I just finished watching Kevin J. Lindenmuth’s new documentary, “I’m Not Nuts”: Living With Food Allergies. Am I allowed to make this required viewing for every childcare worker and educator in the country? Because I’d like to.
I’m Not Nuts is an Essential Food Allergy Documentary
This film clearly and carefully lays out the basics of what it’s like to be food allergic and/or to have a food-allergic child. Visual mediums are so powerful–I think this will touch people who don’t know much about food allergies in a way that written stories cannot.
The videotape footage of a one-year old, egg-allergic girl scratching her hands at her first birthday party because she was allergic to the eggs in the cake made me weep. (Her parents didn’t know about her allergy at the time, of course.)
For those who do live with food allergies, the information here is nothing new, or at least not very much of it. But the feeling is one of a support group meeting and allergist’s visit right in your own living room. I found myself nodding my head in agreement and talking to the screen. “Yes! This is what it’s like.”
Full of interviews with the food allergic and their families, as well as interviews with allergy experts such as Terry Furlong, co-founder of FAAN, Scott Sicherer, M.D., researcher in the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at Mount Sinai, and Harvey Leo, M.D. and Ben Song, M.D., of Allergy and Immunology Associates of Ann Arbor, MI, I think this documentary is a great resource.
I’m Not Nuts DVD Video Clip (Introduction)
For More Information and to Purchase
Kevin Lindenmuth has worked in the video production field for more than 24 years. He is an independent filmmaker who has produced seven documentaries since 1997. You can read more about the documentary on www.lindenmuth.com.
You can order the “I’m Not Nuts”: Living With Food Allergies DVD (84 minutes, 2008) via Amazon.
A Documentary Meant for Sharing
For most parents of food allergic kids, there isn’t much new in this documentary. I still enjoyed watching it and relating. But this video is really for sharing with friends, family, educators, and childcare workers. It can help give them a better understanding of what these children and their parents are dealing with.
