‘Oh, great, another real food documentary.’ That’s the unenthusiastic thought that went through my mind when I saw the notice about a new movie, Hungry for Change, that is premiering this week worldwide. I’ve watched several food related documentaries over the past few years, and though I found them all interesting (except one in particular that I couldn’t make myself watch through the end – Fathead), there’s only so much you can watch on the same topic without it becoming tiresome.
But for some reason despite my lack of enthusiasm I watched the short trailer, and that made me sign up so that I could receive free access to this movie until March 31. I watched the entire thing today, and I enjoyed it so, so much – more than any of the other food films I’ve watched before.
It was intelligently done, so that someone without a background in health and someone with a lot of knowledge would still come away with something. But what was really different, was that it wasn’t all about food. Yes, it started off discussing obesity and ill health, and how food is manufactured to create addiction. This is a huge issue. But when I hear people talk as if eating healthy food is all you need to be thin, I feel frustrated because that hasn’t been my personal experience. What if you don’t eat any processed foods and haven’t for years? You can’t blame MSG and artificially concocted chemicals for your health issues. Since my eighth child was born four years ago, I’ve been unable to get back to my ideal weight (after my seventh I did), despite an extremely good (WAP) diet.
Yet after this part of the film, it went on to talk about solutions – solutions that go beyond buying local or organic (though you can hear this referenced in comments, it’s not a main focus). The way juicing was presented made me rethink my position on it, which I suppose was good since I haven’t seriously considered it since I mentally put it to the side years ago along with low fat vegetarianism as a path to health.
I loved that they then they went on to discuss the non food related aspects of ill health – stress, exhaustion, and the thoughts you put in your mind. I think all of these are really critical issues, and the latter topic is one I have a special affinity towards. In all of these points I was able to see areas where I had room to improve (I tend to burn the candle at both ends), and I felt inspired to make positive changes as I watched.
Where I’ve found other programs interesting, I found this something I would really strongly recommend. I really, really liked this. I’m going to rewatch it sometime in the next week, despite the pre-Passover period being, hmm, slightly more busy than usual. 🙂
Here’s a link for the film – http://www.hungryforchange.tv/. To get free access, you have to sign in at the top right hand of the screen with your name and email address; at first I couldn’t find this and was a little frustrated that it was supposedly free and I couldn’t view it!
Avivah
(This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays.)
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