Anyone else get excited when a promising new series comes out on Netflix, only to realize the disappointment 30 minutes in that you spent more time on your phone than watching that pilot episode?  With the ever-expanding number of shows, series and movies that pop up weekly, it can be a challenging and almost daunting task to find a new show to watch.  And let’s face it, there is nothing worse than getting excited about a new show only to find it’s not that good. 

We get this way about food shows.  And we have watched a numerous “first twenty minutes” of about every food show on Netflix and Hulu.

We sometimes feel that with the ever-growing demand, many producers and streaming services push a lot of junk out there.  So, we have decided to put pen to paper, errr, fingers to keys and let you know what food series have proven to be bingeworthy.

We have been talking about these shows for years and are finally making it official, these are the twp food series you need to binge:

1.       Cooked

Breakdown:

• Stream on Netflix

• 1 Season, 4 Episodes, 4 Total Hours

• First Aired: 2016

From one of our favorite authors, Michael Pollan, the series Cooked dives into four categories: Fire, Air, Earth and Water. 

What we love about this series is how Michael Pollan breaks down the basics of food and how it defines society, then backs it by science. He brings food and culture together and beautifully allows different people to tell the tale of the history of food, how society plays a role in food and how food plays a role in our society. 

One of our favorite episodes, Earth, Pollan explains the chemistry behind fermentation and good bacteria. This episode talks a lot about cheese! And really who doesn’t like to talk about cheese.  Another favorite episode, Air, he explains the history of bread and how it catapulted civilization from hunter-gatherer to modern agriculture. Pollan also dives into the drama of gluten in the modern-day industrial food culture during this episode. Gluten is almost seen as a curse word these days and in this episode he explores the reason for this fad and possibly what causes the intolerance’s.

Overall, this series is short and sweet and can be done in a day. Watch it with your family and I guarantee you will have something to talk about for days. Pollan is a great author, and does a great job in this series bringing together science with nature and human-kind.

2.       Rotten

Breakdown:

• Stream on Netflix

• 2 Seasons, 12 Episodes, 12 Total Hours

• First Aired: 2018

Rotten is another great series that I honestly wish they would play to students in high school.  This series showcases the dark side of the food industry and how (surprisingly) very few people financially control everything around the world.  This really opened our eyes to buying local, direct from supplier, or certified fair trade whenever possible. The producers break the series into different episodes that highlight a certain industry and do a great job of being non-bias, but give different points of view from farmers, suppliers, and wholesalers.  Some of our favorites include:

1. Troubled Water (we now no longer purchase cases of single use water bottles)

2. Big Bird (the sad and eye-opening exposure of the chicken industry)

3. Garlic Breath (this may make you never purchase pre-peeled garlic, we won’t)

4. Lawyers, Guns and Honey (highlights the importance in saving bee populations around the world, oh and please only purchase local honey!)

We watched this series front to back over a couple weeks, but feel free to cherry pick which topics sound interesting to you. The food industry is an interesting business and it’s alarming to learn where your groceries actually come from and who is profiting from them.

Wading through the endless options via multiple streaming services can be exhausting and time consuming. Lucky you, we did a lot of the work already! All our friends have heard us endlessly plug both these series in casual conversation and now we hope that you all appreciate them as much as we did. Please tag us in your binge! We would love to know what you think as well as what shows we need to watch next!

Happy Viewing!

Beth and Lucas