Food Stamped: A Documentary

Lastnight, I saw a great documentary called Food Stamped: A Documentary by Shira & Yoav Potash. It is a short film about a married couple in Berkeley who decide to follow the footsteps of some US Senators who took the Food Stamp Challenge. That involves eating $1 meals for 3 meals a day, per person--the typical American food stamp allotment. Except, they decided to try to do it eating healthy food (as much whole grains, protein, and organic produce they could afford) instead of eating cheap ramen, processed foods, pesticide-sprayed produce, etc.

They went to an excellent grocery store called the Berkeley Bowl and purchased bulk grains, lentils and beans and organic produce and spent about $48. Then, they planned out 7 days of meals with the food they had purchased. To measure their healthy eating decisions, they took their food journal to a nutritionist at the end of the week to see how well they did on get caloric needs, vitamins, food groups, etc.

Photo courtesy of Shira & Yoav Potash:
It was a very interesting and educational film and I dearly wish it could reach a wider audience. I plan to purchase the DVD and host some informal screenings for friends & family, but I thought maybe you would like to check it out as well and hopefully you can buy the DVD and share it with others.

Update: As part of the SF Indie Film Festival, Food Stamped is going to be playing in San Francisco on February 13 and 15, 2011.