Dinner and a movie. It’s a date night cliché—but in this case, the movie was about eating dinner…and the dinner was directly correlated to subject matter in the movie.

I recently saw Food Inc. at the Landmark Theater in Hillcrest. Filmmaker Richard Kenner put together a documentary about the industrial food system in the United States. Kenner’s contention is that our food supply is controlled by just a handful of corporations that are toothlessly regulated by the government and often put profit ahead of public health and employee safety.

O'Brothers' Craig and Derek Cowling.

Photo by Ron Donoho

Food Inc. includes commentary by authors Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pallan (In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto). It also trails food safety advocate Barbara Kowalcyk through the halls of Congress as she tells the story of her two-and-a-half year old son who died after eating a fast food hamburger tainted with E. coli.

After watching the film—which includes scenes of a farmer throwing dead chickens in a pile, cattle standing in their own feces before being slaughtered, and meat being cleansed with ammonia—it was time for dinner. We drove downtown to Horton Plaza, and a new burger joint called O’Brothers.

If this sounds like craziness, or food sadism, hang on. O’Brothers is home to the 100 percent organic beef burger. Opened earlier this year by brothers Craig and Derek Cowling, O’Brothers aims to have everything on the table—the burgers, the buns, the condiments, the beer, the napkins—be organic.

Derek says he only place they had to back down was with wines. “The USDA-approved wines we tasted were pretty bad,” he says.

Older brother Craig has watched Food Inc. twice. “Both times, I got up at the end and spoke to the audience—for maybe three to five minutes,” he says. The first time, Craig talked about the O’Brothers concept, and invited the crowd of about 30 to the restaurant for a free meal. The second time, he gave out about 50 business cards (Derek recommended he stop giving out free meals).

The Cowlings get their grass-fed beef from South Dakota. In Food Inc. a Virginia owner/farmer decries the process of corn-fed farming. Corn is a cheap, but more fattening, feed. (The film points out how corn is a prevalent ingredient in mass-processed products—it’s in everything from cheese and ketchup to Twinkies and soda.)

To further embrace the “slow-food” or produced-locally movement, the Cowlings plan to soon start buying Southern California grass-fed meat. It’s available at Homegrown Meats/La Jolla Butcher Shop. Owner Matt Rimel partners with the Mendenhalls, family ranchers based in Mt. Palomar.

O’Brothers is doing a strong lunch hour and has decent dinner crowds. Derek says Mayor Jerry Sanders and City Councilmember Dona Frye have stopped by for burgers. The menu includes a tasty Western burger, as well as ones made with chicken and veggies.

Anyone with a weak stomach ought to think twice about going straight from a viewing of Food Inc. to any restaurant. But if you do take the time to gain some insight on the American food system, you’ll soon start aiming your taste buds toward conscientious eateries like O’Brothers.