Healthy Foods and Obesity Prevention (HBO: The Weight of the Nation)

this joa as heavy as I was how loud are you about 280 18 plus% of our children right now are obese if you go with the flow in America today you will end up overweight or obese as 2third of Americans do I don't want to be fat for the rest of my life I've got diabetes sleep apnea high blood pressure I get dizzy when I get up everything's hurting though if we don't now take this as a really ser ious urgent National priority we are all of us individually and as a nation going to pay a really serious [Music] price this Barn's built in 1917 it was started in 1857 by my great great grandfather Levi grenell so I'm the fifth generation here on this Farm it's nice to be farming where my grandfather's did we run a diversified CSA operation we grow about 40 different types of vegetable crops and it tastes good anybody want some basil [Music] little bit of wind this is our Greenhouse full of tomatoes we just picked it this morning so you don't see any ripe ones on these sungold cherry tomatoes here that turn orange we pull about 400 pints a week out of here and then we usually pick about 400 lbs of Reds a week it's a lot of Labor unless you go a number of miles that really aren't any other large vegetable operations for to rain tomorrow I think we're going to have 150 to 200 people show up the vast majority of my neighbors are cropping corn and soybeans and it used to be that with Diversified livestock operations they'd at least have Alfalfa or hay or oats in that rotation and that's pretty much gone in this part of the country now [Music] in Iowa and Across the Nation we definitely have an obesity problem the diet in Iowa has changed drastically the vast majority of food in the grocery stores are prepackaged boxed processed foods that are made from corn and soybeans which tend to be very high in salt very high in starch and quite low in anything that you might consider to be unadulterated nutrients the number of fruit and vegetables that Ians consume actually produced in the state and it's almost insignificant [Music] why are they just raising corn on corn on corn because corn on corn on corn they get paid to do [Music] it they're not just getting paid for their corn they're getting the government check they're getting government back crop insurance so if it's a bad year they're getting a payment for that there's absolutely nothing for fruits and vegetable Growers right now one cause of obesity is it's an increase in our calorie consumption over the last 30 35 years what's accounting for that increase a quarter of it is thought to be added sugars like those from corn a quarter of it roughly is thought to be from added fats most of which are from soy almost half is from refined grains namely corn starches wheat and the like our diets in America are too heavy in the things that contribute to obesity fats sugars calories and too light in the things that seem to protect against obesity like fruits and vegetables [Music] part of the solution to this problem of obesity is to have people eat more fruits and vegetables with that very low calorie density and their other health benefits consumption of fruits and vegetables is associated with lowered blood pressure associated with reduced cancer rates even for reasons which we don't fully understand they're rich in vitamins and potassium they don't have fat they don't in general have saturated fat for people that are trying to push the American diet in the right direction one of the objectives is is finding ways to promote more cons of fruits and vegetables that's where we want to be and there's a couple of immediate and obvious challenges one is that in terms of price fruits and vegetables are typically more expensive much more expensive than than our starches and [Music] fats fruit and vegetable prices have been steadily increasing over time and in fact part of the reason they're increasing is because Farmers have a greater profit motive to grow corn and soy than they do to grow fresh fruits and vegetables we have a farm policy that incentivizes farmers to produce just a few kinds of commodity crops corn soy rice wheat because of Agriculture subsidies the raw products like soybean and corn that go into so many processed food products are artificially supported by the government that drives down the prices that we pay at the counter and so we're getting a better deal on these things than we really should if we were pay in the real [Music] [Laughter] cost our policies are driving our Farmers to overproduce exactly the kinds of foods and the calories in those foods that we're already [Music] overeating practical farmers of Iowa is is a Grassroots Le organization that was started by a number of Iowa Farmers about 26 years ago we get to collaborate with a number of other farmers and gain from their on Farm research we're going to talk about some of the challenges that vegetable growers face in the state of Iowa my daughter goes to a daycare center and they they use the industrial food system to produce their lunches and it's just that she eats really well two meals out of the day everything else is junk and you know there's no way for me to really have much of an impact on that cuz I can't even grow enough for one daycare that has you know 50 kids or whatever in it so finding ways to increase the access not only to the people that can afford to pay the prices that we're asking them to pay but also finding ways to increase the access for the people that can not afford to pay the prices that we need to be able to survive if you made it so that it was just as cheap to buy broccoli or cheaper than it is to