Filmmaker
Byron Hurt wants to remind everyone traditionally prepared soul food can be
very unhealthy, but he sure makes it look delicious. That is sort of the whole dilemma in a
nutshell. For Hurt, it is not merely an
academic question. It has very personal
implications for his family, as he explains in Soul Food Junkies (trailer here), which airs this coming Monday as part of
the current season of Independent Lens
on PBS.
Hurt’s
father Jackie died at a relatively young age.
His one real vice was a love of comfort foods, particularly soul
food. Hurt traces how his southern-born
parents’ vivid memories of segregation shaped their approach to food. On family vacations, instead of stopping for meals
on the way, his mother always cooked up a batch of fried chicken. It might have been more economical, but Hurt
clearly links the cumulative fried chicken, mac & cheese, and fat drenched
collard greens to his father’s diabetes and associated health problems.
Of
course, the filmmaker admits his father and many men like him also probably
over-indulged in fast food over the course of their lives, but that is really just
the other side of the same coin. Yet, in
documenting the evolution of soul food, he readily concedes both its special
place in African American cultural history and how great it tastes, even to a largely
vegetarian convert such as himself.
Some
of Junkies talking heads overstate
their cases, such as the commentator who blames the lack of full service
grocery stores in inner city neighborhoods on institutional racism. Evidently, the relative economic climate in
urban areas has nothing to do with it.
However, he also includes some productive recommendations for healthier
soul food options from Dr. Rani “Hip Hop Doctor” Whitfield.
