Opinions vary as to whether we should eat meat. Between At the Fork director John Papola and his producer wife Lisa Versaci, these range from yes, but to hell no. He’s an omnivore; she’s a vegan. That tension — and Papola’s gradual rethinking of food politics — peppers their new film about how animals are raised for our consumption. 

It’s March 2015 when the couple sets out across America to find producers of pork, beef, chicken, eggs and dairy. Through their nearly nine months of encounters, we sample the views and labors of farmers in 16 states. What they dig up is more complex than pure dirt. 

Papola is no PETA activist. He’s more a skeptical Ulysses journeying with us between the rock and the hard place of commercial animal husbandry. So it packs all the more wallop when he gets a taste of what animals endure to fill our plates, and it can be seriously unappetizing. At Legacy Farms, for example, he squeezes himself into a hog crate so narrow he can hardly turn around. 

A spin through the Indiana swine complex shows some of the inhumane conditions that often go into making bacon. Viewers may cringe at the sight of electric prods, and wonder as owner Malcolm DeKryger boasts about saving the captive beasts from nature’s scourges. DeKryger, a Christian fundamentalist, believes “man does have a calling…a dominion over animals.” It’s hard to grasp how he squares such a redemptive vision with his ungodly methods to make piglets. Caged within an inch of her flesh, one dazed specimen is shown chewing her metal bar out of utter trauma and boredom. What a contrast with Wilbur, the happy rescue pig we meet at Animal Place sanctuary in California. 

There, like the free-roaming conditions of Becker Lane Organic Farm in Iowa, the animals are able to express their natural behaviors. Rather than being confined to gestation or farrowing crates, pregnant sows are kept in stables and moved to outdoor shelters when they’re ready to give birth. It’s a healthier deal all around. Spared the manure pits of intensive-confinement operations, they can maintain their natural health, even without antibiotics. Not since Babe has a pig so melted hearts as does the snouty herd shown frolicking around Becker’s open pasture.

Papola too has a soft spot for this rustic scene, he told me at a private screening of the film in New York. Asked about the turning points in his philosophical conversion, the filmmaker said that seeing the wholesome creatures at play on Becker’s farm was a pivotal moment.

Not that this large-scale supplier of organic pork is a perfect paradise. Half of its boars are castrated to boost food quality through population control. As we hear from owner Jude Becker, “It seems like a really invasive mutilation.” Quite so. But squirm as we may watching the fateful chop, how many of us would forego our cut of pork so its provider isn’t cut?

And that’s an essential thrust of this fact-finding roadie executive produced by Dave Matthews: animal welfare reform hinges on the demands of the marketplace. If anyone’s a villain here, it’s the audience’s eating habits. DeKryger himself says he’s “happy to produce how the consumer wants.” Yet “the consumer is being lied to,” cautions Perdue chicken farmer Craig Watts. All the more reason why Fork’s documentary barings supply welcome food for thought. 

One of the film’s biggest revelations is the ethical consideration given to Big Food by so many of its practicioners. This doesn’t excuse such travesties as separating newborn calves from their grieving mothers at even the most progressive of dairies. But hearing mega-producers talk about moral issues presents a more complex picture than we might expect, and it dispels the easy notion that they’re merely ruminating on their bottom line.

“With animals you’re talking about living beings that have feelings,” says organic rancher Kevin Fulton, adding, “but dominion does not mean complete domination.” Years back Fulton Farms replaced conventional practices with grass-based livestock systems to bolster sustainability, and the Nebraska operation now schools other farmers about the stockmanship of “sentient beings.” 

Or take Will Harris of White Oaks Pastures. “Good animal welfare means that it’s incumbent the the animal can express its instinctive behavior,” twangs the veteran cattleman. Papola is fortunate to stumble on as flavorful a commentator as this shotgun-toting Georgian, whose family farm wins kudos for its humane animal practices. That hasn’t always been the case. Back in the bad old days following World War II, White Oak Pastures cashiered traditional farming methods for the exploitations of monoculture agribusiness, but in 1995 Harris reprised the artisanal ways of his great-grandfather. Out went the feeding grain, hormone implants and antibiotics, and in came a grass-fed pastured regimen. 

Footage of another good riddance features a multi-decker truck that Harris recalls in an emotional voiceover. Gone are the grisly 30-hour transports that once led livestock to a cruel and unusual death, replaced by onsite slaughterhouses designed by Dr. Temple Grandin. “You’ve got to give animals a life worth living,” says the renowned animal scientist while acknowledging the irony of engineering a good farm-to-table death.

At the Fork isn’t out to make America vegetarian. Rather, the filmmakers hope to highlight “the impact of the choices we make each time we sit down to eat,” as Versaci put it during our pre-screening chat. Having convinced Burger King to put veggie burgers on their permanent menu, the film’s cowriter recognizes how offering alternatives to — and the lowdown on — meat can “add up over time.”  

She and Papola have crafted a protein-packed adventure that is skillfully constructed, crisply paced and apt to leave an impression long after the credits roll. Should viewers skip a meal before watching? Certainly there’s stuff to turn even the toughest stomachs. But unsettling as it is, At the Fork has something of a happy ending. It holds out hope of better farming practices to come. Plus Versaci and Papola stay married.

At the Fork opens in New York July 8.