Dan Susman (driving) drove around the country documenting urban farms with his co-filmmaker Andrew Monbouquette.

Fresh out of Dartmouth College and with time on his hands, Dan Susman and his childhood friend Andrew Monbouquette set out on an excellent, edible adventure -- a road trip to document many of the innovative urban agriculture efforts sprouting up all over the country.

Susman, now 24, grew up in Omaha, Neb., gardening in the backyard with his mom and dad. He planted pumpkins, named them things like "Big Max" and "Atlantic Giant," and always hoped come fall he might end up like James and the Giant Peach. No such luck: Evil squash bugs, and ever-looming drought, meant from all those seeds he carefully tended he’d typically end up with just one pumpkin weighing more than he did. But it was enough; a farmer was born.

Since then, Susman has worked on a small-scale farm in Venezuela and for the urban ag-focused Zenger Farm in Portland, Ore. He grew to realize not all kids are as lucky as he: Many never get a chance to plant a bean or taste a watermelon straight off the vine. But with the forthcoming film Growing Cities, Susman hopes to change that.

HBO has a history of tackling serious American health-care crises. In recent years, the cable network has taken on addiction and Alzheimer's to much critical acclaim. And now the network has turned its attention to another huge health problem: obesity and its enormous economic, emotional, social, and health cost on individuals, families, communities, and the country at large.

As Americans have gained weight in recent years, rates of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and other obesity-related health problems have also skyrocketed. Rates of Type 2 diabetes (once known as “adult-onset diabetes”) are soaring among kids. And this is a generation of people that may well die at a younger age than their parents, largely because of medical concerns associated with excess weight.

These facts have become commonplace to those of us who have been paying attention. Still, The Weight of the Nation: Confronting America's Obesity Epidemic serves as a clarion call to the country to take action -- and fast -- to combat this pernicious, complex problem that has myriad root causes.

This post originally appeared on Shareable.

A Portland Fruit Tree Project harvesting party. (Photo by Sarah Gilbert.)

Foraging for food — whether it's ferreting rare mushrooms in the woods, picking abundant lemons from an overlooked tree, or gathering berries from an abandoned lot — is all the rage among the culinary crowd and the DIY set, who share their finds with fellow food lovers in fancy restaurant meals or humble home suppers.

But an old-fashioned concept — gleaning for the greater good by harvesting unwanted or leftover produce from farms or family gardens — is also making a comeback during these continued lean economic times.

A still from Dafna Kory's Kickstarter video, in which she explains the origins of her jam company's name. (Click to watch.)

Edible entrepreneur/video editor Dafna Kory is an ideal candidate for a food-focused Kickstarter campaign. Kory, founder of Inna Jam, an organic artisan preserves company in Berkeley, Calif., supplements her budding food business with commercial film, video, and web editing gigs and is well-acquainted with the crowd-funding platform. So, when it came time to expand her jam company this winter, she decided to give Kickstarter a whirl.

"It's a very public thing -- putting yourself out there like this -- and it could have gone either way," says Kory, who produced her own video for a campaign to renovate a commercial kitchen. The jammer already has some small business loans and didn't want to take on any more debt. Kory, who just wrapped up her Kickstarter campaign, says it was by no means an easy endeavor. "I used every skill I have to make this campaign a success."

Kickstarter, based in New York, earned its early reputation as the go-to place for up-and-coming filmmakers, gamers, and designers looking for funds. Increasingly, though, it's become a hub for those involved in the sustainable, local food scene seeking capital for their creative pursuits as well. In the Kickstarter worldview, food artisans are artists too, whether they're behind a community olive oil press in Berkeley, a beekeeping business in Brooklyn, or a Lebanese food truck in Asheville, N.C.

Does this title sound familiar? This is part of an ongoing effort to highlight the ways in which many of our most common foods have morphed into industrialized products in recent decades. See Not your grandma's milk and Not your grandma's strawberries for more.

Photo by Anthony Albright.

Nishanga Bliss, a holistic health practitioner, has been making her own yogurt on and off since the 1980s. She learned from a Swiss neighbor, liked the results, and was delighted to avoid accumulating all those plastic containers. The author of the forthcoming Real Food All Year, who also teaches yogurt-making classes, recommends making this cultured dairy product with whole milk. "When you make your own you can tinker with the taste and texture,” says Bliss. Another advantage of DIY yogurt: It can ferment longer than commercial products, thus eliminating all the lactose, which is beneficial for those with an intolerance.

