Fresh

Last night there was a community screening of the movie Fresh at the City Arts Centre. A guy named Mike, a fitness instructor by day, decided he wanted to tell people about sustainable food. He bought a screening edition of Fresh, rented the drama room of the City Arts Centre, and projected the movie onto the wall. I was there with a date and a pad of paper. I also wanted to sneak in pop-corn, but since Fresh is about challenging the industrial food system... well, it seemed inappropriate.

Fresh is very similar to the 2008 film Food Inc. Two of the main voices in Food Inc., author Michael Pollan and farmer Joel Salatin, also feature in Fresh. For all I know, Fresh could be unused footage from Food Inc.

I don't point this out as a negative. The two movies are actually good complements: while Food Inc. focuses mostly on the problems created by the industrial food system, Fresh concentrates on solutions. Besides spending more time on Salatin's farm, we meet Will Allen, a former basketball player who has built an organic farm in the middle of Milwaukee; and David Ball, who runs a group of grocery stores in Kansas city that champion local, sustainable food.