Hi Sweet Friends,
I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Laurie David, producer of the Academy Award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth and the new must-see, much-talked about film, Fed Up. This movie puts you in the shoes of obese children in America. It’s the closest we’ll get to understanding their daily struggles and why the government and the food industry have put their bottom line before our health. But most importantly, Fed Up shows us what we can do to take back our power to eat well. Watch the trailer below.
My conversation with Laurie really got me riled up and I know it will inspire and motivate you too. There’s still time to see it in the theaters. Find out if it’s playing near you and watch it with your whole family.
Listen to the interview
- Having trouble listening? Simply download the audio here (Right click the link and click Save Link As).
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- Want to read the interview? Download the transcript here.
Laurie is incredibly passionate about changing the way we think about food—in the store, at our dinner tables and in the voting booth. She’s also deeply dedicated to encouraging something near and dear to my heart—cooking, which happens to be the subject of her latest book, The Family Cooks.
This cookbook teaches families the value of home-cooked, whole foods meals shared around a table with the people you love. And I was thrilled to see that plant-based recipes are the rule, rather than the exception. It was valuable to read Laurie’s section on decoding labels. She addresses the many misnomers plastered on food packaging today, including grass-fed, cage-free, sustainable, natural, trans-fat free, and the list goes on. The more we know what these words mean, the more we can support what aligns with our principles and skip the rest.
She’s a real firecracker (my kind of gal). I absolutely love Laurie’s motto—talk about a slogan for prevention!
Listen to the audio above or read the transcript to get the full scoop on:
1. Why you need to see Fed Up before you take another bite. If you think you know what we’re eating as a country and why it’s making everyone sick, trust me, there’s more to the story. Let’s get Fed Up together and change how we shop, how we eat and how we feed our families.
2. The shocking truths Laurie learned during the making of Fed Up. Find out what the government and food industry knew about the American diet 30 years ago and why they turned the other way (and still haven’t looked back).
3. How much sugar we should be eating and how much sugar an average American is actually consuming. Get the answers and find out how this sweet substance is shaping our health as a country today.
4. What you can do to become an empowered, educated consumer at the grocery store. Get Laurie’s three tips for becoming a smart shopper: complain more, become a label sleuth and start making this one common condiment from scratch pronto.
Good post. Good film- for the most part- BUT– this important response from Dr. Colin Campbell:
http://nutritionstudies.org/fed-up-with-fed-up/
Fed Up is showing in absolutely no theaters in Marin County, CA. I find this absurd. I’d love to host showings in my home. Where can I get a copy of the film?
I’ve seen An Inconvenient Truth (powerful) and I can’t wait to dive into Fed Up!
But most importantly, I love that women are COURAGEOUSLY bringing their work into the world, allowing for their voice to be HEARD as they’re sharing such important messages.
Thank you for using your blog as a positive way to impact + inform us all.
Namaste,
XO
I am French living in North America. Our approach to food is really different. Food is for us a way to share, to spend time together, to enjoy life. I would get up an hour ealier to eat breakfast with the people I love. On the other, North America teaches me that there are other things to eat than carbs, meat and cheese. It is hard to change your habbits. I struggle everyday, but every veggy bite is a won battle and I hope one day I will be proud of my new healthy meatless diet!
Thanks Kris for inspiring me,
Take care
Peggy
I have learned so much about our food system and the lack of nutrition we are getting in this country over the last few years, especially because I started working with The Juice Plus Company, which takes fruits and veggies and puts them in a capsule form. It has taught my body to crave fruits and veggies and encourages healthier eating! Thank you for your blog and thank you to Katie Couric and Laurie David for the movie Fed Up! We need to wake up as a nation and say, “NO MORE!!!”
Hi Kris–Just finished listening and was wondering if you ever saw Jamie Oliver’s television series on trying to reform school lunches. It was very eye opening. From the school cooks not wanting the extra work, to the government not wanting to spend more, to the children not wanting to try anything new, to the parents who believe what they are told–yikes–it is a whole system overhaul. I take my green drinks to work and always have others try a taste when I make different combinations. They are often amazed at how good and “fresh” they taste. We can all do something!
Please check out our website which teaches our youth and community about food as medicine and the choice to stop eating processed foods. Kris, you’ve got to see what we’re doing to encourage eating habits. We love you!
Kris and Laurie, I have been following you both for years and on the nutrition wagon for longer than that. Keep going. You are both rock stars and fierce for food.
Karen
I’m OUTRAGED!!! I read Sugar Blues years ago and knew this but got lulled back into sleep! No more!!!
Thank you for this.
I agree wholehearted with everything she says. But the problem I find with cookbooks are that the recipes are too complicated and often have fussy, exotic and hard-to-find ingredients. Too much work for busy moms.
Cookbooks should be used as more of a guide. The best coming I do is grabbing a few things that sounds good together and checking out a few recipes that use those then deciding how I’m going to make it. But not baking. That’s more strict.
First and foremost, Ms. David is a film maker, and her goal is not only to raise awareness, and help people, but to make money on her documentary. That said, how does most of the liberal media make money? By scaring people.
The sad thing is, people DO need to be scared about this issue.
I read the whole transcript and watched the trailer. I like the comparison of the tobacco companies and the food industry. I look forward to possibly seeing the movie, and then possibly taking my children to view it as well. Although my children do not have weight issues, I feel it is very important that they know what they are putting into their bodies.