bu a Twinkie I guarantee you people would buy broccoli Ron can't grow 50 acres of broccoli because where's he going to take it yeah you know there's no market and what Machinery is he going to use who's going to pick it who's going to pack it it's a it's a different it's a different mod we have to have places to freeze broccoli we have to have warehouses we have to have cold storage space that's why we would want to have some investments in infrastructure that really supports a whole fruit and vegetable industry what's the difference between what you would call conventional produce something you would buy at the supermarket versus uh the produce that you are growing and marketing locally okay the the difference is taste and nutrition and the reason the taste and nutrition has been depleted in our fresh fruits and vegetables that are shipped in is for shipping quality and it's all about biology the biology is what you like to eat other things like to eat bacteria fungi insects those sorts of things so if a crop has good flavor High nutrition it's good flavor and high nutrition for other things to eat so it rots the nice thing about farming locally and and maybe a little bit more small is we have access to all of our customers mom just came up to me at farmers market and said thank you thank you so much because before he got this box of vegetables the only thing he would eat is iceberg lettuce and she said now he won't touch it she's like he will only eat heirloom buttercrunch lettuce if fruits and vegetables were produced for their taste rather than for their ability to endure a cross-country trip then I think it would be easy to have more children and adults liking fruits and vegetables on a regular basis the growing concern about diet related illnesses such as obesity and heart disease is going to be one of the major factors that lead people to adopt a different way of farming a different different way of taking care of the land a different way of processing and distributing food that does embody the potential for a healthier Society in the future [Music] you still telling [Music] people can I get my usual loaf of nine grain please all [Music] right oh all right way to go thanks for buying the oranges man yeah I hope you like them vitamin that's right have you ever roasted cauliflower no is it delicious like that let me tell you they look good doesn't really seem to matter but I'll just take this one here this is great I love this best of the market do you get one every week not quite no but that's okay then a $20 bag you get the extra you get some beets and some kale and some tangerines we got strawberries charred thanks for buying the bag that helps keep the program going what's the sweetest the paig Clementine this is its last day the last day last day they're done for the season I like that a lot blood oranges are at their Peak you can tell by the color it's gream and red it's been clear to me over the years as I work with my patients that what they eat really has a major impact on their health and what better way to create health and to help maintain a healthy weight than to have good fresh fruits and vegetables in 2002 I said wait a minute instead of having to go to a farmer's market on a weekend what if I brought a farmer's market right in front of the medical center would people people shop what would happen it was like a block party out here nice to see you out here this is your weekly trip to the market every time I leave the docker this is the perfect inspiration to be healthy oh that's fantastic well that's why we put the market out here it's just a wonderful source of food that is really fundamental to good health you know if I had one dream it would be that everyone of the farmers markets in the country would sell out every week because Americans were eating so many fruits and vegetables by 2006 we said wait we're getting this really good food out in front of our hospitals but what about all the patients in the hospitals what are they getting served and when I'd stop in to make rounds of my patients I'd see some of what they're being served and it looked like there were some choices that really didn't look like they were the best or the most healthy for our patients so we overhauled the whole menu we started using the heart healthy diet as the basis of the whole menu and incorporating that into the regular diet we removed the cakes the pies the pastries and started offering fresh fruits in place of that well we actually surveyed 60 different fruits and vegetables that got purchased at the time for use in the meals and we did a food miles analysis to see where they were coming from I learned that we ordered 250 tons of fruits and veget vegetables a year I learned that 100 tons of them came from outside of California some of those shipped in 7,000 miles we found literally that there were tons of red seedless grapes being shipped to us from 7,000 Mi away I couldn't figure out why we would ship them in 7,000 miles when I'm selling red seedless grapes outside the hospital the Achilles heel is the distribution system there was no connection between these small local farmers in this great big delivery system they just didn't have an easy way to access the [Music] system I started to work with the distribution system with fresh pointer with Food Service Partners to try to see what's possible we were getting red seedless grapes from Chile we're getting red plums from up in Idaho and at the time when those things were all kind of being grown here in [Music] California we're starting to see the small farmer emerge a little bit and flex their muscle and take advantage of the consumer's desire to