ipl-logo

Soul Food Junkies By Byron Hurt

804 Words4 Pages

Soul Food Junkies (2012) is a documentary written and directed by filmmaker Byron Hurt. In the film, Byron Hurt presents a popular debate: is soul food unhealthy? However, unlike others, Hurt does not only focus on the impact that soul food has on an individual's physical health but also the influence it has on the health of a society. This novel proposition forces the audience to consider how much of an influence culture has on a society and how much society, influences various cultures. There are many different factors, this film explores several including the access to healthy food in poorer neighborhoods and Southern American history. Soul Food Junkies takes on a difficult task of defending what some may consider to be common knowledge …show more content…

Hurt’s film discusses the idea of food deserts. This idea suggests that supermarkets tend to not be built predominantly black neighborhoods and therefore, they are forced to rely on unhealthy foods or even fast food, to feed themselves. However, this point could be criticized for confusing correlation with causation. There are a variety of reasons that supermarkets are not built in these neighborhoods, one opinion proposes that it could instead be an issue amongst economic levels, not race. This claim also holds truth because it is apparent that health issues correlated with culture does not only affect blacks but also latino, asian, and european culture too, all of which are suffering from their own specific health concerns. By presenting black culture as being the only unhealthy culture, Hurt at least on a subconscious level, is labeling the entire soul food diet as an unhealthy choice that logically makes no sense. This careless mistake of excluding other cultures completely negatively affects Hurt’s credibility late in the film and exhibits him as a grossly, biased …show more content…

Soul Food Junkies does a phenomenal job of introducing ideas. This film overall also does a great job in defending the minority opinion by allowing real people to speak on why they continue to do what they do and what real leaders are proposing as solutions to a problem. There are controversial opinions, but this film is meant to be watched with an open mind. In the final moments, the audience is called to action to personally reconsider their dietary choices. In this way, Soul Food Junkies is extremely successful in demonstrating how easy small choices can change our society’s view of unhealthy soul food. Again, average people discuss their personal lifestyle changes; from differences in food preparations growing up, to young children being taught how to cater to a garden themselves. The role of interviews are powerful in this film by imploring the audience to create small changes in the present day in an attempt to retain their culture and

Show More
Related

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Mark Bittman's 'Fast And Good For You'

    927 Words  | 4 Pages

    Food, either healthy or unhealthy, is a vital part of everyone’s lives; survival would be impossible without it. In April of 2013, Mark Bittman informs his audience through the article “Fast, Good and Good for You” of the development of healthy choices in fast food. This New York Times journalist argues that fast food should be real food, persuading the audience and owners of fast food chains that healthy is the best option. The argument made in Mark Bittman's "Fast, Good and Good for You" is effective due to his accurate use of Aristotelian appeals such as ethos, logos, and Kairos, and his excellent use of rhetorical devices.

    Read More

  • The Hate U Give By Ron Finley

    578 Words  | 3 Pages

    To begin, Ron Finley from the video “A Guerrilla Garden in South Central” is motivated by his fear to change things in his community. In the video he says ”It makes me feel so ashamed to see people that were this close to me that were hungry” This shows how Ron Finley feels when he sees people who weren’t able to get access to healthy food. People in his neighborhood were only eating fast food and weren’t healthy while people in other cities like Beverly Hills weren’t having this problem.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Appeals In Food Inc

    1713 Words  | 7 Pages

    The American documentary film, Food, Inc. creates a rhetorical, ceremonial argument that is to anger and disgust consumers that are most prominently of the lower and middle classes by showing them the horrors of the present day industrial food system that tend

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Don T Blame The Eater

    718 Words  | 3 Pages

    The life pursued by the average young person in America is fast paced and scheduled to the point of breaking. As time has progressed this time stretched life style has impacted the need for food that isn’t cooked at home or even at restaurants that cook with traditional methods. This coupled with the swelling number of households with either a single parent or two working parents has increased the reliance on the fast food industry and in turn increased the overweight and obesity rates in the country. In his article “Don’t Blame the Eater,” David Zinczenko addresses this topic and places the blame not on those partaking in these delectable dinners, but in the hands of the fast food industry and their lack of understandable labeling. Zinczenko’s argument is valid and strong due to his equal use of ethos, logos and pathos.

    Read More

  • Inequality In Will Allen's Growing Power

    656 Words  | 3 Pages

    The multifaceted issue of racism has been intensely explored by many, but it is Will Allen’s The Good Food Revolution that draws a staggering connection between discrimination and the United States’ obesity epidemic, offering solutions that tackle both monstrosities at once. Allen’s belief that access to locally grown produce should be a basic right stems from years of witnessing that right being strategically denied to the urban poor. The spread of chain business and the reduction of farms has created a crisis that Allen’s company Growing Power seeks to rectify. These claims are not only supported by the evidence presented by Allen in his experience, but also by circumstances in the reader’s life that mirrors what is described. It is unnerving to realize the after how far the United States has come, inequality is still being served at the dinner table.

