NEW YORK, (Reuters) – Bigger-breasted chickens  fattened artificially. New strains of deadly E. coli bacteria.  A food supply controlled by a handful of corporations.

The documentary “Food, Inc.” opens in the United States on  Friday and portrays these purported dangers and changes in the  U.S. food industry, asserting harmful effects on public health,  the environment, and worker and animal rights.

Big corporations such as biotech food producer Monsanto Co.  , U.S. meat companies Tyson Food Inc. and Smithfield Foods, and  poultry producer Perdue Farms all declined to be interviewed  for the film.

But the industry has not stood silent. Trade associations  across the $142-billion-a-year U.S. meat industry have banded  together to counter the claims. Led by the American Meat  Institute, they have created a number of websites, including  one called SafeFoodInc.com.

“Each sector of the industry that’s named is doing its part  to counter a lot of the misinformation in the movie,” said Lisa  Katic, a dietitian and consultant with an unnamed coalition of  trade associations representing the food industry.      Their campaign promotes the U.S. food supply as safe,  abundant and affordable, whereas the film asserts that images  of animals grazing on grassy farms emblazoned on U.S. food  product labels are misleading.

“Food, Inc.” explores the argument that food comes not from  friendly farms but from industrial factories that put profit  ahead of human health.

“The film pulls back the curtain on the way food is  produced,” said Michael Pollan, who appears in the film and is  the best-selling author of several books including “In Defense  of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.
“Products with farm labels attached — this stuff comes  from factories now,” he said.

But an industry spokesman said 98 percent of U.S. farms  were family owned and operated and they accounted for 82  percent of farm production.

Mace Thornton of the American Farm Bureau, the nation’s  largest farm group, said the industry was interested in the  well-being of farm animals.

“If a farmer or rancher is not the kind of person to take  care of their animals, they’re not going to be in business  long,” he said.

The film shows footage inside cattle, pork and chicken  production plants, some secretly recorded by immigrant workers  under cramped conditions for both workers and the animals.