want to buy local and to want to buy products from smaller Farmers how do they get their food into a big company like this we can pull all the small farmers into these aggregators and then we can pull product from them most of the larger Distributors don't have the time or really the manpower to go out and seek out these smaller forms so our role as an aggregator is to work with a lot of local small family-owned midsize farms and keep them on the farm and not have them on the road daily thumbs up was a direct deliverer of of local produce and we found that to be most effective we should work with the larger Distributors we see this type of relationship between our respective organizations uh continue to grow we we expect to do more product we want more Farmers putting you know more of their Capital at work in the soil we want to buy more product from thumbs up and we have the distribution mechanism and the connections to the end users on the Food Service side that frankly a lot of the small farmers and Aggregates don't have so it really becomes a symbiotic relationship y so this lot of blood oranges ared this morning from a small farm outside of Porterville they're from a two family operation the farmers pick it Harvest it pack it bring it in we get it through the channels and it gets to the patients Tres by tomorrow evening fantastic we started to Source more and more from our local farmers do I get this right that there's 7,000 meals a day coming out of here 6 to 7,000 meals are coming out of this kitchen that service is is all in Northern [Music] California she's doing 18800 oranges today and those will be on our Patient Tray tomorrow and then this is a custom salad it's a broccoli tomato chickpea salad it's been the patient satisfier in our medical centers that looks good these are the different blends our Scandinavian blend our Capri blend and these are the local yes local that come in according to our specifications we're moving to making everything inhouse from scratch using our own recipes we've moved from a 40% of In-House cooked food to a 80% in house cooked food we've moved totally away from the processed food people are receiving Fresh Foods fresh Source foods from local areas wherever we can all right we've made reasonable prog in 5 years sourcing well over 100 tons of fruit and vegetables from small farmers we still don't have all the products we need in All Seasons to feed all of our members in the hospital if we have difficulty doing this in California where we've got agriculture right up ab budding our cities what must it be like for the rest of the country where the growing season is only 3 months a year what I find interesting is the Rel reluctance of some folks to understand prevention is so much smarter in the long run than paying for the problem after you've got it through medicine the time is right for people to be willing to say we've got to go ahead and change the discussion change the dialogue and be sure that we have the healthy food at the front end of these children's lives because it's awful hard to roll it back when they're 25 and 30 and 35 [Music] [Music] 67% of Texas adults are overweight or obese we have about 40% of Texas fourth grade school kids overweight or obese and Texas businesses have seen an annual cost to their businesses of about 9.3 billion and these same Texas businesses and the ones that come later expected to incur by 2030 32.5 billion what does that mean for the Texas economy for us to be looking at this hit to the Texas of Tomorrow is frankly frightening we're delivering a good portion of what you see here tomorrow to Judson Independent School District really yeah the the Roma which is beautiful it's unbelievable abely spectacular looking [Music] that's really gorgeous what would you do for a kid for lunch well actually we've done this in the past with and uh fresh kale like this will actually toss with a little bit of oil and fresh garlic and then we'll roast it in the oven and we we'll make kale chips out of it right we took a look at a school district here in Austin where there is a terrifically dedicated guy a chef who works really hard on fresh fruits and vegetables not just making them taste good but opening up children to the notion that vegetables are fun and fruits are fun and he gives them these and they like them you are trying to make this the source of supply for all vegetables and fruits seasonal adjustments because where you are but for two large systems and I think that's really encouraging yeah two and and Beyond we've got about 4 million school kids in the state of Texas and do you see a way to sort of scale this up where it's not just the kids lucky enough to have Chef Steven here and you all to scale it up to where you can actually sort of push this whole thing through was most definitely doable next year we're adding on 16 elementaries 11 high schools and several middle schools on top of that and those will all be ordered in as much produce as they can from our local farmers by having people like John and and Andrew bringing in this produce to us locally we're able to to achieve that and achieve it on a large scale I think that's terrific eventually folks will realize this is big economic impact stuff here colleges uh hospitals all of these are enormous buyers anybody in the business of producing a food product is absolutely going to listen to their Market if the market demands change they will produce it do you like the locally grown tomatoes first time I bought them have you okay good good well let I get on the farmers market and I'm low today so are you how how's our price compared to the farmers market very good it is good