Food Fight

On the Sorrento peninsula, orange and lemon groves stretch all the way to the coast. In the orange plantations, the high wooden frames are covered with mats to protect the trees from intense sunlight. The function of the artificial irrigation system is demonstrated. The oculation of trees is demonstrated in a young plantation. The oranges are cleaned on the spot, then sent to the laundry, cleaned, dried and made ready for dispatch. In a lemon plantation, many pickers stand on ladders on a tall tree and remove the fruit. The lemons are sorted, wrapped in tissue paper and packaged in home and large-scale factories. Before being exported, the goods are checked again for quality.

This short film reveals the story behind oatmeal cookies, from the farmer's field to fresh from the oven. Without words.

Gaz Oakley goes on a culinary journey across his home country of Wales & is blown away with what he finds.

All food can be adulterated. More discreet than a drug cartel, more elusive than arms dealers, criminals have taken over food. Olive oil, fish, meat, spices, no department escapes their juicy traffic. A jackpot estimated in Europe at 30 billion euros enriches a new kind of mafia every year. Organized crime is selling altered products in restaurants, supermarkets and all food shops in the European Union. Their secret is to replace an ingredient with a cheaper one. Who are these new traffickers? What are their methods of operation?

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In Ramen Heads, Osamu Tomita, Japan's reigning king of ramen, takes us deep into his world, revealing every single step of his obsessive approach to creating the perfect soup and noodles, and his relentless search for the highest-quality ingredients.

Intermittent fasting, autophagy, "metabolic switch": ten years after their first successful documentary on fasting, Sylvie Gilman and Thierry de Lestrade delve back into promising research on a booming practice.

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A look at how form, color, smell, consistency, the sounds made during eating, manufacturing technique, history and stories influence food design.

A young and ambitious team of chefs face the life-changing challenges of competing in the world's most prestigious culinary competition.

In an age when every fast food place seems the same, diners have remained distinctive, fun places to stop, full of local flavor. This program takes a look at several of the most interesting diners in Pennsylvania, and also considers a few other roadside restaurants (like Midway Plaza on the Pennsylvania Turnpike) that have interesting histories and reputations for good “home-cooked” food. So get a cup of coffee. Have a seat. And come along as we visit great little restaurants from Wellsboro to Downingtown, from Milford to Conneaut Lake. Let’s go to Potato City, to the Melrose in Philly and to unforgettable little places from Pittsburgh to Poconos. Whether it’s the middle of the night in State College or lunchtime in Smethport, this documentary gives you an unusual taste of Pennsylvania and some of its quirkier cuisine.

Soul explores the secrets of gastronomy where two cuisines apparently so opposite in their philosophy, conception and experience, have both earned the highest culinary recognition, three Michelin stars.

King Corn is a fun and crusading journey into the digestive tract of our fast food nation where one ultra-industrial, pesticide-laden, heavily-subsidized commodity dominates the food pyramid from top to bottom – corn. Fueled by curiosity and a dash of naiveté, two college buddies return to their ancestral home of Greene, Iowa to figure out how a modest kernel conquered America. With the help of some real farmers, oodles of fertilizer and government aide, and some genetically modified seeds, the friends manage to grow one acre of corn. Along the way, they unlock the hilarious absurdities and scary but hidden truths about America’s modern food system in this engrossing and eye-opening documentary.

This portait of life on the tea plantations is decidedly rosy – clearly, there are no exploited workers here. However, the film provides an intriguing overview of tea production – from the planting of tea seeds to the final shipping of the precious leaves across the globe.

Philoxenia is a short documentary highlighting the synergy between the Greek notion of philoxenia ("friend of the stranger") and Southern hospitality, as expressed through Birmingham, Alabama's Greek-owned restaurants. The film features six local favorite restaurants, two historians and, of course, a lot of mouthwatering dishes.

Paella, tapas or tortillas: Spanish cuisine, which gives pride of place to vegetables and fresh produce, is a guest of choice at the French table.

From the UFC Octagon in Las Vegas and the anthropology lab at Dartmouth, to a strongman gym in Berlin and the bushlands of Zimbabwe, the world is introduced to elite athletes, special ops soldiers, visionary scientists, cultural icons, and everyday heroes—each on a mission to create a seismic shift in the way we eat and live.

Food in the 21st century has become much more than “meat and potatoes” and canned soup casseroles.” Chefs have gained celebrity status; recipes and exotic ingredients, once impossible to find, are now just a mouse click away; and the country's major cities are better known for their gastronomy than their art galleries. This food movement can be traced back to one man: James Beard. His name graces the highest culinary honor in the American food world today—the James Beard Foundation Awards. And while chefs all around the country aspire to win a James Beard Award, often referred to as the “culinary Oscars,” many of those same chefs know very little about the man behind the medal. Respected restaurateur Drew Nieporent summed it up when he said, “Everybody knows the name James Beard. They may not know who he is, but they know the name.”

The Shrimp is a lush visualist's documentary that follows the life cycle of a shrimp along the marshes of Savannah, Georgia. Beautifully etched images and a canny audio soundtrack create a rich observational work about Southern culture, human folly and the interplay of natural and built environments.

Anaïs is 24 and nothing can stop her. Neither the bureaucratic rules of administration, nor the misogynistic teachers, nor the out-of-order tractor, nor the whims of the weather. One day she will be a farmer and grow her own aromatic and medicinal herbs. The film follows this hard liner, all alone against the rest of the world. She doesn’t care.