‘Sovereign Table: Traditional Foods Shaping Future Diets’ Premieres Tonight on Montana PBS

BOZEMAN — A new documentary from Montana PBS, “Sovereign Table: Traditional Foods Shaping Future Diets,” will premiere at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 13.

“Sovereign Table” explores the concepts, challenges and opportunities of the food sovereignty movement in Montana. The documentary is produced by Jackie Coffin, Montana PBS news and public affairs producer.

"The answers to some of our biggest and most-threatening problems lie in the way we eat,” Coffin said. “This program features the stories of Indigenous people and communities working one day at a time to change the food system and combat climate change, socioeconomic instability, biodiversity loss, supply-chain problems and more, using the foods eaten by their relatives for thousands of years.”

In an era of self-determination, Indigenous people, organizations and tribes are utilizing their right to cultivate traditional foods, ushering in an era of cultural healing, Coffin added.

“More than just food, ‘Sovereign Table’ urges people to re-examine their relationships with the plants and animals that provide food,” as well as their relationships with the planet as a whole, Coffin said.

“Sovereign Table” is produced in the traditional homelands of the Amskapi Piikani, Anishinaabe Apsaalooke, Chippewa Cree, Ktunaxa, Shoshone and Selis people and in the sovereign nations of the Blackfeet, Chippewa Cree of Rocky Boy, Confederated Salish and Kootenai, Crow and Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapahoe tribes.

To learn more, visit montanapbs.org/sovereigntable. Viewers can watch the documentary on Jan. 13 on montanapbs.org/live, from the Montana PBS Facebook page at facebook.com/MontanaPBS or the Montana PBS YouTube channel at youtube.com/user/MontanaPBS.