co-producer and investigative journalist, Eric Schlosser’s stunning investigative reporting took the film to a higher level of excellence in the documentary category. His in-depth investigation is a juicy bite of a dying art in journalism – this is what news reporting should be. Even the news we consume has become processed and manufactured.

If you have a weak stomach for gory scenes of livestock being slaughtering, relax, the movie overall is a delicious piece. There are few movies I can say are well worth the money spent on tickets, and this was definitely worth it. The film tracked the sequence of producing the food we buy at the supermarket from the start of raising the livestock; to the finish where it winds up on your plate. It commences with the livestock being packed like sardines, standing knee-deep in their own filth, and being unnaturally fed and injected with various man-made chemicals. And by the way, you’ll learn that “Corn-fed” beef is not a good thing.

Even chickens don’t fare much better: They’re treated similarly with stimulants to increase their size to twice the norm at triple the rate it normally takes for them to mature: Instead of waiting for a chicken to mature in three months, the growth process is sped up to take only three weeks.  The chickens grow so fast and so big, their legs can’t even hold them up.

To view the horror in the animals’ eyes, and see how they’re being raised as human feed is enough to kill your appetite. It explains how the industry can easily accept cloning animals without hesitation; livestock today is being treated as nothing more than human feed anyway. The monopoly livestock processing plants and slaughterhouses have lost touch with any human element so that the hamburger on your plate is being treated like some sort of disposable waste product. If that isn’t bad enough, the contractors and employees of these manufacturing plants are treated as disposable as the animals they slaughter. Many are illegal aliens, arrested at their homes and taken away, if it suits the food processors.

How our human “feed” processing system made it past regulators and onto your plate is thanks to the Clinton, and even more so, the Bush administration, appointing people to FDA positions who once worked for big food processors such as Tyson, BPI (Beef Products Inc.) and Cargill. It’s the proverbial, “Who’s watching the hen house?”

And talk about the irony for me. The morning I went to see the movie, the theater happened to be offering samples of some kind of greasy, bite-size breakfast roll-up thingy with an egg filling. The theater employee offered me a sample from her tray and I thought, why not? I had to – for the irony. It was yummy! From what I could taste, the three basic food-processing groups were there: sugar (corn fructose), salt and gobs of carbs! Everything you could want to satisfy your decadent taste buds!

Today, I have totally changed the way I look at food. It still looks delectable, but now I know the true nature of that seductive slab of beef. Sure, it looks great on the outside, but it’s loaded with chemicals on the inside.

So now I’m even more adamant about supporting healthy local grocers who in turn buy from healthy local suppliers. I’ve checked into where I can purchase meat and poultry from “real” farms – you know, the ones illustrated on the front labels of processed products that make you believe the products are coming from the illustrated farms on the front label of their products.

If you want  “farm fresh” and not manufactured livestock meats and vegetables: Go to this link: http://www.eatwellguide.org/i.php?pd=Home. Here you’ll find grocers, farmer’s markets, restaurants, meat and produce suppliers that you can patronize for healthier, untainted, unprocessed food. From there, you can find regional and local participants in your area.

Do yourself a favor and see the movie, “Food Inc.” Do it this weekend because with Michael Bay’s sucky movie, “Transformers” clinging to theaters like bad cholesterol, “Food Inc.” probably won’t be playing for long. Actually, maybe Michael Bay’s movie has some value. If I had gone to his movie instead, I probably would have lost weight seeing it too – from barfing!