A Place at the Table

A Place at the Table is a documentary that looks at hunger in America. The film follows several families and their struggles to fill their plates day after day. Band-aid fixes are just not cutting it. The problem of hunger in America is just getting worse. The film is a sobering look at the reality that many Americans face.

I saw this for the 2nd time last night, the 1st time was 3 years ago-it was part of our English class curriculum that year. When I found it at the Dollar Store I decided to see it again since I enjoyed it. This movie is an engaging documentary about hunger in America. We follow about 3 families in our country who struggle with it. There are 2 that stuck with me: Rosie and Barbie. Rosie is an 8 year old girl who struggles with food-to the point that her teacher has to bring her ramen noodles and sweets-it's the most she can do for them. Rosie describes how hungry she is at school, and also shows that her church helps her out as well. Barbie is a mother of 2 kids who has a minimum wage job as a restaurant cook. (The pay is cheaper since this was filmed 7 years ago.) She buys junk food since it's overall cheaper, and this causes health issues for her kids. The movie, overall is interesting and very informative. I highly recommend seeing it. But I have minor issues with what is presented: Rosie does seem like a poor girl. We hear how little food she has(her fridge may have 2 fruits at most, but it's weird to see her unpack food from her teacher with VHS tapes like True Lies and Jurassic Park in the background.) I mention this detail, not because it's movie-related, but because that is counter-intuitive to me. If you have VHS tapes, why don't you ask any friends to buy a few, and use that to buy food? I own roughly 450 movies as of now. If I have a situation where I need food, I would ask some friends to buy DVDs off of me to lessen my wants and increase my needs. I'm just saying! Another flaw I noticed from the reviews in here, is the 2nd story I mentioned. I go to the Dollar Store and I can get a box of candy for $1.00. A reviewer here states things like: "I go to the store and buy 5 POUNDS of carrots for $5. 10 pounds of beans for $12. 5 pounds of brown rice for $3. This is a TREMENDOUS amount of nutritious food for only $20 that can feed me for a WEEK. This is obviously not ideal since we're still missing green leafy vegetables and fruit, but it's WAY WAY better than the junk food most of these people were eating.... Cookies, cakes, soda, chef boyardee, fast food etc. are all addiction foods that are very costly on your wallet and body, the solution is so stupidly simple that all the people complicating it should be ASHAMED! As a side note, the waitress in the first scene was complaining about how little her paycheck was every two weeks, shame on her for not telling the whole truth. You don't waitress for the paychecks, you do it for the cash tips, how many cash did you accumulate in two weeks? Didn't want to mention that one did ya? The same family also said they don't buy vegetables anymore because it's too costly, well then, STOP making cakes and pies and start buying carrots and celery if you really care. " (Credit to Jason-Leondias1984 for the quote) To be less harsh, I agree- canned veggies would be better than junk food, and if you can afford all of those sweets then you can buy vegetables! Despite these minor flaws, this is still an eye opening documentary that is well worth seeing. (I mentioned that I have seen it twice.) This is still a problem in our country either way, and while this movie gives no clear resolution to the issue, it's asking the viewer to create some. I gave a few, and I recommend that you see this movie to come up with your own. In short: Slightly flawed, but highly recommended. Note: It may seem hypocritical to give this a 9 due to flaws and Religulous with major flaws. The latter was indeed flawed, but it gave me a more powerful impact. That is why the latter ranks higher.

Excellent show. An eye opening documentary about the short falls of our ability to provide adequate nutrition for some our most needy members of society. If we all would take a close look, not just at own lives but our friends , family or even our neighbors, we may find how rampant this problem is. Our school lunch program is not perfect and it needs some help. The only way it's going to get help is by people who are willing to fight and do what needs to be done. What if we were to minimize the administration cost, the labor cost and put more money to the cost of a nutritious complete meal. Work as a collective group to end this problem. Please volunteer, make a difference in the lives of our children, give what can be given, care for the well being of the children and our future generations.

This documentary should be seen by everyone who think that the economic system in the US is a perfect one. It also shows how much the people that actually generates wealth are exploited, just for the record bankers, financiers and the stock-market don't generate wealth, its the people that make products and services that benefit humankind that generates wealth.This of course comes from a guy that most Americans would consider a communist. It warns about the future problems that the US might face if this type of problem is as prevalent as it depicts( I don't know all the facts behind this film ). If it is accurate then I hope for the people in the US will fix it instead of hope for the stock-market to fix it, it will not do that.

