Exploration Six from Bryson

"Fresh" Review

"Fresh," a documentary pertaining to the food market and economy of the United States. The documentary is a well developed documentary with the intentions of informing, and advising the people of the United States to pay more attention to the consumption of their food and where it came from. The impact of this documentary is a positive impact with the intentions of educating our citizens.

With one of the purposes of this documentary to inform the people of the United States, the use of chemicals on crops and animals is mentioned and the negative influence that it can have on our health. The documentary does a exceptional job in explaining the negative uses of chemicals on our crops and animals along with an explanation as to why chemicals were used in the first place. In the documentary it is pointed out that chemicals were originally used for two major reasons 1.) that crops were becoming infested with too many pests and they needed to be killed. 2.) Chemicals allow the economy and government to produce crops faster with a lower quality of food but more quantity.

Chemicals are bad for the environment for many reasons, and traditional farmers are extremely against using chemicals on their farms in order to produce the highest quality of product possible. George Naylor a conventional farmer in the documentary had a very strong belief that chemicals were bad for farming all the way and they were in no way beneficial to the environment. For example; most farmers used to use animal waste in order to fertilize property and crops. With the use of chemicals on their crops and antibiotics and other chemicals injected into their animals, that animals waste is no longer worth anything it is toxic and cannot be used. The use of chemicals is also over used, and the environment then develops a "tolerance" to the chemicals and more and more chemicals must be used in order to maintain the type of result they originally did. Our economy and government has become too industrialized to maintain a healthy source of food.

Something that was brought to the attention in this documentary is what is called a "food desert" where fresh food and healthy food options do not exist. These food deserts are often found very industrialized cities where you can go miles without finding a place that sells healthy and un-processed food. With food deserts being such an issue, people often have no other choice than to stop and grab a bite to eat at a fast food franchise. According to the USDA: food deserts are often found in rural areas and urban neighborhoods. The lack of options forces a poor diets on people who live in these areas. Food deserts can often be identified with areas that have low income or a poor community (A poverty rate of 20% or greater), another characteristic is that most people live more than a mile away from the closest super market. 

This documentary is a well developed documentary with a positive impact on our community and tremendous intentions to inform our citizens and suggest that we should be more conscious of our actions when it comes to the consumption and production of our food.