Tonight, The Girl and I will be watching A Place at the Table. It is by the same people who made Food, Inc. {an AWESOME film!} so I am super excited. The film explores the connection between the availability of healthy food and income. Basically, it shows how lower income children are not getting the nutrition they need to be successful because whole foods are just too expensive.
Right now, the film is in theaters {check your local listings}, available for rent on iTunes, or On Demand {for those of you that have satellite}, and on Amazon Instant Video. It looks like it is $6.99 to rent on amazon, which for me is totally worth it, because for the first 100,000 tickets, downloads, or books purchased, Plum Organics will donate one essential nutrition pouch to a baby or toddler. It’s win-win, I get to watch the movie and a little of my money goes toward something I believe in.
A huge thanks to Jo on Facebook for this awesome recommendation! If you have a movie recommendation for me, let me know in the comments below.
Let me know what you think if you decide to watch it–or if you have already seen it. Did you love it? Hate it? Can’t wait to watch it over and over?
Looking for more movies?
Check out the full list of my Friday Night at the Movies Selections or click on over & look at all the movies on Amazon Instant Video. There are a ton of videos to choose from that will cost you absolutely nothing {nada, zilch, free-o} with Amazon Prime; like thousands of regular movies & TV shows & hundreds of documentaries {Wahoo!}. Get all the details HERE!
Peace out Girl Scouts & have yourself a great weekend,
~Mavis
Jo B. says
Sweet, glad you liked the suggestion. Now I need to watch it, too.
Bridget says
Just watched “Vegucated” on Netflix.
Bridget says
Also, “Craigslist Joe.”
A man spends a month depending on the goodness of Craigslist posters for his survival.
(might be up your thrifting alley) 😉
Cathy says
Wow, I hope that comes to Netflix soon. I just watched a video on Youtube with the directors & produces being interviewed by the New York Times and their main point seemed to be that the government needs to spend more money on the school lunch program and food stamps, because people cannot be expected to buy healthy food with the amount of money they are given on food stamps. I just looked at my state, and a family of 5 can receive $793 per month. WOW!!! I spend $400 per month for my family of 5 for food, cleaners, health & beauty items, etc. and we eat a very healthy, whole foods diet. If I had a bigger budget, I would buy more organic items, but I think the secret to a healthy diet isn’t more money, but more home-cooked, made from scratch foods and fresh fruits and vegetables. People have to be willing to cook. Fresh chicken is less per pound than chicken nuggets. A bag of carrots is less expensive than a bag of chips. A pound of grapes is less expensive than a package of cookies, etc. I hope the movie is better than the interview they gave, but now I’m not willing to pay $6.99 to find out!
Dennis says
I agree with Cathy on this one. And relying on these phoney politicians to feed us is just exacerbating the problem. I watch the people here in my state with their government issued food card. Carts full of frozen pizza bagels and garbage food. What’s wrong with actually educating people? Asking them to attend a cooking course and then limiting their assistance to wholesome ingredients they can make at home?
It’ll never happen because the same politics and politicians I saw on that trailer don’t really care. They don’t give a rip, they love style, but ignore substance. I am happy they are trying to make people aware of the problem, but sad that they will never tell the truth nor will they ask for accountability.
Gina says
I watched this last night, it is also available on Verizon FIOS on Demand. It was very interesting and I think it is easy to make suggestions for other people to follow. I enjoyed to point of view of the teacher and the time she took in the community to help her students. I am a teacher and I have many “food insecure” students. It is difficult to watch students struggle due to hunger. It was difficult to watch the single mother take two buses and spend an hour just to get to a regular grocery store. I think a graduated system that weans recipients off assistance, while offering eduction on the best ways to utilize the SNAP benefits, and education for better career opportunities would be a better plan. I think it was a very well done documentary.
Carla says
Recently learned that our local jr. high school provides breakfast, lunch and a sack dinner for students. While I wouldn’t deny any child food, I think it completely allows the parents to abdicate any responsibility for the basics of life-feeding your own children. However on a more positive note, this same school also has an amazing school garden that produces more vegetables than I even knew about which are then taken to the “home ec.” room (although it’s not called that anymore) and the teacher there shows the students how to prepare the veggies. It’s a great learning experience for everyone to see how the food goes from the garden to the table. Hopefully some of these students will carry this knowledge with them and grow and prepare their own food. Complete education is the only way to break the cycle of handouts and junk food.
Tracie says
About 4 years ago my husband and I lost our jobs 6 weeks apart. We had 6 of us in the house we applied for food stamps. We got ~700$ a month. It was crazy. We didnt even know what to spend that amount of money on. We could eat really healthy. We still didnt buy junk food or sweetened drinks at all. we got the food stamps for 3 months. Lived on it for over 8 months. Our family could eat more veggies but we didnt eat processed foods. I still made our meals and still shopped for sales. If I had only knowen about coupons then. We could have lived on that money for 2 years. We spend roughly 100$ a month now on food. I use coupons. We dont eat processed food for the most part. so I thinki the only thing that gets to me is people saying you cant eat healthy on FS. That is just BS!!!!!
Dennis says
KUDOS TO YOU TRACIE!!!
Maggie says
I’m not sure if you have seen this or not, but we are watching Ingredients on amazon prime right now. It is awesome and if you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend it! Very informative without being “preachy”.