My preview of Fresh The Movie

 

I recently previewed a new food flick called FRESH, a film my Ana Sofia Joanes. 

FRESH celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system. The film introduces us to pioneers in the fresh and local food movement who have witnessed the rapid transformation of our agriculture into an industrial model where farms have become factories and consumers have come to rely on nameless, faceless entities for their food. 

A solution orientation

FRESH reveals the challenges these pioneers have faced as they’ve confronted the consequences of our current factory farming system: food contamination, environmental pollution, depletion of our natural resources, corporate control, and the obesity epidemic. FRESH gives us glimpses of the problem, but spends more time on the solutions. By forging healthier, more sustainable alternatives, the pioneers featured in this film offer a practical vision for the future of our food, our nation’s farmers, and our planet. Unlike another film in the same genre, Food Inc., FRESH portrays a hopeful message about the possibility of a sustainable food system and culture. I found it an upper rather than a downer. [Photo right from Polyface Farm]

A glimpse of the problem

FRESH shows us what’s wrong with our current industrial food system with its mono-cropping, mono-culture, factory farmed foods, and producers who focus on productivity and alleged efficiency. The film reveals how the centralization and industrialization of our food system has gone against Nature and the problems this has created. 

Never before in history have cows been fed dead cows, chicken manure, and other animal by-products. We (meaning humans) have created the runoff that poisons rivers and streams, the toxic bacteria that has been showing up in our food with increasing frequency, the superbugs that threaten our health, and the super pests that threaten the food we feed upon. 

Small is beautiful

The film shows us what’s right about farms that are doing what nature intended, raising food on a smaller scale, using simple, sustainable methods that are beneficial for animals, people, and the environment. We see how their holistic methods actually produce more food with fewer inputs and expenses and without the pollution and other adverse effects. 

FRESH emphasizes our role as stewards of the animals and the environment. We see what life on a sustainable farm (Joel Saliton’s Polyface Farm) looks like, what the animals look like, and how much happier they and the people raising them are. Photo right Egg Mobile on Polyface Farm

We meet a farmer who gave up the factory farming system and started raising livestock in open spaces without drugs, antibiotics, or artificial additives, who saved $14,000 a year in vet bills in his first year of raising pigs on pasture. We see that it’s not impossible, impractical, or expensive to give up the conventional farming model for something better.

Studies actually show that medium size organic/biodynamic/farms are more sustainable than any size industrial farms. How can this be? The myth of productivity from factory farms fails to factor in all the expensive inputs required to keep the machine going. We learn from Michael Pollan that “Cheap food is an illusion. There’s no such thing as cheap food. The real cost of the food is paid somewhere. It’s paid for by the environment…or our health.” 

FRESH shows us that we don’t need the industrial food system and that it actually costs less to start and maintain a farm in the style of Joel Saliton (the father of the grassfed, pasture-raising movement) who has a multi-species, rotational system that produces more money per acre of food than farmers raising only cows on their land. Photo right: 100% Pastured Beef on Poylface Farm

Government and farming gone awry

Our government subsidizes grain and soybean farmers and processed foods but not fresh vegetables, fruits, or local small-scale food producers. Did you know that 70% of the grain and soy produced by our current agricultural system goes to feed animals that are not designed to eat grain and soy? We’re wasting most of our prime farmland growing food unfit for the animals we feed it to. Imagine what we could do if we converted that land to sustainable farms that feed animals what they’re designed by nature to eat: grass.

Farmers raising commodity crops (corn and soy) are paid less for their products than it costs to produce them? Is that crazy or what? A small number of companies control our food system from seed to plate!  That’s insanely unstable. We have corporate monopolies bankrupting our soil and our ability to be food self-sufficient. A lot of our farming is being outsourced to other countries. 

We must stop the insanity

Our food supply is dangerously susceptible to shocks and shortages due to weather and disease. By design, we don’t have a system based on local food. The buy fresh, buy local system makes sense ecologically, nutritionally, economically, socially and on other levels. Cheap food comes at the cost of abusing people, animals, and the environment. But don’t expect big government to solve this problem. The solution has to come from the ground up. It has to start at a grassroots level. 

Photo right: Happy pigs on Polyface Farm

A FRESH solution

Fresh food is really a social justice issue, a human right. A local food system would employ more people rather than displacing them. It requires less fuel to transport food directly to consumers in the local environment. The workers earn more money while building the local economy providing fresh food that tastes great. We win!

We can create a different kind of world. We can vote with our $$. FRESH, the movie, provides hope and a vision for a better world. It shows how we can change the food system over the next 50 years. Visit their web site to find showings in your area, watch trailers, and to learn how you can take action, visit: http://www.Freshthemovie.com

You won’t find FRESH at your local theater 

FRESH isn’t being packaged and promoted through conventional distribution channels so you won’t find it in theaters nationwide like Food Inc., a similar but less hopeful film that recently hit theaters around the country. It’s creators and marketing team wanted to market the film on a grassroots, community level, using it as an activist tool. They wanted supporters to purchase a license and host screenings in their own neighborhoods, ideally with local activists and food leaders on hand to answer questions and engage in discussion after the film. 

