Hungry for Change is an aptly titled film. It’s about hunger in all its manifestations. Hunger for food, of course, but also more broadly for attractiveness, youth, popularity, a sexy partner, and other trappings of the good life. And it’s also about the change – weight loss and gains, emotional highs and lows - that we put our bodies through with yo-yo dieting.
The film’s 12 narrators are a chorus of well-intentioned subject matter experts who themselves have hungered, and changed, more than most of us have. Now fit, trim, and healthy, Joe Cross (star of the 2010 film Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead), Jon Gabriel and Frank Ferrante were formerly morbidly obese. Two, Kris Carr and Evita Ramparte, had cancer. These friendly, optimistic, empathetic, and kindly hosts are living examples of what a good diet, accompanied by some discipline and the proper mind-set, can do for you. These folks do a commendable job of explaining the benefits of healthy eating in an intimate, conversational, not academic, style and making it seem both sensible and easy. If they can’t get us to change, perhaps no one can. Hungry for Change is the perfect film for February, as we still cling to our new year’s resolutions and attempt to shed those extra holiday pounds.
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Though there are twelve consultants, Hungry for Change has a single voice. There’s agreement on the central idea that human beings, mammals who have spent most of their biological history as hunters, gatherers, and more recently gardeners, are programmed for survival to put on fat. Until modern times food was scarce and it was either feast or famine. We naturally crave fat, sugar, and salt and are hard-wired to receive the short term fix we get from them. They are drugs, just like alcohol. Making matters worse, monosodium glutamate (MSG) is now in 80% of foods. Glutamic acid is our bodies’ main excitatory neurotransmitter and facilitates food addictions. As do caffeine, aspartame, and other unhealthy food additives. With these chemicals, the film argues, the food industry is emulating the cigarette industry’s nicotine playbook and getting away with it.
It’s no mystery why the United States if the fattest country in the world. Humans are biologically programmed to put on fat. Food conglomerates manufacture foods with ingredients and flavor enhancers that stimulate our brains and appetites. Then they spend millions on marketing, packaging, and distribution. There’s a cornucopia of bad food options. For thousands of years our diets were characterized by high nutrition and low calories. Modern diets, by contrast, are high calorie but low nutrition. It’s feast not famine. We are overfed but starving on a cellular level. So what is to be done?
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Though these health gurus are opposed to fad diets because they don’t work (rather one must “liveit” by regularly making smart food choices) the hosts advocate something akin to the Paleo diet or eating like a caveman or cavewoman. Organic vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, healthful fats and oils like flax seed and avocado, and local, sustainable, grass-fed meats, wild fish/seafood, free range eggs, are fine. Refined and processed foods, by contrast, are not. For example, the coco leaf makes a mildly relaxing tea that is good for you but when isolated and concentrated into cocaine, is harmful. Analogously, other purified and “pharmaceutical” products such as white flour, rice, and sugar are also to be avoided. The discussion of these isolates, that lack the nutrient complexity and bioavailability of real, wholesome foods found in their natural state, draws parallels to Michael Pollan’s observations of the dangers of monocultures.
White foods are not the only target. In fact, the film argues that most items in the supermarket these days are adorned, enhanced, and given a near infinite shelf-life. They’re made to look like food but are, in fact, “food like” products. One breakfast cereal, Blueberry Pomegranate Total, has neither blueberries nor pomegranate in it, but fruit flavorings derived from propylene glycol (also used in antifreezes, coolants, and aircraft deicing fluids), plenty of sugar, and food coloring.
Hungry for Change is at its best when it focuses on hard nutritional facts and advice but does not shy from delving a bit into self-help, pop psychology. An actor looks at a bathroom mirror and makes the following affirmation, a la Stuart Smalley, “I accept myself unconditionally.” Other aphorisms that Dr. Phil would love crop up including, “It’s not just what you are eating, it’s what’s eating you” and “It’s what you eat, drink, and think.” In addition to a section on juicing and one on detoxifying/cleansing, there’s an Oprah like segment on love. Frank Ferrante, who once weighed 400 pounds and is the star of the film May I be Frank about transformation, is filmed wearing a shirt that reads, “I love my life!” That Hungry for Change borders at times on the spiritual is not a bad thing. We all know how hard change can be and we can use the help and motivation. This film gives you hope that if you hunger for it enough, change is not just possible, but inevitable.
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Hungry for Change: Tuesday, February 11th, 2013
Park Slope Food Coop – 2nd Floor
7:00 p.m. Free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.
