Locavore

The seductive star of this documentary is food: the camera loves the sensuous curves of zucchini, the backlit leaves of lettuce, the apples in a basket carried by a pink-cheeked child, even the fall of dirt between the fingers. Locavore (the word refers to someone who eats what's produced close at hand) is a paean to produce, an unabashed cheerleader for fresh, organic, local provisions. The message that local food tastes better, is more healthful, and saves energy is repeated as smiling families dig into meals resplendent with fresh vegetables, young women bottle-feed baby goats, and back-to-the-earth farmers talk about the future. Corporate agriculture, with its dependence on monoculture, pesticides, and petroleum-based fertilizer, is a dinosaur, they say. “We're eating oil, essentially” is how one interviewee puts it. Director Jay Canode and Lynn Gillespie, who wrote and produced the film, take on the issues of economics and farm policy from both broad and narrow perspectives, touching on such topics as job creation and economic stimulus while also providing advice on where to find local foods, how to grow a garden, and other ways to achieve locavore status. One simple way to start is this: commit to eating one meal a week that's based totally on locally produced food—if all Americans did that, it would save more than a million barrels of oil a week. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Gardner)