Food Inc.'s argument, that corporations are force-feeding Americans all the junk that multinational corporate money can buy, is persuasive through its unappetizing lessons. This film demonstrates all three characteristics of rhetoric: ethos, pathos and logos.
The ethical appeal of the argument is there because clearly the people who made this have extensive knowledge about the issue. In fact, the voice at the opening belongs to Michael Pollan and the co-producer is Eric Schlosser, both who have authored credible books on the very issue. Logos is demonstrated through the many logical arguments all throughout the film, most notably all the graphs and statistics compiled to show just how bad the situation is.
I am a bit of a realist so I do realize that this is an activist's documentary, meaning that of course they picked the most extreme examples and stories that they could find in order to fuel the sometimes infuriating idea of what these huge company's are doing to everyone. Pathos was probably the most heavily relied upon aspect of rhetoric used because of the simple fact that those stories were exactly what gets people motivated to try to change things.
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