Fresh the Movie: A Review

That’s right. Another food documentary!

The good news is that there’s lots of good news about FRESH. The bad news is there’s little in the way of bad news, making for a less snarkilicisousness review. Sigh!

It’s hard not to compare FRESH to the more prominent food and farming expose of the moment, FOOD, INC, a veritable phenomenon that’s currently sweeping the nation. Both documentaries feature the convincing analysis of food guru Michael Pollan and charming folksiness of sustainability maven Joel Salatin. Both films use disturbing factory farm images to hammer home the point that the American food system is unhealthy. And both mirror the structural problem of Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma by purporting that a strong dedication to sustainable food is the answer to industrial ag’s problems, without offering many practical ideas of how to support such eating.

But where FRESH departs from FOOD, INC, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and most other food documentaries of late, is that FRESH is downright hopeful. It even offers some real examples of change coming about. And in a tidal wave of necessary but depressing foodumentaries, that’s a real relief.

This hopefulness of FRESH’s comes mainly in the form of Milwaukee urban farmer and Growing Power founder Will Allen. While Salatin functions in FOOD, INC and The Omnivore’s Dilemma as sort of a dismayed-yet-benevolent outsider who farms his remote, polyculture farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley — far, far away from the vast majority of people watching or reading about Salatin — Will Allen shows through his work that the sustainable food movement is not in the least bit remote. If a man in urban Milwaukee with two and a half acres can produce 100,000 pounds of veggies per year, annually turn 6 million pounds of food waste into compost and soil, and change that many lives among Milwaukee families (2000 Milwaukeeans volunteer at Growing Power every year), then “sustainability” isn’t a pie-in-the-sky movement — it is upon us, happening right now. Sure, it means investing in a compost pail, getting some worms, a wheelbarrow, building up your soil yourself, and gardening for your own family or community. But it’s hard to argue with Allen’s buzzy, DIY, activist energy, and this movie leans on that energy, hard, right into the closing credits, with testimonials of Growing Power workshop attendees talking about how they’re going to start gardening, get a couple acres, and take up the torch that Allen lit for them. FRESH is the only food documentary I can recall that ends with a high note of booming, infectious optimism.

But as crucial as Will Allen is to FRESH (and the beleaguered reviewer who has to watch depressing movies about our food!), the arguably more important story comes from farmboy-turned-Pope of Pork Russ Kremer.

Now, trust me, I love Joel Salatin. I love him like the crazed, oddball uncle of the sustainable food family who jovially rants and raves at every big get-together (or documentary). But for leverage in expanding our movement, we need a 100 more Russ Kremers. After all, Kremer, the director of Ozark Mountain Pork Co-operative, started off in industrial hog production, so he saw firsthand the health problems of those animals and general unsustainability of the industrial food model. Things changed for Kremer when a hog’s tusk pierced his knee and his leg swelled to twice its size (if you simply must know more about this, watch Kremer talk about it in this clip from FRESH). Kremer contracted what I assume to be an antibiotic-resistant staph infection, a.k.a. MRSA, that nearly killed him. When he did recover (he credits an experimental drug with saving his life), Kremer came to believe that he was propagating a sick, addicted system, so he “went cold turkey”: He exterminated his herd and started over, raising hogs without antibiotics. His pigs have now been drug-free for 14 years, and his co-operative brings together 52 Missouri family farms, all of whom raise hogs sustainably.

I say we need 100 Kremers because we need an army of intelligent folks (like Kremer and Organic Farmer of the Year Tom Frantzen) who have farmed both conventionally and sustainably, and who can testify that the sustainable farming life is an improvement for their own personal health, for their families, and for their animals. Like I said, I love Joel Salatin and Will Allen, too — but Russ Kremer’s story is one that might actually resonate with industrial farmers who are looking for a way out, and a way in to a healthier, more long-lasting way to farm.

If I were going to describe FRESH and FOOD, INC as parties, I’d have to say that FOOD, INC is like hanging out at a bar with angry, intelligent people. They sure know what they’re talking about, but it’s impossible to interrupt them long enough to ask, “But what should we DO about this damn mess you’re describing?” FRESH, meanwhile, is like a boisterous dinner party with farmers and cooks and fun food experts. Sure, Uncle Joel and that guy Michael spout off, like always, but with lots of dinner shots of people eating meals together, FRESH seems to have been made by people who don’t want to mourn farming. They want to celebrate the farmers who are taking a harder, more sustainable approach to bringing us such great food.

Bravo to that, says El Dragón.