Los Angeles – The AJ+ show, Eat This with Yara, has won “Outstanding Lifestyle Program” at the 50th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles.
Launched in 2018 by senior producer and host Yara Elmjouie, Eat This with Yara is a short documentary programme exploring the intersection of food and society.
The winning episode from the series is called, The Awful Truth About ‘No Trespassing’ Signs. With the help of TikTok star and expert forager Alexis Nikole Nelson – also known as “The Black Forager” – it tells the story of trespass laws which spread rapidly through the US following the abolition of slavery, in order to target newly freed Black Americans.
It is the first AJ+ programme to win a national Emmy Award and was up against competition from Netflix, NBC and Magnolia Network at the ceremony on Saturday, December 16.
Elmjouie accepted the award alongside his former co-producer Adrienne Blaine, who has since left AJ+, and executive producer Shadi Rahimi.
In his acceptance speech, Elmjouie called for the world’s attention to focus on the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza, on which Israel launched a war on October 7, and condemned the killing of his colleague, Al Jazeera Arabic cameraman Samer Abudaqa, who died during an Israeli drone attack on December 14, two days before the awards ceremony.
Elmjouie also mentioned Al Jazeera Arabic’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael Dahdouh, who was injured in the same Israeli attack, as well as the late Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent, Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed by Israeli snipers in 2022.
While on stage, executive producer Shadi Rahimi displayed a henna tattoo on her palms that read “Save Gaza”. She also briefly held up a sign near the end of Elmjouie’s speech which read: “Killing Journalists Is A War Crime.”
Following the ceremony, clips of Elmjouie’s speech have been shared widely on TikTok and Instagram.
The winning episode of Eat This with Yara can be viewed on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, but short viral clips of it have also been published on X, TikTok and Instagram Reels.
In past years, Eat This with Yara has won a James Beard Award, two Webby Awards, and an award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
