Eating You Alive

'EATING YOU ALIVE': Four Stars (Out of Five)

Another new documentary (like the recent film 'WHAT THE HEALTH') exploring how what we eat causes the majority of the chronic diseases that are killing us. Also like 'WHAT THE HEALTH', the movie proves that veganism is the best way to save all of our lives (also the planet, and of course the animals). The film was directed and co-produced by first time feature filmmaker Paul David Kennamer Jr. I saw this documentary at a special screening on the Oregon State University campus, and I'm glad I did. It's an impressive film, just like 'WHAT THE HEALTH' is!

The filmmakers interview several doctors, health experts, scientists and celebrities (like Samuel L. Jackson, James Cameron, and Penn Jillette to name a few) about their knowledge, expertise and feelings about nutrition and diet. Many of the experts they interview are also featured in 'WHAT THE HEALTH'. They also briefly discuss animal cruelty and the effects that eating meat and dairy have on the environment (things that the other documentary doesn't really go into at all). There's even a few vegan recipes thrown into the film as well. The vegan way of life, and diet, is of course presented as the solution to most of our health problems, and big business is once again named as the major culprit.

The film is not as well made as 'WHAT THE HEALTH', but it is equally as educational (and emotional). A lot of the information presented in the movie is the same info that is also featured in the other (better) documentary; but it does have some new (different) information too. I think if I had seen this film first, I would have enjoyed it even more. It's not structured as well though, and the music in it kind of sucks. I do always enjoy hearing from celebrities though, about subjects that are important to me, especially the likes of Samuel L. Jackson and James Cameron (my favorite director). Although it's not one of the best documentaries I've ever seen, it's still a very important film. One that everyone should definitely see, even if you've already seen 'WHAT THE HEALTH'.

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If you've been raised in an Industrialized nation ... a factually based documentary will likely shock you! This is one of 5 ! If this wets your appetite for REALITY, then .... see also 1. FORKS over KNIVES, 2. The Game Changers, 3. FASTING: The Healer Within and 4. KISS the Ground (simply ignore the Climate change nonsense!!) !!

When we're presented with TIME-TESTED truths, it's best to do the research and determine whether the marketing claims via industry sources , etc., are real or simply biased nonsense meant to draw us in as addicted cu$tomer$ !!

If you're ready for the truth and are looking for a reason to be healthier and feel both physiologically & psychological better than ever before ... get ready and absorb the unbiased facts !!

Rather than a documentary, I would rather call this title a vegan or "whole-food, plant-based diet" propaganda film. It does not make an effort to present a balanced story, cite reliable sources (like professors at a medical school) or give you a comprehensive overview of the food it mentions. I cannot see any intention of this movie actually educating people about nutrition or health. Rather, it promotes vegetables throughout the movie and cherry-picks negative information about meat, which is not how things actually are, with the hope to scare you into giving up eating meat all together.

It shares many of the fundamental fallacies of "What the Health", so I do not really want to get deep into them. The narrative is same: conspiracy theories, scaremongering, extreme cases (e.g. 500 pound guy), "common people" telling their life story in the most dramatic way, physicians explaining science who are actually authors and speakers for advocating veganism and benefit from such activities. You hardly find a professor in a medical school or nutrition science department of a university, who gives you a more comprehensive overview of academic opinions of nutrition, in these propaganda films. The real conspiracy is that these people (physicians, speakers, authors and chefs etc) try to link everything to diet without talking about other equally important factors, totally ignore the benefits of meat and dramatize the potential danger of meat, so that you can be scared and then tricked into buying their vegan diets or even their treatment programs.

As for this film specifically, the plot is just a mess. Massive amount of "statistics", interviews and video clips just pour towards you without a clear outline or any structure, which is even worse than an endless lecture. There are way too many "real life cases" where protagonists having several health issues talk about their experience, which are just repetitive and boring. There are also so many short physician interviews about a lot of things that you lose track of what this film is really about. It is more similar to grandmother's nagging, so you can imagine what a terrible experience it is to watch this movie. Several of the physicians from "What the Health" have showed up, so you more or less know what this film is like before even watching it. This movie relates everything, from lupus to erection dysfunction, to your diet. I am really terrified by this! lol. Plus, if you just use a bit of your brain, you will know that the "Cleveland Clinic" stuff is just blatant advertisement, period.

IMDb declined my first submission of the review, citing "violating guidelines", but I do not really think it fit into that category, so I hope IMDb staff did not do that out of personal bias. The producers should really think clearly if this is the way to tell the world their ideals, and if they should be doing it at all.

This movie advocates a whole foods plant-based diet, somewhat low in fat - not too many nuts and seeds.

This is certainly healthy, as long as you are careful to get enough of the nutrients that may be missing in a plant-based diet, such as B12, calcium, iodine ... It helps prevent and reverse the metabolic-syndrome type problems that end up killing so many people: obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis. So many people who are fat and sick, in the USA and around the world. It is such a huge tragedy, and it is SO unnecessary.

BUT, this movie tries to sell this diet as a cure for things for which it is not a cure. My autoimmune problems and severe allergies didn't get better after I started eating this way, in 2005 or so. So there's an anti-testimonial, if you like.

There's a very good case to be made for eating this way. For one's health; for the environment; and to prevent animal suffering. Those reasons SEEM like they should be good enough, without making exaggerated claims.

This is a great documentary and I have nothing but respect for the content including the testimonials and the information presented.

However, I'm very sad that this movie as it currently stands is edited in a way that makes it very difficult to watch and to understand at a very basic level.

"Why," you ask? Because there are two different completely unrelated yet concurrent streams of audio taking place almost constantly throughout the entire movie!

The first is of course the vocals, i.e., the main interviews, testimonials, etc. (Sadly, there is no narration which is a separate issue from what I'm writing about here -- narration in this as most documentaries of the time is left to a third track, if you will, which is silent written word overlaid and often missed by the audience...)

The first audio track is almost non-stop. In other words, the monologues are immediately juxtaposed with practically no breaks. But this is not what makes it so hard to understand.

The second audio track is the problem: constantly, with only a few breaks, is an entirely unrelated and unregulated barrage of musical notes that seem to be intended to make the monologue/testimonials more impactful.

But the music serves exactly the opposite function. Partly because it's so dissonant vis-a-vis the vocals, but mostly because it is so LOUD, it drowns the audio and confuses the listener so much that the brain of this viewer was left exhausted and frustrated at the extra cognitive effort required to really parse out and understand what was being said.

I don't understand why this is so hard for filmmakers to understand: as viewers age, it becomes increasingly difficult for them to understand speech that is noisy (captured and/or processed poorly) and accompanied by music (in this case, just another source of noise over top of the spoken audio track).

The result is an overabundance of audio interference patterns, if you will, that scale directly with the volume level. So, whereas the listener would normally be better able to understand the spoken audio track by turning the volume up, when accompanied by music, the track just gets that much harder to understand when the volume is increased.

Please -- out of respect for your viewers and for the good of the world so people can understand this important information -- and for all that is good in the world -- please remix the audio on this and re-release it with all that horrid noise removed or greatly (substantially) reduced in volume!

Please!

Thank you.