Yuck: Michael Moore-Style Documentary by 4th Grader on Gross Cafeteria Food
#Food
Tue, May 21st, 2013 10:00 by capnasty NEWS
Fourth grader Zachary Maxwell's documentary, Yuck: A 4th Grader’s Short Documentary About School Lunch, compares the "delicious and nutritious cuisine" menu choices advertised to his parents by the school versus the bizarre obscenities that landed on his plate.
Like many things in the life of a fourth grader, Zachary’s movie started as a dispute with his parents. He told them that he wanted to start packing his own lunch, but they were skeptical. Lunch is free at his school, P.S. 130 Hernando De Soto in Little Italy, and his parents liked the look of the Department of Education’s online menus, which describe delicious meals, full of whole grains and fresh vegetables, some even designed by celebrity chefs.
“I told them that’s not what they were actually serving me,” Zachary said. “But I don’t think they believed me.”
So he smuggled in a camera in his sweatshirt pocket the next day and filmed lunch.
“When I came back home and showed them the footage, they were like, ugh!” he said.
Soon, Zachary and his father, a lawyer and video hobbyist, were cutting together the footage he brought home every day. (In the film, Zachary goes by the name Zachary Maxwell, though Maxwell is his middle name. His family asked that their last name be withheld because of Zachary’s age.)
791