These messages, though, are not entirely indicative of the world we live in. There is a movement afoot – a powerful desire to know what’s in our food, who made it and where it came from, fueled by a budding industry designed to meet the demands of the consumer, communities and environment. It’s a movement that we at Haberman are proud to be a part of, one that is finally making its way to your television.

Food Forward: Urban Agriculture Across America, the first of an eventual TV documentary series, is airing this month on PBS stations across the country. There are no celebrity chefs or cooking competitions, just real stories about real people creating viable alternatives to how we grow food and feed ourselves.

In its 30-minute debut episode, Food Forward explores how people are growing food on the rooftops of New York City, amid the industrial blight of West Oakland and Milwaukee, and in the up-from-the-ashes city of Detroit. It highlights the inspirational urban farmers who are creating a better future for their cities.

The social entrepreneurs featured in the documentary are leading the good food revolution by creating compelling movements within and positive solutions for our broken food system. They are an inspiration to all of us at Haberman.

Driving powerful social change is the mission and passion of our agency. We are proud to co-produce this groundbreaking documentary and hope that you will take the time to view it.

The destructive food messages that meet us at every click of the remote can only be silenced by hope. Forward is the only option, folks.

Here’s to a new kind of food TV!

Fred

Check the schedule here for your local PBS air date and time. Food Forward will also be available for viewing in full at pbs.org on June 5.

For more information on the documentary, filmmakers and sponsors, visit www.foodforward.tv.

When my kids – first and second graders – told me they have 15 minutes to eat lunch, I thought they were joking. There’s no way they can walk through the lunch line, find a seat and eat in that amount of time. Even microwaving a frozen entree and wolfing it down at my desk at work takes at least 20 minutes. It took an op-ed in the Star Tribune from two sixth graders for me to realize the extent of the problem.

Schools claim that truncated lunch periods are a result of reduced funding, overcrowded classes and tightly squeezed staff rosters. But there is something incongruent about Jamie Oliver and Michelle Obama demanding changes in school lunch fare while kids don’t even have time to eat during school hours. No wonder why kids are craving soda and sugary snacks at mid-day – hell, I know when I skip lunch, a candy bar is like a shot of adrenaline to the heart to get me through until 5:00.

Some might believe that food is nothing more than sustenance and should be treated as such. After all, you wouldn’t linger at the pump contemplating the quality of your gas as you fill your car. But the key to eating healthy is to understand what you’re eating, and 15-minute lunch periods don’t allow kids to give their lunches a second thought (or even a second or third bite).

As the national dialogue about food systems, childhood obesity and sustainable agriculture continues at a fever pitch, the issue of eating enjoyment is rarely addressed. Whether it’s encouraging kids to try new vegetables like Annie’s Root 4 Kids initiative or tackling obesity on a community level UnitedHealth Group’s Join For Me program, these teachable moments could also explore how adults can model healthy attitudes about food and eating. And that starts with teaching kids to slow down and savor every meal.

I agree that offering healthier foods should be a priority for schools, but does it really matter what’s being served in the school lunchroom if kids don’t have time to digest it? By demanding swift and immediate face stuffing, schools are helping establish a precarious relationship between kids and food, one that emphasizes utility over enjoyment and positions eating as a “necessary evil” rather than a beautiful, thoughtful experience.

From a young age, we are taught to “stop and smell the roses.” Perhaps we ought to be teaching our children to “stop and enjoy that delicious ham sandwich before the cafeteria monitor orders everyone out of the lunchroom.”

It’s that time of year. Teams from across the U.S. are vying for glory, but clearly, hard work, long hours of practice and smooth execution on the court aren’t enough for basketball fans. That isn’t what makes the madness.

We want more from our teams than skill. We want more than a win. We want a compelling story.

Here at Haberman, we’re more than familiar with storytelling. It’s at the heart of what we do and how we see the world. We understand that people connect best through personally relevant narrative.

