right about food for the new york times and yet i was i was kind of frankly
little ishameed when i saw this film a place at the table
to realize how little i knew about two hundred crisis in america
and how much are needed to catch up on
it's it's the kind of issue that remains invisible for a lot of us it could be
happening in our neighborhoods as the film for me and we don't see it
so want to start by asking you guys why that is why it is a remain the central
issue in american life that somehow not visible
one of the reasons why i think is a ball is because they've attached a statement
to that
we live in a moment in time when there's a big culture blamed and that has
managed to supplant real dialogue around
responsibility and how we can figure out solutions alma because we spend a lot of
our energy and i think that the media unfortunately sometimes decisiveness
blaming people for condition that they often don't have nothing to do with
bringing about
uh... incurred his people to stay in the shadows to not take not to uh... come
out with their situation and talk about it on the and we also have a assorted
cherished american myth that we pull ourselves up by our own pits traps in
if we make it we make it on around him
the flip of that is the first time i'm not making it what we must have done
something wrong
and if anything i'm hoping this film manages to arm that we're hoping that
this film really manages to
to flip that around a little bit show that at times the game today fixed in
some people are really doing their share to contribute to that
the social contract and there's still not able to feed their families i think
i think we're also conditions of thinking upon your in terms of for what
hunger
but i will without looks like you know with famine victims look like combine we
don't know
uh... watch for the average american walk around looks like in fact one six
american different secure
so if you're on the subway
crowded subway
you can rest assure that there are people that are are
uh... having it issues with with food insecurity
and so we're insist the conditioning i think what we're trying to do in the
film is show that
you have policemen that are that are our food and secure
uh... students are young mothers teachers harm and so it it looks very
different than what were you still
to sort of identifying with with hunger i suspect for a lot to be there was like
an epiphany there was a moment when suddenly you did see it dept
you've been passionate about this issue
bird decades now was there at the moment that transforms you
well i'll be in the involved with the
the hunger issue for about thirty years is todo with world hunger
because here in our country we had uh... garcetti has workplace and then uh...
i guess was right around the time when uh...
capture became a vegetable le haha
according to the doors of it
and um... the holes in our safety net started to appear and so uh...
my organization the n_ hundred network we've shifted our focus to the hunger
here uh... in america
at about three years ago uh...
hooked up with billings organization share our strength in their wonderful
campaign called no kid hungry
that this billy was saying utilizing those government-funded it's over a
billion dollars i think that is available to states
to uh...
make sure that the kids uh...
i have school breakfast and lunch in and summer programs but a lot of the
governors are carthan unaware that this money is available and so the kids don't
have access to this
this food
when we started to meet you know
many of the fifty million people were experiencing this hunger and food
insecurity
and excess it
is really troubling and we spent time with his forty women from north philly
who had gathered together to join this group i'm called witnesses to hunger and
if it in the room with them and and go home with them an experience and even
for a day what they're going through every single day trying to put food on
the table is deeply and unsettling and um... it's certainly phallic not enough
people know about this and and you know we have the skills that i i have adam
here to tell the story of a cinematic way of fear it's a lot of people and
uh... you know make this invisible problem visible
it's a good one of the revelations for me watching the film was you know one
way in which someone might be able to dismiss this
just fail to see it
has to do with the vcd or obesity is
uh... a problem this country
might lead some people think well that people are getting enough calories
arthur uh... but in fact as we learn from the film obesity and
uh... food insecurity or twins
so could you talk a little bit of a about why that is yet exactly and you
know we in it's it's true that most people
these preconceptions about live people are these sand and the decisions that
they're making a personal responsibility
an and what role that plays an imp it we've what we found and in particular we
felt we chose a film in mississippi because it was a state that how the
distinction of being the highest ranks in food insecurity and also the highest
ranked in obesity so there you have it
and and you know they're just too many people in this country who don't have
access
to healthy foods
or have have have the uh... you know the income to afford
for foods if they do have access and so that contributes to a real
and problem of of of you know and a crisis in obesity that we all know about
that it's really a hunger and malnutrition and obesity crisis that the
country is dealing with rebel delegates that was so crucial to the film in again
another
filed me
aspects to me was food stamps that sort of government assistance we're talking
about people living on him i two of the repeat the number right like three
dollars a day in terms of the the allotment average i think it's just over
a nationwide averages just over four dollars a day so in some parts of
country s three dollars privately averages at around four dollars a day
so what can you get with that
you know a lot of steps
but she lives and so that
licensing
when you look at that
you're three dollars a day
and of course it is a small not money yeah this is a wise at three dollars a
day
and the government use a simple to thirty-three plan to to calculate how
much money u_p_i_ uh... tutsis or supplement your your income
and it also assumes that
um... the person who is uh...
receives the benefits
they have thirteen hours a week to call
we average person actually cooks about four-and-a-half hours
they also assumes that there are certain things you can buy
for instance the only fish that this will look at a plan since this that
student can
net that's you know it does include fresh stuff
it also uh...
assumes that
there's absolutely no waste
everything one harbour sent everything you buy is used
which is the state's december that reality doesn't happen
so what happens in the classroom when
kids aren't getting the nutrition
well they might present is disciplinary problems
they can't focus they might have that added to and no i have a really bad
attitude
but i'm hoping
you know and then the uh... date the really can't retainer process
information the wake it is well nourished
uh... and it has a social component is well they're feeling ashamed and
humiliated
uh... i thought the brilliance of the filmmakers was to say this is not just
an issue about do you feel bad for hungry kids this is an issue that
affects education
courses affects our birth her future economic competitiveness so i think it
enables you that uh... i hope create a broader constituency of support for this
uh... issue by showing the ramifications we we've just recently been involved in
a
study that the white did
consulting firm did and they looked at schools that have
of really uh... almost universal participation in school breakfast status
with the preface versus schools that don't
those that do have seventeen point five percent higher math scores
they have one point five uh... date longer attendance rates
they have graduation rates that are twenty percent higher was not just feel
bad about kids but that showed the direct connection between educational
achievement and hunger is uh... i think it's not over for people
why is their resistance to improving
school lunches why is that such a bureaucratic nightmare
why does that happen as a parent i'd love to know
well i mean i think that it largely goes back to what billy was talking about
earlier is that that that the kids who really well why
on these school breakfasts and lunches are kids who don't generally have a
voice
and and
so the onus is on assets and make sure that our politicians
recognize the importance of that's an you know in the making of this family we
we captured the process have their child nutrition and reauthorization as it's
called and it was
ultimately and and announces the healthy hunger freakin zack but we watched as
what was the requested ten billion dollars
was little down first by the house bound by the senate
to four point five billion dollars and that's over ten years
and then alternately
and in order to pay for that bill
a deal was made where they would cut food stamps to pay for half of that bill
so i think that says you what priorities are and and washington and with a lot of
these and the decision makers on say further to that because he's exactly
right
um... this is a ated in the bed by the conversation it's happening right now
the national stage and whereas but everything is presented equally as if i
don't know how we're gonna pay for that we just have the money to pay for that
people wake up what paying for it
what hank way they were paying way more
then it would cost to adequately fund school lunches and school breakfast as
an example of one policy that's great
also fixing the modernizing sap for making sure that wake is adequate to
infants and mothers and children wetpaint innocuous to the tune of a
hundred and sixty seven billion dollars in cost to our economy every year
and believe me i wouldn't classify across a fraction of that
to modernize and to happen substantially improve these programs so
we're paying either way and i wouldn't sell obviously dialogue around austerity
and takers and forty seven percent annual percentage that's a bit
frankly because we are planning it's taxpayer monies being spent athlete
we're just asking for common sense