    Read More

  • Essay About Class In America By Lisa Miller

    1266 Words  | 6 Pages

    Food has become part of our social status. Those who have money get to enjoy healthy organic options, while those who live on food stamps and low incomes get sugary packaged foods that are harmful to the boy. In “What Food says about Class in America,” Lisa Miller, a healthy food enthusiast and a bystander to the food problem, effectively captures the American people’s attention through descriptive imagery, alluring metaphors, and academic diction, but contradicts herself and fails to convince her target audience of the food corporations that a change is needed. Opening her article, Miller describes her family’s breakfast habits to relate herself to the people. She begins the article by saying, “I usually have a cappuccino mixed with organic

    Read More

  • Soul Food By George Tillman

    1529 Words  | 7 Pages

    The movie Soul Food is a comedy/drama made in 1997 by George Tillman Jr. The movie is centered around a Chicagoan family and there struggles to handle life situations while maintaining the concept of family. Soul Food not only represents the delicious food that has nourished the black body for generations; the movie also represents the concept of preserving family tradition. This film covers the basis of the Great Migration, when people from the south migrated to the north and Midwest in search of work and freedom from southern oppression.

    Read More

  • David Freedman's Essay 'How Junk Food Can End Obesity'

    1218 Words  | 5 Pages

    In David Freedman’s essay How Junk food Can End Obesity, Freedman makes the claim to policy arguing that instead of demonizing processed foods, Americans should instead support the idea and production of healthier processed and junk foods. He calls on the public to recognize that while many products on the market these days are labeled as “wholesome” and “healthy”, consumers should learn to become aware of the fat and calorie content in these products because many times they have the same- if not more- fat and calorie contents as that of a typical Big Mac or Whopper. In his essay, Freedman primarily places blame on the media and the wholesome food movement for the condemnation of the fast and processed food industries saying, “An enormous amount of media space has been dedicated to promoting the notion that all processed food, and only processed food, us making us sickly and overweight” (Freedman), he further expresses that this portrayal of the

    Read More

  • A Place At The Table Documentary Analysis

    531 Words  | 3 Pages

    When you hear obesity, do you imagine malnutrition or simply an individual who “eats too much?” Well, these health threatening issues go hand and hand. Learning that a large number of obese individuals are low income, it can be concluded that a lack of funds results in cheaper, more fattening and unhealthy food purchases, which ultimately can develop into malnutrition and unsafe weight gain. The eye-opening film, A Place At The Table, provides viewers with a true representation of how the issues of hunger and malnutrition in the United States affect individuals on a daily basis. Throughout this movie, the filmmakers, Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush, examine the lives of three individuals who suffer from hunger and and lack of nutrition.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Food Inc

    1065 Words  | 5 Pages

    “I 've eaten this food all my life not knowing what was in it and how powerful the food industry was." (Kenner, Food Inc.) “The industry doesn 't want you to know what you 're eating because if you did, then you might not want to eat it" (Kenner, Food Inc.) Ethos components in the film strengthen the documentary claim about the food

    Read More

  • Essay On Food Deserts

    591 Words  | 3 Pages

    The rising health problems in the United States of America are caused by poor nutrition, people who are sedentary, the lack of healthcare prevention, and many more. As reported on the Tikkun website, “Of the many systems in our world today that need to be reimagined, none is more important for our future than our food system” (1). The lack of our food system is one of the many factors that has led the United States to its uprising dilemmas; one of the many factors are the food deserts across the U.S. Food deserts are geographic areas where access to affordable healthy and nutritious food are limited, or impossible to purchase, by residents in the area. Food deserts are prone to low-income areas that can’t afford transportation, and due to the lack of grocery stores and supermarkets that sells fresh produce and healthy food within convenient distance to resident’s homes, there is a difficulty in obtaining healthy food options which leads to countless health issues. According to the Diabetes Forecast website, “About 18.3 million Americans live in low-income areas and are far from a supermarket” (1).

    Read More

  • How Junk Food Can End Obesity Summary

    670 Words  | 3 Pages

    In “How Junk Food Can End Obesity,” by David H. Freedman, he claims that processed foods can help fix the obesity crisis in a more realistic manner, rather than whole-some foods. The popular opinion emphasizes whole-some foods because they aren’t informed about the similitude between processed and unprocessed foods. The essence of the essay is that people believe processed foods are bad and unhealthy for us, therefore whole-some foods are highly recommended for the health of an individual. Freedman mentions many prominent authors who wrote books on food processing, but the most influential voice in the food culture Freedman makes a point of is, American journalist, Michael Pollan. The media and Michael Pollan indicate that everything should be replaced with real, fresh, and unprocessed foods, instead of engineering in as much sugar, salt, and fat as possible into industrialized foods.

    Read More

  • Book Report On Omnivore's Dilemma By Michael Pollan

    936 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Omnivore's dilemma book report The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan is about the struggles that americans go through when choosing food. There are so many choices out there that at times it can be hard to tell the difference between healthy and unhealthy food. In the Novel Pollan goes on to say that oftentimes Americans pick whatever is easiest for them.

    Read More

  • How Junk Food Can End Obesity By David Freedman

    1020 Words  | 5 Pages

    Junk food is responsible for the growing rate of obesity. This is outlined by David freedman in his article of “How junk food can end obesity.” David Freedman has credited the “health-food” motion, and followers of it along with Michel Pollan. Freedman claims that if the America desires to stop the obesity epidemic, or at least reduce its effects, they must shift to the fast meals and processed meals enterprise for assist, now not the “health-food” movement.

    Read More

  • Environmental Barrier Case Study

    945 Words  | 4 Pages

    Social & Environmental Factors: Using any of the following theories (e.g., social construction, structural functionalist, ecological theory, person in the environment, etc.), describe the environmental and social barriers that the character faced. Did the character overcome any of these barriers? Use specific examples. Environmental Barriers Using the lens of the Person-In-Environment Theory, Foxy’s life was heavily influenced by the environment. Her life consisted in poor tenement housing in often poor living conditions.

    Read More

More about Soul Food Junkies By Byron Hurt

Open Document