What’s On Your Plate?
Safety Rating: Safe for family members, not so for corporate food interests.
Friendly Rating: All ages.
Quality Rating: As informative as it is adorable.
Planet Green at 11 p.m.
This is one to set your VCR or DVR for. The two-hour presentation features 11-year-olds Sadie Hope-Gund and Safiyeh Riddle as they look at how food gets to us and how to get the foods we should be eating. The girls interview their peers, farmers, cafeteria staff and even a politician and an activist to make the point that we should be buying our produce from directly through our local farmers and eating fruits and veggies instead of Funyuns.
I am in complete agreement, especially as far as Funyuns are concerned – those things are gross. What does get missed is how you’re going to get locally-grown fresh veggies in the dead of winter in New York. Someone else miss-speaks and claims that Mountain Dew is owned by Coke, when they’re owned by Pepsi (but the point remains that a few corporate interests own the vast majority of the brands on our supermarket shelves). Nor do they deal with the fact that cupcakes taste a lot better than carrots.
And that is a major issue, especially for those of us who have dealt with young ‘uns who refuse to eat anything that Mother Nature colored green. While I concede that there are those folks who genuinely like vegetables (my mother is one of them), for the vast majority of us, ice cream and chocolate cake win hands-down over asparagus and lettuce. To pretend otherwise is not only flat-out ridiculous, you’re going to totally lose on the credibility front.
That being said, truly fresh veggies are much better tasting than most of what’s available in your average supermarket. And I, for one, love going to my local farmer’s market not only for the produce, but for the community. Which is one of the things the movie does point up.
Furthermore, the girls are just plain cute – not in the physical sense. But in that they’re so passionate about this project, and still can’t help giggling as they talk about it. Yes, adults were obviously involved. But there’s a freshness to the way the kids look at subject that evokes the very veggies they’re trying to get us to eat.
Speaking of food — You should check out a new debate-style PBS show which touches on corporate farming and its effect on our health.
Hosted by Bob Bowdon, the show is called “Two-Way Street,” and it premieres tomorrow at 10 p.m. on KVCR, LA’s PBS affiliate.
This week’s episode, though, is not about food. Instead it focuses on the stirring drug decriminalization debate.