Chipotle Mexican Grill embraces anti-fast food film

As a committed sustainable food nut, I regularly gorge myself on food media. Everything Michael Pollan or Alice Waters writes, into the maw it goes. I've watched so many food documentaries that I know all the local food celebrities by sight and, when I spot them shopping at the farmer's market, become giddy and sneak photographs (eek! Cory Schrieber touched this fava bean!). So when I saw the new documentary Food, Inc. -- a biting indictment of the American food industry, and most pointedly, the way fast food juggernauts control the inputs, the politics, the cheapening of everything from labor to food safety -- was being shown for free thanks to a fast food chain, my eyes widened.

"You'll never eat Chicken McNuggets again," says one writer after watching the film. And yet until late 2006, McDonald's owned a majority stake in Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG), which just announced it was sponsoring a series of free screenings of Food, Inc. around the U.S. this week and next. Disconnect?