Fixing Food

To many of us, climate change is remote, abstract, too grim to consider, too far removed from our daily lives. But we now know that one of the biggest triggers for global warming is something all of us do every day: eating.

Growing and processing food, and packaging and bringing it to us—all use enormous amounts of energy, water, and chemicals, creating an overwhelming burden on our planet's resources. And, remarkably, Americans throw out nearly half of the food we produce. More than 62 million tons of food every year ends up rotting in landfills, releasing poisonous methane into the air and further fueling the increases in global warming.

Fortunately, across the country, intrepid innovators are recognizing and exploring solutions to the problems of growing our nation's food while responding to climate change.

FIXING FOOD tells stories of people who are working to lower our carbon footprint with impactful new ways to gather and prepare the food we need. The series looks at five important areas where we can make changes—farming in the ocean and the air, finding new food sources, learning from Indigenous agriculture, and rescuing the food we already have.

Their stories challenge us all: If we change the way we eat, can we save our planet?

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The Fixing Food includes the following titles:

Farming the Sky

Winters in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, are long, and the growing season is short. A head of lettuce travels an average 2,000 miles to get there, often arriving shriveled and tasteless. Architect Nona Yehia knew there had to be a better way to get food to eat. Traditional industrial scale agriculture might never be replaced, but she was sure it could be improved. She designed a new kind of greenhouse: a building that would pack a perfectly controlled growing environment into a space built up vertically on a sliver of town land.

Bullfrog Films | 2022 | 8 minutes | 7-12, College, Adults

Harvesting the Sea

How can we keep Maine’s world-famous fishing communities employed and feeding us all when the oceans they depend on are warming so fast that fish stocks are declining? The answer, says economist Brianna Warner, is seaweed.

Bullfrog Films | 2022 | 8 minutes | 7-12, College, Adults

Native Table

Chef Sean Sherman worked for years in Italian, Spanish, Japanese and modern American restaurants. Then one day he realized his own heritage – Lakota Sioux – had a lot to teach him about foods that would nourish himself, his customers, and the Earth. Today, Sherman and his business partner Dana Thomson (Dakota) are exploring their Native cultural heritages by re-creating pre-colonial menus – meals that use no dairy, no wheat, no sugar.

Bullfrog Films | 2022 | 12 minutes | 7-12, College, Adults

The 3 Cricketeers

Like many Americans, Claire and Chad Simons worried about climate change but didn’t know what they could do about it. Then one day in 2015, their son came home from school, excited about having eaten a snickerdoodle made with cricket flour. Crickets as food? Why not? they asked.

Bullfrog Films | 2022 | 9 minutes | 7-12, College, Adults

The Rescue Brigade

When Leah Lizarondo learned that every year more than 40% of America’s food is wasted, she decided to do something about it. Today, she is the founder and CEO of 412 Rescue in Pittsburgh, built around an app, a real-world kitchen, and a food rescue mission

Bullfrog Films | 2022 | 9 minutes | 7-12, College, Adults

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