Have documentary films changed our food landscape?

Shira Golding, a filmmaker and community activist based in Ithaca, says "yes."  

"Americans are making the not-so-giant-leap in logic that what we eat affects our health and the health of our planet," Shira writes in A Recipe for Change: Documentaries on Food. "And documentary films have played a significant role in getting us here."

In her article, Shira traces food documentaries from the 1976 Meat, which featured one of the countries largest slaughterhouses, to the 2009 Food Inc, which takes on the whole industrialized food system.

"One ingredient that is scarce in the theatrically released food documentaries... is examples of positive alternatives," Shira writes. "These films are primarily exposés of what has gone awry in our current system, with perhaps ten minutes at the conclusion featuring a montage of farmers’ markets and an invitation to change the system through consumer activism."  

Read the whole article here.

Note: Food Inc. is currently playing at Cornell's Willard Straight Theater and the September 29th screening will feature a panel discussion with Cornell and University of Toronto professors.