we appreciate you yeah well let us know appreciate you having them all right let us know we appreciate the business thank you very much thanks I sell a lot of processed foods in this store but I also know there's a demand for good healthy alternatives and I think it's our responsibility as retailers Whalers and manufacturers to to provide those um alternatives to our customers [Music] good natured Family Farms is an alliance of 150 Family Farms within a 200 mile radius of Kansas [Music] City we're trying to integrate our small and midsize Family Farms into this modern food system and learning how to develop a process that makes it economically viable back to the family farm age farmer working independently it would never be able to grow enough product to service a mainstream Supermarket what we find is very efficient and effective is everyone bring it together we call these produce hubs by everyone working together and having a central location to aggregate their product it allows us to access these markets we had a real challenge with our distribution model because a lot of those Farmers did necessarily have the right equipment to get their product from the farm to our warehouse maintaining the refrigeration to get it to the marketplace was one of the weak links that we had in the process so we stepped up and we provided some Refrigeration trailers to a lot of these different [Music] Farmers we're en able to help the farmer get their goods from the the farm to the distribution facility to the end consumer which is the plate what Dian inot and good natured Family Farms ball foods and number of others around the country that are striving to do is they're try striving to make this good local food accessible to more people by moving it in to something similar to the mainstream food system we ought to shoot for uh quadrupling or quintupling this business in the next 12 months we ought to be able to figure out how to do that it has potential when you're looking at using the existing systems not having to create new systems if there's commitment on the end users level and there's product at the farm level and we're able to regionally source and consolidate it and get the product through the existing channels it does have huge [Music] potential are you ready for your dinner enjoy hi Mrs Smith this is dinner it's a spring mix salad today enjoy [Music] yourself is this really a blood orange I haven't had one of those in a long time [Music] very nice as the local food movement grows then you will create the confidence that yes we can move from this industrial food system to something that's fundamentally different is there enough local product out there to really fulfill the demand for all of us what if all the universities all the hospitals all the school systems started asking for small farmer food are there enough small farmers to go around to do it not today not today the answer would be no not today there aren't enough small farmers to to adequately fulfill the pipeline we have a country with high obesity rates we have people who are demanding fresh fruits and vegetables and we have Farmers eager to grow them problem I think is scaling up and having government programs support that so why are these programs not changing we can never really have a truly good policy as long as we're worrying about a commodity group influence the policy more than our interest in food they have the wherewithal to encourage lawmakers to do what they're doing we do not maybe we just don't have enough of a voice within American agriculture to to make that shift happen we think this might be the biggest kale field in Iowa because the state doesn't keep very good records we're not certain it's about 2third of an acre I'd love to have 40 acres of [Music] this our fairly expensive Farm program where we're spending $30 billion over the course of like two or three years sometimes on corn and soybean subsidies uh is costing us hundreds of billions of dollars in the health industry because we're having to treat obesity related diseases uh if we were able to shift some of that farm money towards vegetables and fruits or to even maybe eliminate that that subsidy so you had a More Level Playing Field um so that some of the incentive was there to grow fruits and vegetables and make them more cost competitive um I think we could have a much healthier populace and spend much less of the taxpayers money [Music] if we really want to make Headway on the Obesity epidemic we have no choice but to take the food supply and farm policy and uh Farmers into the equation if we don't have Farmers on board I think it's going to be very difficult to change the food that is making our children overweight [Music] the system that we have now isn't working you have to have a vision of something that's fundamentally better for the future how about that one there is that a purple I think I'll regular green Bells I'm going to take one purple one and then I'm going to get one of these long sweet peppers so as we look to the future of the food system people like good natured Family Farms and like the Practical Farms of Iowa and like the people at the farmers market they're helping to create this new vision of a better food system for the future [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: HBODocs

Views: 115,111

Keywords: hbo documentary films, docu, docs, weight of the nation, may 14, may 15, weight, fat, troubles, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, diabetes, high blood pressure, blood pressure, liver disease, infertility, cancer, stroke, overweight

Id: 9sN9Zf5BBmk

Length: 31min 11sec (1871 seconds)

Published: Tue May 15 2012