We live in the era of the foodumentary — the food documentary, that is, a creature of high moral fibrer and deep sincerity. Right now, there are no less than 4 foodumentaries circulating widely through American theaters, each one brimming with irrefutable facts and clarity of vision: End of the Line, Food Inc, Fresh, and Food Fight.
Food Inc is the foodumentary of the moment — the mere fact that I can link to reviews in the SF Chronicle, NY Times, and the LA Times tells you that (a) the foodumentary is a highly regarded genre now; (b) Food Inc was produced by same team that brought us Academy Award-winning An Inconvenient Truth; and (c) Food Inc is getting push back from Monsanto and others (Safe Food Inc is registered to the American Meat Institute), which means, this foodumentary has gotten under Goliath’s armor. Great fun!
But because foodumentaries are thick on the ground and have been for years, my expectations are rising for the foodumentary’s quality and execution of argument. I think this is important because the genre’s goal has already been achieved, to a large degree: People understand the issues and they are beginning to agree. I was on a sustainable food panel at a conference recently, and the audience was every bit as well informed as the panelists. So, it’s not enough anymore to repeat the same talking points on corporate madness, governmental abuse, eco-disaster, a clip of Michael Pollan speaking, and then wrap it all up with a breezy montage on farmers markets with a world beat playback (*cough* Future of Food *cough*).
No, we really need a new generation of foodumentary. So, with that in mind, here’s a wish list of topics and arguments that I’d like to see tackled in future food films.
1) Please address class issues and food prices of organic and sustainable foods
The easiest way to pop a foodumentary’s argument is to say, “But I can’t afford to eat all organic and all local.” This is a problem, and until someone tackles it, it’s going to remain like a peppering jab in our faces.
This issue came up when Alice Waters was on the circuit for the documentary Food Fight, of which she was a principle talking head. She was interviewed on 60 Minutes and respondedto criticism of sustainable foods’ generally high price (particularly at her restaurant Chez Panisse in SF), by saying that Americans should “make a sacrifice on the cell phone or the third pair of Nike shoes.” I mean, excuse me? A third pair of Nikes? Who in the world is she talking to when she says such a thing? Michael Pollan, too, has failed to address high prices in sustainable foods satisfactorily (except to say that food should cost more). Cost has remained largely unaddressed because high prices are an inconvenient truth for sustainable foods.
Well, someone needs to shoot a documentary that takes price head on, especially now that American consumers are shopping more price consciously. We need a foodumentary that pointedly addresses organic/sustainable food prices by showing (as the excellent foodumentary King Corn did passingly) that the Farm Bill builds the American diet. As most sustainable foodies know, diabetes and obesity are traceable to cheap junk food, which are rendered so cheap because of subsidized ingredients through Farm Bill payouts. American beef is shockingly cheap for this same reason. We subsidize corn so that livestock grain will be cheaper and burger can be priced more affordably to more Americans. Tailoring the Farm Bill to subsidize real food — veggies, fruits, and whole ingredients instead of just meat and junk food — is the answer. Take note, filmmakers: The next Farm Bill comes up for debate in 3 years. Plenty of time to line up your talking heads.
Availability of organic and sustainablle food options also needs to be addressed in greater detail. It’s not enough to say “find a farmers market” or “buy organic.” In great swaths of America, it’s simply not possible to do that because so many regions are beholden to the very “food system” that foodumentarists are targeting. Low income sections of cities are “food deserts,” as many have said. This desperately needs to be talked about rather making it sound like there’s a whole alternative food system just waiting for customers.
2) Focus on grocery stores
A continuation of the access argument. Americans will always buy more food at grocery stores than farmers markets and a thousand foodumentaries won’t change that. So while it’s terrific to show Will Allen and Joel Salatin (YouTube scenes from the movie Fresh) and the marvelous things that such great farmers do on their farms (truly), foodumentarists also need to tell the grocery-store story and lean on companies like Whole Foods, Trader Joes, and regional chains that promote organic foods to open their markets to smaller farmers. Rather than adhering like grim death to the massive warehouse model, these chains need to empower individual stores to start carrying more local, sustainable food. The reason they don’t, after all, is the need for multi-store volume. By focusing on individual stores with buyers who have individual relationships with the Allens, Salatins and other local, sustainable food producer, the chains can create a “national local” food system in ways that farmers markets never could.
There’s already a terrific model for stores that have been buying this way out of necessity for decades: Grocery co-ops.
