Food Patriots | Chicago

Jeff and Jennifer Spitz didn't want their new film, Food Patriots, to be just another food exposé that left viewers feeling scared, digusted and powerless. "This is the zero-entry pool approach to the food movement," Jennifer explains. "Polemics aren't interesting–they're just a two-by-four to the skull," Jeff elaborates.

After the Spitz's son, Sam, was infected with an antibiotic-resistant superbug he contracted from a chicken Caesar salad, they decided to try to learn more about the food world and their place in it.

Jeff, an Emmy Award-winning documentarian, chronicled their efforts, from gardening to keeping chickens in their Chicago backyard (oh, the chicken antics). They also found other revolutionaries on the forefront of the good food movement, the "Food Patriots." These include community gardeners, college athletes, farmers, activists, chefs and students, all of whom are trying to change the way food works in America.

Jeff is the first one to admit that he wasn't even close to an expert in the food scene before he started filming. "I thought 'food is so good, it's so cheap, what can you possibly have to complain about?'" By film's end, however, we see that the Spitz's 10 percent solution–to change their relationship to food by just 10 percent–has the potential to change the way we all eat, just like it changed their family.

Jennifer explains, "I really believe that if we all make this 10 percent shift, the whole marketplace will change." 

What a delicious idea.