Veggie Revolution wrote about WHAT'S ON YOUR PLATE?:
I was asked to review the new DVD, "What's on YOUR Plate? The Film about Kids and Food Politics". The stars of the movie are two 11-year-old multiracial girls in NYC, Sadie Hope-Gund and Safiyah Riddle. The film documents the girls' quest to learn why American diets are often so unhealthy, and why our food travels an average of 1500 miles from farm to fork. Sadie and Safiyah were fantastic in their roles as curious young consumers. They were bright, confident, and completely natural in front of the camera. Great role models for other young girls, who will feel empowered by watching the two in action.
Sadie and Safiyah interviewed a variety of relevant experts: NYC school food executives, an MD specializing in cholesterol management, food author and activist Anna Lappé, a food-conscious diabetic, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. That was just for starters.
After investigating school lunches laden with with fat and empty calories, and the corporate origins of processed foods that fill our supermarkets, Sadie and Safiyah turned their focus to healthy alternatives. I loved the diversity of local food providers in the film.
For me, the exploration of solutions was the most interesting aspect of the movie. I admired the filmmakers' selection of people to represent the local-foods movement in NYC. Three who stood out for me were Maritza Owens of Harvest Home Farmers Markets in Harlem, a Spanish-speaking family of farmers (the Angels) in Goshen, NY, and the founders of Stanton Street CSA (Kevin Walter and Sasha Schulman). A CSA is an agreement that allows consumers to prepay a local farmer for an annual share of his or her produce. All of these people were involved in getting locally-grown produce directly to consumers in NYC. At least some of the produce was organic; it wasn't clear to me whether all of it was.
So the movie in a very visceral way illustrated how to seek out and support local farmers and local vendors who provide healthy fresh vegetables. Most such people are barely making ends meet and desperately need community support, so the movie is valuable if it accomplishes nothing more than encouraging support of local farmers. I also appreciated the variety of cultures represented in the film, and the discussions about neighborhoods and demographic groups with little access to fresh produce. The girls' interview with the Manhattan Borough President addressed that problem specifically.
I was impressed with the movie and I applaud the efforts of everyone involved. I highly recommend it for families with children and as a tool for educators, especially educators of young people. In fact, the website of the film's distributor offers a 64-page curriculum and 3 study modules that go along with the DVD, entitled School Food, Health and Access, and Local Food.
Although I liked it, I wouldn't necessarily advise an adult foodie who's already knowledgeable about farmers markets and CSAs to seek out the film. And it's not a movie I would have chosen to watch purely for my own enjoyment or for information about food. However, as a food writer with fantasies about making a documentary, I might watch it again as an example of an extremely well-executed film about food. Sadie's mother, Catherine Gund, produced the movie and her expertise as a professional filmmaker was evident. There was not a dull moment, and I can easily imagine a class of 8th graders or 11th graders riveted to the screen during the entire film.
As long as we're examining "what's on our plates", I was a tad disappointed that the documentary didn't address the merits of organic food more forcefully, and didn't mention the fact that Americans eat much more meat per capita than any other country. Our over-consumption of animal products has implications far beyond our health. The livestock sector has a huge impact on global warming - a fact well-documented by scientists worldwide. A recent paper published by Worldwatch Institute attributes more than 50% of greenhouse gases to the livestock sector. Although the film didn't get into environmental issues much, it could easily have incorporated both these issues in relation to health - especially given that both girls are vegetarians.
Despite omissions, the film is a powerful tool. There are advantages though to covering a few topics well rather than touching on everything. No question that Sadie and Safiyah covered a few topics with pizzazz and aplomb. "What's on YOUR Plate?" invites young viewers to boldly seek answers about their own school food and demand access to healthy produce. We all deserve fresh, local, and wholesome food.
Kathleen Masterson from 77 Square wrote about WHAT'S ON YOUR PLATE?:
The words "environmental issues" often evoke seemingly distant, intangible problems, like melting arctic ice or droughts on the other side of the globe, things that feel removed from our daily lives.
But the Tales of Planet Earth film festival shows us that the environment isn't something that happens out there; "it's where we live, work and play," said festival co-founder and UW-Madison professor Gregg Mitman.
And one of our most visible connections to the environment is our food. The film "What's On Your Plate?" by Catherine Gund screened Saturday morning at the MMoCA theater, followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers.
The plucky documentary follows Gund's daughter, Sadie, and friend Safiyah as they traipse across the city talking to friends, chefs and school and government leaders to find out what their friends are eating, where that food comes from, and how to increase access to fresh, healthy food.
"At first the movie was going to be about 'bad' vegetarians, the ones who don't eat any vegetables," said Sadie Hope-Gund, explaining that when she was around 10 years old, she'd noticed a bunch of her classmates were turning vegetarian and mostly ate pizza and pasta and cheese.
Then, she tasted a tomato on a family trip to Ohio that changed all that. After eating a plump, sweet cherry tomato, Sadie wanted to know why this one tasted so much better than any other tomato she'd ever had. They drove off to meet the local gardener, and the trip set in motion their journey to find the real stories behind our food.
The film follows the girls as they make changes in their own neighborhood. They convince their elementary school to start providing more vegetables at lunch, teach a friend's dad about local farmers' markets to help him eat better after his heart attack and help make connections between food growers and food eaters.
The girls also meet the Angel family, which grows veggies sold at a local market but is just barely making enough to cover business costs. The family needs a guaranteed income. The school needs veggies. A new partnership is born. Not only does Sadie's former elementary school buy weekly shares of the Angel family's produce, but the students actually visit the farm and learn about the growing process.
"With many environmental films about food, people leave the theater without ever wanting to eat again," says Gund, but she wanted "What's On Your Plate?" to be about solutions, about how to eat good food.
The film ends by asking "What's going on in your neighborhood?" One Madisonian, Nathan Larson of Community Groundworks at Troy Gardens, has some great answers to that question.
Community Groundworks at Troy Gardens is connecting people across the Madison community. Part of its work is teaching kids from low-income homes how to grow and harvest food. The garden gets seedlings donated by a horticulture program at Oak Hill Correctional Institution, and then the excess from the harvest is donated to local food pantries. Community Groundworks has also begun a teacher-training program and so far has trained more than 20 teachers to start gardens and integrate fresh veggies into students' meals and education.
After the movie screening on the Capitol Square, junior chefs Raymond Bailey and Japhy Wright Miller chopped, diced and rolled, making spring rolls from fresh ingredients they helped grow at Troy's Kids Garden. The kids' small hands confidently and comfortably handled ingredients that might have baffled lesser chefs -- pea-vine, kohlrabi and a turnip-looking vegetable.
Larson says that in addition to some great natural spaces to play in, the garden really gives the kids a chance to take ownership over their food, and be leaders. And their hard work means more local food and more healthy, fresh produce donated to food pantries.
And besides that, the food just tastes good, the kids attest. When asked about how students responded to more veggies in school lunches, filmmaker Sadie smiled and gave a thumbs up, "They like 'em."
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