Here’s how it works

If you want to be a partner in promoting the movie, you can sign up, purchase a screening license, and host a screening of FRESH. You pay a screening license ($100 or $200 depending on the size of the screening). In exchange you’ll receive a screening kit consisting of several DVDs that you can sell at the event (for $20 each) to cover some of the licensing fee. You’re also given access to electronic promotional materials and a downloadable discussion guide.You’re encouraged to ask for a small donation or to charge for tickets to recoup the licensing fee and, if you like, raise money for FRESH or an organization of your choice.  

When you sign up to host a community screening on the FRESH website, your screening is listed on their site where our visitors can find out about it and RSVP. You can then sign in on their website and modify your event, create new events, and manage your email list. If you’re ambitious about getting the word out, you can also reach out to your constituencies, friends, and colleagues, and to follow up the event with resources and call to action. 

How’s it working?

So far their model is working, in part because of the timely nature of the film but also because FRESH is so positive and great at motivating people rather than scaring them. Using this model they've organized more than 600 screenings of FRESH around the world in the past three months!  They are partnering with an educational distributor to get the film into schools. 

If you host a larger or screening for more than 100 people, they waive the licensing fee and, instead, sell tickets directly on their site, charging $10 per ticket, and using the revenue to fund their outreach efforts. Those how want to share in the profits can charge a higher price per ticket and receive a portion of the proceeds. 

I wish 

I wish they would just release the film the way THE SECRET was released, where people can pay per view ($4.95) and buy the DVD if they want (for $24 or less). I think that would mean a lot more people see the film and feel motivated to action. I think they'd reach a critical mass much faster. Not everyone has a big screen TV. Not everyone wants to pay a $100 licensing fee to be able to view the movie. Some people don't have the option of viewing it in their cities or neighborhoods yet. Me? I don't even own a TV! I watch movies on my computer in my office...and I don't have a huge screen (I wish I did!). I wouldn't invite a bunch of people over to watch it in my home office. They wouldn't be comfortable nor would I. (How'd I get to see the film? I review products, books and videos so I was able to get a sneak preview.) So if you can't find a screening to attend in your area, you'll just have to keep waiting to see this feel-good film about how we can change our food system. Check their website for more info: www.FRESHthemovie.com

Comments

[Rachel Fasnacht of Family Friendly Farm in Missouri]

Love the review.

Wanted to tell you that there is an option to "organize a screening" for just one person. Cost $20.

Let's get the word out!

[Cathy Payne]

Great review, Rachel! I'm glad you got to preview the film. Ana's previous documenatary is available as a free download, and I believe that might be the plan for FRESH after it has been viewed extensively. Right now part of the audience commitment is a call to action, so people are urged to view in a group and have dialogue around local issues in regard to sustainable food. For example, our meat farmer has a model similar to Polyface Farm but even more sustainable since he uses heritage breeds and is raising his own poultry. Check out his blog at www.NaturesHarmony.com. We're screening it in Atlanta October 17 along with providing lists of local sustainable food and a panel discussion with our local farmers. Can't wait! BTW, your cookbooks are beautiful and I must set aside some time to check out all those yummy recipes!

[Vin - NaturalBias]

Hi Rachel! I've watched both Fresh and Food, Inc. and have written about both of them. I think Fresh is a great film, but I also think it will only appeal to people like us who already embrace this type of mentality.

I did the "one person screening" mentioned in the first comment and watching it with my wife and step-daughter. I loved it, but by the half way point of the film, my wife was asleep and my step-daughter left the room.

Yes, Food, Inc. is much more in your face and has more of the shock factor, but it's an excellent documentary as well, and unfortunately, I think the shock factor is necessary to get more of the general public thinking in a more sustainable way. Instead of falling asleep, Food, Inc. made my wife upset. The fact of the matter is that much of what the food industry is doing IS very upsetting and I think people need to need to be fully aware of what's going on.

Regardless of which film might be more effective, the bottom line is that we're very fortunate to have both of them. :)

[Damian Motlo]

Hi Rachel,

Never heard of this movie, hmmm. I did see Food Inc and really
enjoyed it thoroughly. Our food system is really in a tangle, Id
like to lend a hand in truly getting it fixed; beyong the
smaller things we do in life to help it out.

-Damian Motlo

[Chef Rachel]

Hi Vin,

You might be right! I didn't think about how FRESH might appeal to people already converted to the eat fresh, eat whole, eat eat as much locally grown food as possible and how FOOD INC might be better medicine for people who need more of a shock to change their shopping and eating habits! Good point! Thanks for posting your comment and helping me modify my attitude about the virtues of each!

Thanks,
Rachel

[Chef Rachel]

Hi Damian,

Thanks for reading and posting on my blog. I think we can make a huge difference by recommending FRESH and FOOD INC movies to our family, friends, colleagues, and clients.

Another idea is to host 'Eat Fresh, Eat Local, Eat Real" potlucks in our homes, local parks or other locations. We could set the date, time, and location, invite people we know, encourage them to use as many fresh and locally grown ingredients as possible, to focus on real/whole foods with the simplest, fewest, and purest ingredients, and have them RSVP so we know about how many people to expect and who's bringing what kind of dish. People could share their experiences, recipes, tips, local resources, and more at these events! That could be a way to provide education and support for a new way of eating and living.

Rachel