John Schwada-LA FOX 11 Category: Entertainment I just saw an uplifting, hopeful film that made me feel….justified. It’s rare that you can walk out of a cinematic experience and realize that those secret, idiosyncratic dreams you’ve been harboring, those stolen moments you’ve used to nurture those guilty dreams – that they are exalted, worthy, even respectable. I speak, of course, of that secret cache of grass clippings, coffee grounds and banana peels I have squirreled away in the sideyard despite the looks of doubting family and snickering neighbors. Actually, what I’m talking about is the documentary film “Food Fight” by producer, director and foodie Chris Taylor. It’s 83-minutes of pleasure and information; I saw it in a packed theatre Saturday afternoon at the AFI FEST, Los Angeles, and it should be required viewing by anyone who cares about why we eat so poorly and how we can change all that. Chris has put a lot of this puzzle together with the help of food revolutionaries, like chefs Wolfgang “Spago” Puck and Alice “Chez Panisse” Waters, and a bunch of organic farmers with dirt under the nails from Sonoma, Milwaukee and Long Island. Chris’ story goes like this: During WWII U.S. agri-business and food-processors, in order to feed our troops, perfected K-rations and other forms of high-calorie food delivery systems, that became the fathers of the TV dinners of the 1950’s and the grandfathers of today’s fast-food outlets; that agri-business (not the farmers really so much as the giant commodity companies), with the help of Richard Nixon’s agriculture secretary Earl Butz, turned the American farming heartland into a profit-center that sold, off-loaded, if you will, truckloads and silos full of cheap, high-calorie commodities into the gaping pie-holes of the American consumer. Those foods are now killing us – through obesity and rising health care costs. Cheap calories are killer calories, “Food Fight” tells us, as it pans down long aisles of potato chips and snack foods, wrapped in glossy packages like so many whores at the Mustang Ranch…. But “Food Fight” is not content to send us – depressed and angry at our lot – straight to the pantry to grab a bag of comforting potato chips and a bottle of beer. No, Chris Taylor shows us that folks like Puck and Waters and farmer’s markets can lead us out of this nightmare to a land of organic foods that guess what? – tastes a helluva a lot better and is a million times better for our overtaxed stomachs and arteries than the stuff we’ve been eating for years. The revolution, as “Food Fight” points out, actually began in Berkeley (a place dear to my heart ) where Waters wanted to feed hippies, professors, poets and revolutionaries some good food. In the process, she discovered locally-grown fruits and vegetables tasted better than the stuff she was buying for her larder from super-m arkets – and Voila! California cuisine was born. Her success and findings set in motion a chain-reaction that has created an expanding loop of good food. More demand meant more supply. Soon well-fed hippies were hip, and restaurants serving amazing food, built around fresh, organically-grown dishes, were sprouting faster than Shittake mushrooms  – led by chefs who apprenticed in Waters’ Chez Panisse kitchen. On a more mundane level, witness the growing numbers of organic meats, fruits and vegetables appearing in even our most venal chain markets. And witness the  increasingly popular farmer’s market movement. Yes, these foods cost more than the pre-packaged stuff that is the staple of most restaurants and grocery stores. But, as the computer guys say, junk in, junk out. The bottom-line is that if we eat poorly we cripple and kill ourselves. Another bottom-line: Go to Chris’ website, see his film, support the organic food revolution… Oh, and by the way, maybe Chris Taylor’s work-of-love-documentary will allow me to step out of the shadows, turn my  coffee-grounds, grass clippings and banana peels into a compost pile – and eventually into a real garden – where I can while away stolen, guilt-free moments digging in the dirt like a worm, making little green things grow. Maybe, too, when I feed a garden-grown heirrloom tomato into my wife’s mouth it’ll wipe away all her doubts about her husband’s “hare-brained” schemes. Thank you Chris Taylor for “Food Fight.”