Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that this series aims to help families create healthier surroundings by emphasizing the personal and environmental benefits of "green" changes like buying organic products, recycling, supporting local farmers, and decreasing energy use. References are made to medical ailments (like cancer) being linked to preservatives in food, hormones in dairy cows, pesticides on produce, and air quality problems in the home. Though tuning in with tweens may inspire some positive family lifestyle changes, if your kids tend to be worriers, this series could generate a sense of paranoia about the world's potential toxicity.
Families can talk about the media's coverage of environmental and health issues. Do you think it's impartial/objective? What influences the media's messages on these topics? How can the media affect our impression of controversial issues in general? Families can also discuss the potential benefits of a more naturalistic approach to life. What are some of the potential dangers in the food we eat, the cleaning products we use, and the air we breathe? How can they affect health and the environment?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Emily Ashby
In GET FRESH WITH SARA SNOW, the titular natural-living expert suggests healthy lifestyle changes that also help the environment. She explains how rethinking the foods we choose, recycling the products we use, and improving our energy efficiency can greatly improve our own well-being -- as well as that of the Earth.
In each episode, Snow visits with people and companies who are leading the way in the green living/sustainability movement. Her guests show that a little ingenuity goes a long way, discussing and demonstrating everything from homes built of recycled materials and fueled almost solely by solar power to old clothing that's turned into brand-new items and custom totes and purses made out of past-their-prime skateboards.
Snow also incorporates suggestions for improving viewers' diet, often preparing a simple meal on camera and explaining the health benefits of the foods she uses. A stickler for freshness and firmly against food additives, Snow heavily promotes buying organic products, and she refers to links between cancer, preservatives, and dairy growth hormones as inescapable reasons for doing the same.
Snow and the experts she talks to lay out excellent cases for making small lifestyle changes that yield big benefits in overall well-being. They further drive home the message by showing the excessive waste that threatens to exhaust landfills and demonstrating how recycling can make a difference. (In one episode, for example, they follow the lifecycle of a used yogurt cup that's re-made into a disposable razor and later becomes the plastic lumber in a park bench.)
Get Fresh is great for families looking to take small steps toward a healthier life and better environment. But if your tweens are worriers, be careful -- some of the details about food and environmental health risks can be frightening.
Fans might also enjoy Big Ideas for a Small Planet, Living With Ed, and the movie An Inconvenient Truth.
Rate It!
| Content | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CS | adults | kids | ||
Sexual ContentRare mention of foods and supplements that are good for the libido. |
 |
|
||
Violence |
|
|
||
Language |
|
|
||
Message |
 |
|
||
Social BehaviorThe series teaches viewers about improving their health and well-being through simple dietary and lifestyle changes like buying local products, recycling, and reducing energy use. |
 |
|
||
CommercialismBrandless organic products get a lot of attention, as do the companies whose recycling efforts are spotlighted (Patagonia, for example). |
 |
|
||
Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoBeer and alcohol bottles are shown in segments about recycling. |
 |
|
||
