“Sustainable” Documentary Film Review

Healthcare spending is growing 1.1% faster than the annual GDP.  But as alarming as that number is, just look around.  It is hard to ignore the fact that America is getting sicker, fatter, and more depressed.  But why? Now, my personal belief is that it is multifactorial. A combination of less requirement for physical labor, delivery services, increased stress, a move away from nuclear families, a pharma first healthcare system……… just to name a few. But there is one industry that has changed so radically in the last 30 years, that its impact on our health can’t be denied. That is agriculture.

Enter “Sustainable”

Released in 2016, sustainable is a documentary by Matt Wechsler and Annie Speicher that starts out explaining how food insecurity combined with an increased focus on profitability transformed agriculture. And of course, combine a basic human need (food), with another human need (financial security), and you are bound to see problems.

Sustainable brings together chef’s, agriculture experts, and farmers to tell a compelling story about the degradation of food quality in America. With that said, they balance this with a guy named Marty Travis. Marty is a seventh generation farmer who is presented as a “hero” who took his own “profitless wasteland” and transformed it into “sustainable food movement”.

“The feature-length film examines the value of sustainable farming from a well-being of the land and health of society standpoint to the maintainability of an economy built around a locally grown food system rooted in quality nutrition, community, and ethical agricultural practices versus that of today’s more common industrial produced one focused on quantity and corporate profit.” – documentary drive

“Sustainable is a film about the land, the people who work it and what must be done to sustain it for future generations. Sustainable travels the country seeking leadership and wisdom from some of the most forward thinking farmers like Bill Niman, Klaas Martens and John Kempf – heroes who challenge the ethical decisions behind industrial agriculture. It is a story of hope and transformation, about passion for the land and a promise that it can be restored to once again sustain us” – Matt Wechsler, Filmmaker.

Who should watch this?

If you are curious about why it seems health is declining in America, this is a fascinating look at how agriculture might be part of the problem. This film will give you hope that the solution to some of the health problems in America can be solved.

If you want to learn more about what sustainable farming is and how not all produce is created equal, this film is for you.

Watch Sustainable