I was sad that you decided to use politics in the transcript. It is important to note that it is not Republicans fault our country has a childhood obesity epidemic, and while I like Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move idea, and would love to see unprocessed and healthy food in our schools, in our town, all her program did was raise the price of school lunch and lower portion sizes of the garbage served. Luckily my children don’t often eat school lunch!
We don’t need to blame one side or the other but hold the government as a whole responsible, and vote out people who aren’t going to advocate for our health.
Lastly, Kris, I read Crazy Sexy Diet, and actually did the 21-day adventure cleanse, and that was 3 months ago. I have continued my plant based diet, and am feeling great. I love the feeling of being 20 pounds lighter, and am glad I picked up your book!
Great interview, Ladies! I look forward to Fed Up getting more widely distributed in Canada.
In the meantime, I do my best to make my own statement one meal at a time in my family. I can’t tell you how many times teachers have commented how healthy my son’s lunches are, which to me were just the “normal” way to eat. It made me wonder what other kids were eating, then I went on a field trip: I was appalled…and not surprised by the temper tantrums and poor behaviour that occured an hour later.
Thank you, as well, for pointing out the idea that “healthy food = difficult” is a programmed behaviour. That concept alone gives me so much grief as I struggle to teach clients how simple it can be. You’ve boosted my hope that I can reprogram them.
Thank you, Kris!
Another great reminder…There is SO much to think about on a daily basis and I wish we would have been raised with all of this information! It takes effort to make it your norm after a lifetime of not thinking.
I can count on both hands the amount of my own family members who are over-weight and who have passed from cancer. They have diabetes and high blood pressure and joint issues and the list goes on…and that’s just in MY family!!
I love when you say that a change in our diet is not radical…a multiple transplant IS! (paraphrased)
So thank you again. I will keep an eye out for FU…I will add it to the list of docs that I suggest to people who have all of these ailments. (MY LIST = “Crazy Sexy Cancer”; “Fat Sick and Nearly Dead”; “Forks Over Knives”; “Food Inc”…)
My goal in life is to make it to 120 yrs…Because I feel like I am just beginning to live my life at 47 =)
Have a fantastic day!! =)
Kim
Fun, fun, fun interview, loved listening to you two ladies and your serious passion!
Yeah, I’m on board. I’m not only fed up, but fired up, so let’s get out there and let our voices be heard. It is absolutely unconscionable what we are being fed and how insidiously addictive it is.
That much worse that it is being pushed at our kids. Lets bring it home to the kitchen and then take it from the kitchen to the streets!
In my rural N.J. village during the 50’s – 60’s, even the poor families ate, comparative to today, very much like kings. Everybody had at least a small garden, and bartering food products was common.
Later, as populations urbanized, people lost connections with food production, (and nature in general) Also, as moms started working outside the home in droves, connections were lost to home preparation of food. That was what you could call the ‘perfect storm’ for commercial manipulation of food systems, and as erosion of healthy eating habits continued, we lost a sense of reverence for food – and inevitably, of our very selves.
You’re doing a great job of re-education. Good work, you wonderful, wonderful women.
As a type 1.5 diabetic- yes, we do exist, the information about people becoming diabetics is misleading at best – many people have a predisposition to diabetes based in genetics, not just lifestyle and diet choices. That said, I do agree with the tenor of “Fed Up” overall!! My greatest concerns are for our youth, for poor families, and for our nation as a whole. Many times the children who are poor rely on the school breakfast and lunch for their main meals of the day. Boy, are they getting a lot of carbs, processed food and depleted food!! It makes me very sad. So sad, that a project I hope to begin this year involves starting a community garden in one of the neighborhoods I work with locally. What I want for this community, I want for us as a nation- to grow our own vegetables at least and to wise up about what we are feeding ourselves and our children- no matter how much money a person makes or what income the child comes from- we deserve better!! (Sorry for the rant!!)
Where can I see the movie . I live in the Dallas area
Saw the movie and feel they did a great job of getting the message across. Hope they are not just preaching to the choir
PS: would have been a superb movie if they had not turned it into a political statement
I loved the interview… I live on Long Island and can’t find a place to see this movie! Do I have to travel to the East Village which is the only place close to me where I can find it playing. How is this message going to get out there if the masses can’t find a place to see it, the people that really need to be educated!!
Where can I get a copy of it?
JUST WATCHING THIS VIDEO JUST RILES ME UP. PEOPLE THINK MY HUSBAND AND I ARE SO CRAZY BY HOW “UPTIGHT” I AM OVER OUR FOOD CHOICES FOR OUR 3 LITTLE GIRL, AND FOR OURSELVES. WAKE UP PEOPLE….WAKE UP!! YOU ARE KILLING YOURSELF AND YOUR FAMILY.
Shocking and disturbing 🙁 But I guess this is not just a problem in America. I notice exactly the same thing over here in Europe. And even a lot of intelligent, well-educated people feed their kids with processed food full of sugar. While the media still promotes diets like “low carb” and bashes people living on plant based diets.
The food industry has so much power that it scares me. The big money is made where food is produced industrially, not where it is organically harvested. And what would happen to all the other industries related to these problems if everybody changed their eating habits? The pharmaceutical industry for example? I really really hope that movies like this one have an impact on people. They should be shown at schools everywhere throughout the country!!!
Thank you very much Kris for being such an inspiration!