So it’s no surprise that stories are how we invest ourselves in events like the annual NCAA basketball tournament, and – especially for those who follow the sport for just a few weeks each spring – how we connect to teams. They’re what make us feel emotion about the outcome. That’s why, every March, the tales begin.

The Winner Who Falls

Whether in the first round or the Sweet Sixteen, this team will fall. Hard. And it’s going to take a large number of brackets down with it. The Winner Who Falls is the safe bet with a longstanding history of strong showings, the one people think is a “no-brainer.”

They are Goliath. They are Careers. Commentators speak of their past successes, the strength of the players and the road they will take to the championship.

Until they lose. Then we find ourselves enraged, shouting, “I had them going all the way to the Final Four! My bracket is ruined! What a waste of four dollars in the office pool!” (I’m looking at you, Duke). We curse the stories that the commentators spun as well as how closely we listened. We feel gullible.

We can only find solace in the knowledge that about half of our bracket pool is probably in the same boat.

The Early Contender

Buzz builds prematurely around this school. With early regional wins, commentators start to weave a story, getting hopes up. This team embodies potential.

Then, they putter or flame out. With a rambling loss or a defeat at the buzzer, their storyline fades, and they become but a scene in a greater team’s story.

The Underdog

The Underdog comes reeling into the spotlight, squinting as they emerge from darkness. They are disadvantaged, they are small, and they come out of nowhere. This team may start out with an upset, making a strong play against a high-seeded team. Suddenly, we must take notice.

We must follow their story, because perhaps they will accomplish the unthinkable and win. Sure, they will also wreck our brackets, but it’s hard not to root for them. This team is the classic protagonist. Today’s Hero with a Thousand Faces. The sweat- and loam-slicked Odysseus emerging from the deep. Regardless of bracket choices, who doesn’t like the excitement of an upset?

The Cinderella Story

Very simply, this team’s story is spun into a fairytale. They are transformed from Underdog to Team To Beat. Whereas the Underdog’s ride is expected to stop at any time, Cinderella’s story takes on a life of its own.

This team gets further than anyone, including perhaps the players themselves, could have imagined. Where the Underdog falters, Cinderella soars past on glass slippers to the net.

The Champion

The final chapter of the season’s storybook. The story we want to belong to our team. Regardless of how the narrative takes shape, every Champion’s story ends the same – with victory.

Year after year, we fit our teams to suit pre-crafted tales. We spin yarns until matchups are more than basketball games. They are plot points – and each team wants to connect them to live Happily Ever After.

Well, at least Happily Until Next March.

Here’s what today’s guest bloggers, Susan Becker, Tout Senior Marketing Manager, and Scott Epstein, Tout CMO, have to say about Tout.

It can certainly be said that though we’re all uber-connected in today’s global, socially networked world, we’re at the same time increasingly distant from those around us.  We walk around with earbuds in, fingers swiping madly; we sit at our computers to spend time with “friends” and we text, text, text.  This is the reality of our world and our culture, today.

But what if social media actually brought us face to face?  Guess what: it can.

Tout was born out of the Stanford Research Institute (birthplace of color TV and Siri, among other things) with the idea that fifteen seconds is all you need to create a video status update, and that even the most camera-shy can manage to fill that small amount of time.  Given an early boost by Shaq, who chose the nascent video platform to announce his retirement, Tout has grown into a place where those we hold dear, near and far, come face to face, be they friends, family, fans, customers or interested strangers.  Users can easily create and view Touts from their smartphones or webcams, and share these Touts to Twitter, Facebook, email, SMS and soon, Pinterest.

Tout has taken social media, with us hunched over our keyboards and nose-down to our phones, and paradoxically brought us face to face.

Who is using Tout and how?

