So after hearing people mention Forks Over Knives a few times I figured it's probably another good food documentary that it wouldn't hurt to watch.We've watched King Corn and Food, Inc, the two documentaries that spurred us to make some bigger changes in the way we eat and think about food. We've also watched Food Matters and Hungry for Change, which lined up nicely with our way of thinking. I thought this documentary would be somewhat the same.
Here's the description from Netflix: Focusing on research by two food scientists, this documentary reveals that despite broad advances in medical technology, the popularity of animal-based and modern processed foods have led to epidemic rates of obesity, diabetes and other diseases.
To me the main idea of the movie was if you eat animal based foods like meat, dairy and eggs it is going to kill you. Well that's a little extreme dont you think. Of course within minutes I could tell my husband wanted to start screaming at the TV that what they were saying was wrong. I was feeling the same way, but I wanted to see where this show took us. It got worse as it went on. Of course we are not vegan, which was the lifestyle being promoted. Although we do not agree with the vegan lifestyle that is not why we were so irritated. Everyone has their own way of eating. It's their choice.
However, the way the information was presented was very limited and biased. There was maybe one or two mentions that processed food is a problem and plays a large part in the health decline in the US and around the world. The people in the documentary made it seem that the increase in consumption of meat, dairy and eggs was the reason for the increase in obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.
They interviewed and followed the progress of a few people that had many health problems including diabetes and switched to a vegan diet that is based on a whole food, plant based diet. So lots of whole fruits and veggies and it looked like pasta and other whole grains. These people started off overweight and on several medications, and when they switched they saw drastic results. Yes eating lots and lots of whole fruits and veggies instead of processed foods full of artificial ingredients and little nutrition will have an amazing effect on your body, but I've read many stories of people with the same amazing results and they still ate meat products. Problem was they didn't talk about the switch from eating processed foods and the effect that had on their improved health. The focus was just on meat.
I'd have to watch Forks Over Knives again to really give a more detailed description of the wrongdoings, but why put myself through the misery of watching it again.
My husband and I feel that this documentary was simply trying to win people over to a vegan lifetyle with scare tactics and partial information. An unsuspecting person might be terrified of meat after watching this, but I hope everyone would do a little more research before making any big changes in how they eat. This documentary would have been greatly improved if there was more of a focus on how processed foods play such a large part in destroying our health and how one can change that to support a healthy vegan lifestyle. Just my opinion. Watch it (or not) and make your own opinion.
If you've seen it please tell me what you thought. Of course we watched this documentary with thoughts of delicious grass-fed beef on our minds, so we are definitely biased towards eating meat. :)
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