DiluzjFilmAnnotation10

Joseph DiLuzio

 //What’s On Your Plate?//, by Cathrine Gund, 2009

 The film investigates where food comes from, what it is made of, how far it travels, who the farmers are that make it, and why locally grown food is less main stream then food from other countries that travels thousands of miles by plane and truck. The film follows two 11 year old girls from NYC, Sadie and Safiyah, as they investigate where their food comes from. The documentary follows them on their step by step discovery process of just how far the average food on their plate travels, and begin to question why the more locally food isn’t used. As they dig deeper, they naturally discover how the government subsidies, corporate profit margins, and money in general, plays an important role in determining the healthiness and localness of their food. By having these two 11 year old girls be the narrators of the film, the documentary manages to provide all of the scientific and complicated political commentary of a documentary on food miles, while still being easy to understand and take in small snippets of information at a time. This film brings out the sustainability problems of imported food. These include the ecological disaster that is CO2 emissions from all of the planes and cars transporting the produce from other countries. Additionally, the film discusses the economic and cultural sustainability problem of America loosing small farmers each year to major corporations who import their produce, or to the growing corn subsidies super giant. The fact that we have more people in prison then working as farmers, producing food for our citizens was a startling fact. The unsustainable health implications that arise from these foods are also a concern. The film documents several families that have encountered major health risks, including heart attacks, type II diabetes, high cholesterol, and obesity. These unfortunate events do well to show how not eating wisely can lead to life threatening health issues. This film does a great job in providing a simple, easy to understand argument for eating sustainably. By following these families that have all taken the choice to eat sustainably, the film does a good job in furthering the argument that eating sustainably is a choice, and a choice that many Americans can make. A great moment in the film was when the family in Harlem found out that there was a locally grown food farmer’s market right around the block from where they live, and they did not know about it for the years it had been around. This shows that the main reason most Americans do not choose the healthier life style is partly income, but mostly due to a lack of knowledge of the existence of this alternative. This film does wonders for the locally grown food movement, simply by its approachability on the subject, which is helping it reach audiences around the nation. The film did a poor job in convincing me, however, that there could be enough farmers growing produce locally to provide for all the inhabitants of New York City, never mind the rest of the state. The main issue I have with the argument in this film, is that I am not convinced there is enough food producing farmers local to areas with major cities, such as NYC. With such major cities having such a high density of a population, food would have to be imported from further away in order to meet the high demand. While this may be a separate issue stemming from our desire to live in less and less sustainable areas (such as Las Vegas, NV, located in the middle of a desert) is leading us to a point where we must make a choice between living in these areas, and living sustainably. This film best addresses the average American city dweller because, as the film shows, there is a lack of understanding from the families that live in cities, as to where their food comes from, and the possibility to get it elsewhere. This film does a great job in raising awareness to these city families, teaching them that they food they are eating is unhealthy and that the sustainable alternative exists. The film does a good job in providing a list of sources to find out where their locally grown food is sold, and what kinds of foods are indigenous to their area. Through some research, I found the PDF that the girls were looking at in the movie, which listed which fruits and vegitables are available during what month in the New York Area, < []>.