Jeff Probst Touts during broadcasts of Survivor to personally answer viewers’ questions.  Mashable, the go-to source for tech and social media news, asks Touters how they use social media on weekends.  Fans of Wendy Williams get to tell her if they like her shoes and if that dress really does make her look fat.  Movie fans got to Tout to Cameron Crowe to tell him what they thought of his latest film, “We Bought a Zoo.”  And all these interactions?  Virtual, yes, but face to face.

Celebrities aside, ordinary humans also use Tout in interesting ways:

A first time Dad is Touting every day of his new baby’s life.  A man in rural Kentucky Touted his deer head stew recipe and people across the country replied.  Mommy friends distanced across coasts after a husband’s job change stay connected to each other and their kids by Touting. Two Tout users discovered they were Touting from the same basketball game, got in touch, and met in person soon after.  A teenager created a lip synching contest and the replies poured in.

Tout is pioneering social media by offering a tool for users to broadcast video status updates and start video conversations — with their closest friends, or with the world.  Face to face.

To sign up for Tout, visit www.tout.com.

To see Tout in action, check out Just BARE Chicken at Natural Products Expo West, watch ESPN SportsCenter’s Bracket Brag, or see how Tout users are following #SXSW.

This wasn’t just any fast-food commercial. Capitalizing on Coldplay’s popular song “The Scientist” covered by Willie Nelson, Chipotle’s first national ad begins as one of the cutest things you’ve ever seen. It’s achieved with a clever animation style reminiscent of charming childhood claymation favorites, like Gumby and Wallace and Gromit.

But there is one big twisted difference: Gumby didn’t imprison, force feed, kill and eat his horse Pokey.

Watch the Chipotle video “Back to the Start.” Hug your pet.

Chipotle’s animated video tells the story of a farmer whose idyllic family farm is full of adorable pigs and cows (yay! cute!) But, looking to save a buck or two (evil! evil!), he converts his farm into a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO), where the animals are closely packed together (smelly!) inside of buildings instead of roaming around freely. They become fat, and the close quarters breeds disease (sad!), so he begins pumping them full of antibiotics. Then, struck by a moment of clarity, the farmer goes “back to the start,” tearing down his CAFO and returning the animals to a blissful free-range existence (yay!). The now-happy farmer loads his products onto a Chipotle truck.

It’s cute. It’s sad. It has a happy ending. It made my pregnant friend sob through half a box of Kleenex. But the message is strong and poignant: factory farming is the dark side of the meat industry, one that consumers often tend to ignore.

In line with the company’s “Food with Integrity” message, Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold stated in an article on FOXNews.com that the company ran the ad during the Grammy Awards, “because we wanted to expose more people to it and thought the Grammy audience would appreciate it.”

Yet even Chipotle admits its practices are only one small part of the solution.

“We are showing that it can be done – that you can make great food with premium quality ingredients available and affordable for everyone,” Arnold said. “If more companies went this way, the supply chain would move to meet that demand, and prices would probably moderate.”

Indeed, while factory-farmed meat may be cheaper for consumers in the short term, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that the long-term costs may be significant. In addition to an alarming number of meat recalls, mass-produced meat and poultry have been linked to several new infectious diseases, the inevitable result of widespread antibiotic use. Artificial growth hormones in meat have been linked to increased rates of cancer, thyroid disease and other maladies, while animal waste run-off from factory farms has sickened or killed thousands of people worldwide.

Chipotle’s commitment to sustainable farming practices isn’t new in the foodservice industry. Small, local restaurants have been preaching the gospel of food safety and sustainability for years, but Chipotle is one of the first quick-service restaurant chains to adopt food-sourcing best practices on a company-wide level.

It’s only fitting that the company should tout its commitment with a tender portrait of the modern American farmer and his adorable porcine charges.

Editor’s Note: Chipotle’s video has two great Minnesota connections. 1.) Some of the video characters and set were created using a Dimension 3D printer from Minnesota-based company Stratasys 2.) GNP (Gold’n Plump), another Minnesota-based company, raises chickens for Chipotle’s Minnesota-based restaurants on family farms with no added hormones.