Rosie is a little girl who lives with her mother and grandmother in rural Colorado, Rosie's mother works as a waitress, but her meager salary puts her above the limit required for qualifying for food stamps. Rosie's teacher sees a lot of Rosie in her. The teacher was so poor as a child that she had trouble concentrating on her work as a child. The teacher regularly goes to the food bank and delivers food to Rosie and other kids like her.In Jonestown Mississippi, Ree a mother of 4 has to drive 30 miles out of the way to get fresh fruit and vegetables, because Rhee lives in a "food desert", a place where fresh food and vegetables can't be delivered. Also in Jonestown an 8 year old girl named Tremonica is obese. How can kids living in poverty be obese?Barbie, a single mom with two kids living in Philadelphia has to figure out how to feed herself and two kids on the small government stipend. But some things are looking brighter. Barbie testifies with 40 other women in Philadelphia go to congress and win a slight increase in the food stamps program, and then Barbie gets a job, but does employment necessarily mean a better life for her and her children?A Place At The Table is a mostly effective documentary with a definite political point of view, but when it's not pouring out statistics and sounding like an ad for Jeff Bridges and his pet project on hunger, when it concentrates on poor people who have to live on food stamps, then the stories are compelling. It shows how difficult it is to actually feed children on a food stamps stipend .But it also shows how the poorest children become morbidly obese. The government actually subsidizes huge agrobusinesses, while the family farm is almost extinct. The Congress gets big campaign donations from the agrobusinesses and the agrobuissnesses make processed junk too cheaply, cheaper than fresh fruit and vegetables, and that's why poor kids are obese, because all their parents can afford is cheap, processed, junk food. The problem is that the lobbyists who give the biggest donations are the ones the politicians listen to, and poor people don't have a lobby. We have one party who has created a huge bureaucracy that the poor can't navigate, and another party who thinks government is the enemy and must be eliminated. They are both wrong, the bureaucracy must be streamlined, and the money must be sent to the people who need it the most, not the lobbyists with the biggest checkbooks. We actually took the problem of hunger seriously in the 1970's, starting with Nixon. Yes, I said Nixon. The film points out that surprising fact. Nixon and Carter did a lot to eliminate hunger in America, but we haven't taken the problem seriously since. No one should ever be hungry in America, the faith community has done heroic work in feeding the hungry, the film also stresses this point, but people of faith can't do it alone. They need help from a fully functional cohesive government to set standards, and fully fund programs so those standards are met. But the American government is so dysfunctional right now, it cannot solve the simplest problem.For reviews that leave you hungry for more, visit my blog, reviewswithatude.wordpress.com

Not earning enough money to be able to feed yourself and your family is NOT the issue, it's a lack of education and discipline. The fact that the most obese segment of our population is also the poorest and "hungriest" is SO frustrating. These people buy soda, sweets, fast food etc. but then claim they don't have enough money for vegetables...bull. It's just an excuse to say poor me and still indulge in gratifying yet unhealthy foods. I go to the store and buy 5 POUNDS of carrots for $5. 10 pounds of beans for $12. 5 pounds of brown rice for $3. This is a TREMENDOUS amount of nutritious food for only $20 that can feed me for a WEEK. This is obviously not ideal since we're still missing green leafy vegetables and fruit, but it's WAY WAY better than the junk food most of these people were eating. I say again, it's not a money issue, it's an education and discipline issue. Beans are packed with protein, rice gives you energy, and vegetables give your body the needed nutrition. Cookies, cakes, soda, chef boyardee, fast food etc. are all addiction foods that are very costly on your wallet and body, the solution is so stupidly simple that all the people complicating it should be ASHAMED! As a side note, the waitress in the first scene was complaining about how little her paycheck was every two weeks, shame on her for not telling the whole truth. You don't waitress for the paychecks, you do it for the cash tips, how many cash did you accumulate in two weeks? Didn't want to mention that one did ya? The same family also said they don't buy vegetables anymore because it's too costly, well then, STOP making cakes and pies and start buying carrots and celery if you really care. Otherwise, don't act like you can't afford it when the reality of the situation is you don't want to buy the healthy stuff because it doesn't taste as good.

This film is intended to provoke an emotional response. It would be more effective with some solid documentation, not just assertions, animated hyperbolic graphs and a few heart wrenching stories. The film shows several serious problems in America today including, under employment, single parent families, lack of education (nutritional and general), and absence of close knit community (ie. where is Barbie's support system?). All these problems contribute to poverty and hunger. I was stunned by the response to the Congressman who asked the man who was testifying on behalf of the poor if he had done any research on where the money was to come from. "You will fund your priorities." So, the public just gives Congress a wish list and 'poof' it gets done? That kind of thinking fuels debt in families and in government.

It's a national disgrace than nearly 50 million of our American neighbors live in homes that can't afford enough food. This compelling film explains why we have this problem, and, most importantly, what we can do to end it. Granted, I am biased because I fight hunger for a living, but I do think everyone in America should see this film.The film powerfully documents the real lives of real people struggling against hunger. Each of them defy common stereotypes of hungry people. Many Americans believe that we can end U.S. hunger one person at a time, one donated can of food at a time. They are well-meaning. But they are wrong, as this powerful film proves. When Ronald Reagan entered office in 1981, there were only a few hundred emergency feeding programs in America, most of which were traditional soup kitchens serving mostly the people who had been historically the most hungry—single men with substance abuse or mental illness problems. Yet, as a direct result of the economic policies and social service cuts set in motion by Reagan, the number of emergency feeding programs in America skyrocketed, and continued to do so even after he left office. There are now more than 40,000 such programs in America, and roughly two-thirds of them are food pantries, where parents and their children, the elderly, and working people obtain free groceries. Meanwhile, hunger has soared. The truth is that these agencies simply don't have anything close to the resources needed to meet the demand. The organization I manage, the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, found that, in 2011, close to sixty percent of the approximately 1,100 soup kitchens and food pantries in the city were forced to ration food because they lacked resources, either reducing portion size, limiting hours of operation, or turning away hungry families. These agencies are so under-funded that nearly 50 of them were forced to close in New York City in just the last few years.This vital film proves that the only way to truly end U.S. hunger is by advocating for fundamental change that include living wage jobs and a robust government safety net.