Bliss is among a growing group of people who are rethinking buying industrial versions of popular health foods -- such as yogurt -- in favor of making their own with minimal processing and additives. Bliss believes the beneficial bacteria in yogurt -- also known as probiotics -- can do your gut a world of good, by protecting against intestinal infections and enhancing immune functioning.

Adam Berman at his Berkeley farm.

Urban Adamah, a one-acre urban farm on a vacant lot in a gritty stretch of Berkeley, has transformed an area better known for liquor stores and light industry into a thriving community gathering space and food hub.

Adam Berman founded the farm in the summer of 2010 with just such lofty goals. Urban Adamah (for the Hebrew word for "earth") offers a fellowship program for young adults, dubbed The Jewish Sustainability Corps, that integrates organic farming, social justice outreach, leadership training, environmental education, and progressive Jewish spiritual practice. There's yoga, meditation, and singing too.

Berman, who directed a Jewish retreat center where he founded a similar fellowship in Connecticut before relocating to Berkeley, got a lucky break when landowner Wareham Development agreed to host the farm rent-free for two years. Hence, the portable feel to the project: The farm has dozens of raised, movable produce pallets, greenhouses, a cob oven, chicken coops on wheels, and large tents that serve as classrooms. Everything on the property could be transported with relative ease, if a new location proves necessary. Raised beds filled with fresh, organic soil also solves the problem of contaminated soil on the property, a former printing press site.

Alison and Alphonzo at The Boxcar Grocer on the day they "soft-launched" the business last fall.

Alison Cross and her older brother Alphonzo saw a vast need for fresh food in the Castleberry Hill neighborhood of Atlanta, where they’d spent time since they were kids. The community, which is adjacent to the Atlanta University Center, had seen both vibrance and decay, and was begging for transformation.

So the siblings decided to fill that need, and hatched a plan to open The Boxcar Grocer, a new food business. Alison, who studied architecture and worked as a video editor, and Alphonzo, with a background in fashion, describe the independent grocery store, which stocks local, organic, whole foods, as being at “the intersection of food justice and high-concept retail.”

And they’re right; it's not your average corner store. The market looks modern, with lots of light, stainless steel, and wood. The shop, which had a "soft" opening in late October and celebrated its grand opening on Monday, sits in an area dotted with old railroad warehouses. African Americans own the majority of the storefront businesses. The neighborhood is undergoing a renaissance with small art galleries, graphic design firms, and a tattoo parlor that attract the typical urban mix of students, artists, and free thinkers.

Photo: Cathrine Windyk Inga Haugen may look a little like Heidi, but she's a modern-day farm girl through and through. In 1993, her family moved to the small town of Canton, Minn. (population less than 400), to Springside Farm, 230 acres of rolling hills and grazing land that was then a hobby farm. Her mother, Bonnie, wanted to run a working farm; she figured it would be a way to earn a living while she raised three children: Inga, now 30, Olaf, now 27, and Thor, now 24. Springside was in one of the worst places to farm in the …

Photo: Gwendolyn MeyerLuc Chamberland thinks oyster farming is often misunderstood. That's why the aquaculturist wants to educate the public about the benefits of cultivating bivalves in Tomales Bay, a pristine estuary in West Marin, Calif. A recent, high-profile controversy surrounding a commercial oyster farm in the area has focused on the potentially negative environmental impacts of cultivating oysters (namely disruption to native species). But Chamberland sees oyster farming as a sustainable practice that does more good than harm. That's why, a few years ago, he conceived of Pickleweed Point Community Oyster Farm -- a kind of CSA for the briny …

Ajo Rojo garlic.Photo: Anne Nester For those who like to get lost in the vast world of heirloom fruits and vegetables, the first National Heirloom Exposition, held mid-September in Santa Rosa, Calif., didn't disappoint. The three-day event -- which drew seasoned farmers, seed savers, edible educators, and backyard growers -- included an exhibition hall filled with an impressive array of heirloom produce from farms and gardens around the country, including rare and exotic pumpkins, tomatoes, melons, and peppers. The expo also featured heritage farm animal breeds, chefs demos, expert speakers, heirloom food tastings, and a seed exchange. For the innovators …