3) Get out of California
One of the reasons Alice Waters and Michael Pollan make slightly dubious spokespeople for the local and sustainable foods movement is that they come from the Bay area in California. There’s barely a food you can name that isn’t raised, grown, hunted or produced sustainabily in that region, so it’s too easy for critics to say, “Wellll, in San Francisco you can eat that way, sure…”
Meanwhile, there are scores of powerful local and sustainable food scenes across the country that remain largely anonymous, their stories unfilmed: the driftless region in the Upper Midwest, western Iowa, North Carolina, Vermont, Seattle, Portland, and the Ozarks to name a few. I’d like to see the argument made that, hell, if you can eat local in Minnesota, then no whining from the rest of the country. And rather than selecting one farmer to represent one region, it would be great if filmmakers really dug in and gave us a taste of how many Will Allens and Joel Salatins are farming out there.
I say this all in advance of seeing Food Inc, which, for all I know, may address these issues head on (though I doubt it). Have any of you seen it yet? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Also, what are some of the better foodumentaries you’ve seen?
LATER: I have a growing list of recent foodumentaries here.
Excellent post. What I want to see is a doc that focuses on the people in the food chain- the farmers and farmworkers, processors and meatpackers, grocery store workers, wait staff, cooks and busboys, etc.: who they are, what their situation is, and how can we improve it. This is the class issue which hasn’t been touched yet, as far as I know.
In good news, indieWIRE, the web site of the independent film industry, says Food, Inc. is rocking in its first weekend, drawing big audiences and being “featured on Nightline, Good Morning America, NPR’s Morning Edition, PBS’s NOW, Regis and Kelly, The Colbert Report and Howard Stern, and had big features written about it in The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times. At one point last week it ranked #20 out of all searches in Google.” It opens in the Twin Cities on Friday.
food inc is in one (!) theater in los angeles for one(!) week, people don’t really have a chance to see this movie, people in Upper Midwest, western Iowa, North Carolina, Vermont, Seattle, Portland, and the Ozarks don’t even see it…..
But that’s how it works with distributing documentaries, which typically don’t garner the level of popularity that Food Inc is enjoying. Docs get floated in a couple big cities to see how they do, and if they take off, then the provinces get a quick taste.
But that’s why we have Netflix. And Hulu. Not that I’m suggesting such a thing…
I only disagree with one point. That being that the message is out and people are aware. I am aware of the issues presented in Food Inc because I am a member of a couple local groups that focus on food issues. However most of the other members are like the people that attended your panel. Already “in the know”. A small percentage of the population “understand the issue and agree” but the majority are ignorant and tend to want to stay that way. I spoke with a guy the other day that didn’t want to know where his food came from because he “liked to eat”. I assume he meant if he knew more about the sources of his food he would avoid things like grocery stores and chain restaurants.
I like that you are getting the message out and I agree that we need to address the price disparity between sustainable and conventional foods. Vote with your fork, 3 times a day.
chris@onthekitchensteps.com
Very good points. Maybe a better way to put it would be to say that the choir, the sustainable foodie core, is getting much bigger, and the people interested in joining that choir are growing in number exponentially, too. Movies don’t get reviewed in the LA Times, SF Chronicle, and NY Times if it’s solely the people who are already in the know who are interested in this subject matter. America is listening and open to Food Inc’s message.
Yeah, price is going to be an increasingly important point for organics and sustainable foods to address. Our whole economy is built on cheap food — wages, rent, mortgage payments all are what they are because food is so cheap in America. We can’t simply say, “Food should be expensive.” The average American simply cannot afford, on a blood-from-a-turnip level, to spend $12 on a gallon of organic milk and a loaf of local artisan bread.
We have to address the cost of healthy food. With federal policy. Now.
I think that the success and visibility of these documentaries can be attributed, in part, to the current “green” phase we find ourselves in. While I find the trend’s visibility helpful to the overall goal of sustainability, it’s dangerous to connect this movement, which, as you point out, belongs to all classes, with what can be perceived as an passing whim of the frivolous elite.
I also have a gripe with those in California who talk about sustainability without the admission that they are living on borrowed water.
Finally, I wish that some foodumentary would show the importance of home gardening, food preservation, and urban homesteading in general, all of which decrease our reliance on the big box stores.
I confess I watched a bit of Food Inc. on hulu and it struck me as preaching to the choir.
culinarybliss.blogspot.com
Interesting thoughts, thanks for commenting. Yeah, I wondered if Food Inc would feel that way too (“preaching to the choir”). I’ll finally get to see for myself on Friday when it comes to Minneapolis.
As for the current “green” phase we’re in, you could equally say that we’re finally interested in eco-matters because of the older and continually growing awareness surrounding food. By my read, food consciousness has been on a steady climb in America pop culture long before Michael Pollan — I’d track it from the “alar scare” in the eighties, actually. Organics has been growing at roughly 20% for over a decade — closer to 15 years. I’m sure the two are intertwined (eco-mindedness and sustainable foodiness) and with Obama in power, the two will fuel and drive each other, but I think the current “greenness” is much more attributable to recent spikes in gas prices and our “persian Excursion” in Iraq. Sustainable foodiness is older, in my humble o.