A PLACE AT THE TABLE (dir. Kristi Jacobson, Lori Silverbush) A brilliant documentary that confronts America's perennial inability to deal with the widespread problem of hunger in our nation. Ronald Reagan slashed federal programs that were beginning to solve the issue by the late 1970's, however he cynically felt that the matter would best be solved by relying on good old fashioned Christian charity. And it didn't work then, and it doesn't work now. Millions of Americans struggle daily with 'food insecurity' (you don't know where your next meal is coming from), and it seems that our leaders are convinced that the poor have it far too easy, and are just too dependent on the largess of the American tax payer. However, the film does expose the pertinent fact that America's richest food corporations were able to continue to enjoy 100% of their lavish federal government subsidy, yet the food stamp budget was severely cut to pay for a program to end childhood hunger. So much for our so called 'Christian' policies, and the film provides yet another reason for me to continue to be a proud secular humanist.

Rosie is a little girl who lives with her mother and grandmother in rural Colorado, Rosie's mother works as a waitress, but her meager salary puts her above the limit required for qualifying for food stamps. Rosie's teacher sees a lot of Rosie in her. The teacher was so poor as a child that she had trouble concentrating on her work as a child. The teacher regularly goes to the food bank and delivers food to Rosie and other kids like her. In Jonestown Mississippi, Ree a mother of 4 has to drive 30 miles out of the way to get fresh fruit and vegetables, because Rhee lives in a "food desert", a place where fresh food and vegetables can't be delivered. Also in Jonestown an 8 year old girl named Tremonica is obese. How can kids living in poverty be obese? Barbie, a single mom with two kids living in Philadelphia has to figure out how to feed herself and two kids on the small government stipend. But some things are looking brighter. Barbie testifies with 40 other women in Philadelphia go to congress and win a slight increase in the food stamps program, and then Barbie gets a job, but does employment necessarily mean a better life for her and her children? A Place At The Table is a mostly effective documentary with a definite political point of view, but when it's not pouring out statistics and sounding like an ad for Jeff Bridges and his pet project on hunger, when it concentrates on poor people who have to live on food stamps, then the stories are compelling. It shows how difficult it is to actually feed children on a food stamps stipend .But it also shows how the poorest children become morbidly obese. The government actually subsidizes huge agrobusinesses, while the family farm is almost extinct. The Congress gets big campaign donations from the agrobusinesses and the agrobuissnesses make processed junk too cheaply, cheaper than fresh fruit and vegetables, and that's why poor kids are obese, because all their parents can afford is cheap, processed, junk food. The problem is that the lobbyists who give the biggest donations are the ones the politicians listen to, and poor people don't have a lobby. We have one party who has created a huge bureaucracy that the poor can't navigate, and another party who thinks government is the enemy and must be eliminated. They are both wrong, the bureaucracy must be streamlined, and the money must be sent to the people who need it the most, not the lobbyists with the biggest checkbooks. We actually took the problem of hunger seriously in the 1970's, starting with Nixon. Yes, I said Nixon. The film points out that surprising fact. Nixon and Carter did a lot to eliminate hunger in America, but we haven't taken the problem seriously since. No one should ever be hungry in America, the faith community has done heroic work in feeding the hungry, the film also stresses this point, but people of faith can't do it alone. They need help from a fully functional cohesive government to set standards, and fully fund programs so those standards are met. But the American government is so dysfunctional right now, it cannot solve the simplest problem. For reviews that leave you hungry for more, visit my blog, reviewswithatude.wordpress.com

This film is intended to provoke an emotional response. It would be more effective with some solid documentation, not just assertions, animated hyperbolic graphs and a few heart wrenching stories. The film shows several serious problems in America today including, under employment, single parent families, lack of education (nutritional and general), and absence of close knit community (ie. where is Barbie's support system?). All these problems contribute to poverty and hunger. I was stunned by the response to the Congressman who asked the man who was testifying on behalf of the poor if he had done any research on where the money was to come from. "You will fund your priorities." So, the public just gives Congress a wish list and 'poof' it gets done? That kind of thinking fuels debt in families and in government.

