Food Briefs: Food documentary Fresh to show at Temple Emanuel

By: JournalNow Staff | JOURNAL STAFF AND WIRE REPORT
Published: November 11, 2009

■ Temple Emanuel, 201 Oakwood Drive, will show the food documentary Fresh at 7 p.m. Thursday as part of its environmental-movie series. Admission is free.

Fresh celebrates farmers and entrepreneurs who have worked outside the industrial food system to create an alternative, sustainable food system.

Just like the grass-roots food system it promotes, Fresh is not being shown in commercial theaters. Instead, it is being licensed to small groups and individuals for small screenings.

Two speakers will also be on hand. John O'Sullivan is a professor at N.C. A&T State University and the director of the Center for Environmental Farming Systems. Hugh Courtney is the executive director and founder of the Josephine Porter Institute for Applied Bio-Dynamics, a nonprofit in Woodwine, Va. It produces environmentally friendly agricultural products.

Look for good deals during Triad Restaurant Week

■ The second annual Triad Restaurant Week will begin Friday and go through Nov. 22.

During this time, many restaurants in the Triad will offer special three-course dinners for $20 or $30.

Restaurant week is a trend that has spread nationwide in recent years as a way to promote an area's restaurant business. Some restaurants offer good deals to entice new and returning customers.

For more information, visit www.triadrestaurantweek.com. Beginning Friday, the site will list participating restaurants.

Documentary Food Inc. now available on DVD, Blu-Ray

■ Food Inc., the popular food documentary that first showed here at RiverRun International Film Festival in Winston-Salem in April, is out on DVD and Blu-ray.

Food Inc. ($26.95 for DVD, $34.98 for Blu-ray), takes the position that the industrialized food system in the U.S. has produced an abundance of cheap food at the expense of Americans' health and the environment.

The movie comes from Participant Media, which made An Inconvenient Truth. It was directed by Robert Kenner and co-produced by Eric Schlosser, the author of Fast Food Nation.

Through interviews with farmers and others, the film pushes its argument that a handful of large companies have tremendous influence over economic and political power to influence government policy, what food is planted, how workers are treated and, ultimately, what America eats.