I work for a Whole Foods Market in Massachusetts and we buy as much local produce as is possible. Whole foods does in fact have a national local program and it is a large focus of the company. Remember though, that local means seasonal. Local is not strawberries in December in Massachusetts. This is a basic concept that consumers just don’t seem to be aware of.
Much of the problem with much of this issue is with the consumer. People want everything, all the time, no matter what season. They want perfect quality, all year round. If there are spots on the apples, no one will buy them( and they will complain about the quality of the produce we sell, as if we built it in the back room). People complain that three days after they bought raspberries they got moldy and want their money back. We have regular returns from customers who found for example three dry oranges in a box of oranges and want a full refund. Customers don’t want to hear that lettuce is expensive this year because where it’s grown had terrible weather all season. They don’t want to hear that the crop of a particular veggie just isn’t that good this season. This also creates expense and is an example of the pressure put on retailers both multi-volume and local market.
Customers who drive to the store in a 25-40,000 car want their food to be cheap! Out of all the things they buy in their life they want their food to be the most inexpensive, and they want it to be perfect and they want it now. We are creating this monster and until we stop being so demanding it won’t stop.
You can’t have it all. You can’t have decent wages to farmers and workers + eat every food nomatter what the season+perfect quality+organic+sustainable+a profit to the farmer and the market+cheap! You can’t do it in any manufacturing business and you can’t do it with food. Children are slaving in factories elsewhere because we want cheap. Local farms are dying and our food is becoming contaminated because we want cheap.
My hopes for this film is that it will educate people about what cheap food is. If they still want it, that’s their choice, but I want the ability as a consumer, to be educated and informed about what is in my food. I want to know if there is growth hormone in my milk or if what I’m eating has been cloned or genetically modified. I have that right to make an educated decision about what I’m putting into my body all day, everday.
If someone came you to with a new Saab and said he was selling it for $500.00, you would be suspicious. When someone is selling you an entire meal for $3.00, you should be just as suspicious.
Superb comment, anonymous, and, yeah, you’re preaching to your choir with me. I was a produce worker in a high-end natural foods store for many years, and can attest that everything you say is true. I hope y’all took the opportunity to talk to those folks to explain local, seasonality, etc — I’m sure you did. Education is the only way. Saab by Saab, eh?
But I always had to keep in mind that while I liked the fact that my store paid a fair price to farmers and a premium for organics, and that we were sticking behind the “real cost of food” ethos, that some friends of mine simply could not afford to shop where I worked. And no amount of education or convincing worked. As I said elsewhere, a gallon of organic milk is roughly $7-8 right now and a loaf of bread is $3-4. That’s $10-12 on staple items in the American diet that otherwise can be bought for half that amount. Half. Yeah, it might be crap, as you say, but the US economy is built on that economic reality and no amount of education (used-Escort by used-Escort??) will change an individual’s meager budget.
That means the sustainable food movement is ultimately a middle- and upper class movement and a niche market right now. That’s fine as a beginning, but if sustainable foods are going to become staples of the lower/working class, then organics and local food has to be socialized, subsidized, and brought under the auspices of the Farm Bill.
Thanks for your comments El Dragon.
I wanted to let you know that I do agree with you and I needed ( just because it made me smile) to tell you that I drive a 9 year old Escort.
I have to comment on one of the sad things I have frequently witnessed. When I lived in NYC I lived in a poor neighborhood. What I regularly saw, in my local supermarket, were poor people filling their baskets with expensive packaged foods when they could have eaten for half the price fresh produce and fresh dairy products, meats etc. Education is really key here.
One good thing about this Film. I found this website because of it…….
Thanks again,
Ej
A fellow Escortier! I was last owner on two (2) Escorts. Battle axes, man. Cheap as hell, and I love them. Now I drive a Taurus because all the Escorts around here are dying out. Sad.
As long as we’re talking Escorts…I gotta tell my cheap-ass Escort story. Once, I was coming back to my car after hanging out the local coffee shop. I opened the hatch to stash my backpack and it looked like my wife had cleaned it out. Nice, I thought. Then I went around to the driver’s side, opened it up, and noticed running shoes in the back seat. Funny. My wife’s not a runner but she must have bought a pair? Weird.
Then the light bulb went. I was in the wrong Escort. Mine, the exact same color, was two cars up. I had opened up a strange Escort with my keys.
Aah! American auto superiority….