Lori Silverbush and Kristi Jacobson's documentary "A Place at the Table" is a film that every politician - indeed, every citizen - in America should be forced to sit through at least once (or as many times as it takes to get the message to effectively sink in). It makes a very persuasive case that, contrary to what most people think, hunger is a major problem in the United States, a nation that prides itself on being the wealthiest in the history of the world. Not only does the movie provide the startling statistics necessary to back that assertion up, but explains why this is the case. Silverbush and Jacobson build their case in a meticulous, logical fashion, beginning with the common, counterintuitive fallacy that hungry people necessarily equal thin people. The movie explains how obesity and hunger often go hand in hand, thanks to the fact that, since junk food is cheaper than healthy food to purchase, the poor often fill up on empty calories rather than the nutritious ones that would actually make them healthy. This is a result of a misguided federal policy that provides subsidies for agribusinesses (as opposed to mom-and-pop farmers), who turn their grain and corn into inexpensive processed foods. Since farmers who grow fruits and vegetables work more independently of one another, they don't have the clout necessary to receive similar government support. This leads to a vicious cycle that winds up hurting poor people in both urban and rural areas where "food deserts" arise in which residents can barely find a fresh fruit or vegetable to purchase. The movie rightly celebrates the many charities that pick up some of the slack, but it makes the case that that is simply not enough, that an entire paradigm shift may be necessary if we ever hope to solve the problem. Ultimately, what we discover is that hunger is merely a symptom of a much greater set of problems - which are poverty, income inequality and a political system rigged to benefit the wealthy and powerful at the expense of the indigent and disconnected. Above all, the key lies in both the public and private sectors providing a living wage for their workers. Finally, beyond all the statistics, beyond all the comments by experts and authorities on the subject, it is the voices of the parents, who can't afford to put nutritious food on the table for their children, and of the children themselves, who often go to bed hungry or malnourished, who wind up making the greatest mark on our hearts. It is their testimonials more than anything else that will hopefully move the rest of us to action. A must-see film.

My wife and I downloaded this from iTunes today and were so impacted by the film. The film follows several people of different races and backgrounds, urban to the South to the mountains of Colorado. All are working (as the film goes on) but none make enough to buy enough food to be sure it will last all month. Many of them do not even qualify for food stamps/bridge cards. The fact that the poor and hungry have little lobbying impact in Washington compared to the gigantic agribusiness flood of money is clearly part of the reason we see this dilemma where the richest large nation fails miserably in keeping its working poor feed. Please see this film if you care about this issue. Many of your opinions may turn out to be misconceptions founded on stereotypes. As for Marc Newman's criticism, the idea that charity organizations like food kitchens and food banks sponsored by churches (yes, those clips of devoted pastors and churches were kept in and were very impressive) could solve this problem is ludicrous. We are talking about 50 million people and 13 million children. As my pastor (who is VERY conservative) says... the problem is overwhelming. There is no way volunteer and charitable organizations can meet the demand, and for Mr. Newman to suggest it could makes me wonder if he has ever worked at trying to get food to the poor. Many of us have done so and we know how huge this problem is... far beyond the resources of the faith community. As was noted in this documentary, the government once before almost totally eliminated hunger (in the late 70's) when both Democrats and Republicans (including Ronald Reagan) made it a priority. The government could do it again if it desired.

I saw A Place at the Table when it was at Sundance in 2012 and going under the title Finding North. I think that the filmmakers are well-intentioned, but the argument presented in this film is plainly absurd. During the Q and A after the film, the director was asked by an audience member if he was correctly stating her position, that the source of the problem of "food insecurity" was Washington's Faustian bargain with big agriculture, and she replied that it was. Then came the follow-up question: "Why in the world would you trust for solving this problem the very people responsible for causing it?" The audience -- do remember that this is Sundance, not known as a bastion of conservatism -- burst into applause. The only organization that seem to really be making a difference in the film was a private church with an extensive food outreach program. Don't be misled. The problem this film addresses is not starvation, or even hunger, it is what they term "food insecurity." No one in the film deals with the true source of the problem, which is the breakdown in the family, and the replacement of parental responsibility with government subsidy, which cyclically feeds the breakdown of families. Kudos to the filmmakers for highlighting the involvement of that local church -- I hope it made it into this final version of the film -- because if more churches were involved in the lives of the hurting people in their communities, they could provide a whole lot more than anonymous food stamps. They could create community, educate about nutrition, and give people benefiting ownership of the program so that they no longer had to feel dependent all the time. The film will tug at your heart -- just don't forget to engage your brain.