What the Health

As another reviewer has stated, I have reservations against the movie being soft on sugar and the effect it has. Now while there might be more factors rather than just the sugar, no one should downplay the effect of it. It's also strange that only the same people are being asked and all of them are very much anti-meat. Having said all that, it's also very strange that certain organisations get sponsored by firms they probably should warn consumers about.

So there is a lot going on and you probably shouldn't just take everything as truth, but don't dismiss it either. The movie may be able to make you think about the way you eat or maybe even change your diet alltogether. The one thing that is necessary while watching though, is being open minded. It does paint quite a dark picture on almost anything we eat, so it won't be easy. But also listen when it tells us about coorporations trying to sell us products they shouldn't be selling us ...

I got to see the world premiere in NYC followed by a Q&A with the directors. I found it very captivating. The documentary entertains, shocks, informs, angers and inspires you. If you watch how they try to investigate health organizations and medical facilities, I think you'll be baffled by the frankness with which they refuse to discuss important information regarding saving people's lives. The personal stories in the film give you hope that there is a better way to how we are going about our diet and health care. We can have a better option than just suddenly dying of cancer or heart disease after a few decades of life if the information, such as in this documentary, would be exposed to the public. I hope people will take a look at the significance of diet after watching this. People would not demonize carbs and sugar as much if they would realize what they're calling carbs contains tons of fat. Pizza is not a carb; it is carbs with a bunch of fat from cheese and processed meat and oil. Potatoes get a bad wrap, but people cover them in butter, sour cream, cheese, bacon, salt, oil and any other unhealthy food you could think of. The combo of fats and carbs leaves your body unable to handle the carbohydrates as they cannot be absorbed into your cells; that is how diabetes arises. People don't even understand what a true high-carb diet entails: plain potatoes, rice, oats, lots of fruit, vegetables, whole grains, without adding salt, oil, meat and dairy to all their meals. I hope this film clears that up for people.

There are some facts in here, but are presented in a deceitful manner. Information on the nutrition is absolutely ridiculous. They call OMEGA 3 fattys acids unhealthy. They ignore the fact that b12 and taurine which you can only really get from meat is essential to a human being. Just a vegan documentary that's pretentious.

OK. I give it an 8 not for presenting an objective and unbiased position (its HIS documentary guys, not a bloody research paper). I give it an 8 because it raised a couple of huge points that most of the critics seemed to sweep over. I'm going to premise the rest of my comments here by noting that I believe the biggest enemy to a rational and logical discussion about the very, life changing issue of diet is emotion. At the end of the day we all want to have long health lives, no? So, lets discuss it. This guy had a crack at it so good on him.

It is up to us to draw our own conclusions. But again there are some big take aways here despite its apparent biased position that people seem to miss. Firstly, the collusion between food companies and apparent government authorities/bodies or any central body responsible for providing lifesaving and preventative information? They should be completely and fully independent and must be for them to have any credibility whatsoever. And they clearly do not so take everything they say with a grain of salt.

Point 2: Is the science he made reference to all encompassing? Absolutely not. But at least there were some references and citations to some studies to consider (and they did not say sugar wasn't bad for you). Regarding comments from the doctors. Well, yes they are providing their personal experience but I think it safe to say they have direct experience dealing with these problems and as practitioners of health they do so based on science so quite likely they've done extensive research so I don't fully discount what they have to say. And what is their vested interest? Well, besides promoting themselves they are promoting an alternate consideration to a healthy life style. And here's the thing. As Americans, we have a dreadfully poor track record when it comes to health and fitness compared to others in the G20. Clearly there is a lot of information floating around about diet and much of it influenced or engineered toward a specific message for the sake of the almighty dollar. I suggest we all focus on starting there in solving this problem before we can even think about anything else so we can get some honest, objective, credible science on this critical topic.

I found this while looking for information to counter "Fat Fiction", a documentary promoting low carbs and high fat diet ("Keto" diet...which can cause kidney stones, by the way) for its health benefits, which seemed too good to be true. "What the Health" started with facts about diabetes costs--a good place to start a discussion of diet--but it deteriorated fast and lost me completely when it defended sugar.

Quickly it seemed this is promoting a vegan diet, but then it diverted to impact on the environment of raising farm animals. Then it became about civil rights and raising farm animals being institutional racism. Finally, big Farms and big Pharma get a zing along with old smoky industries. Can't argue with zinging big pharma, but let's try and focus. Are you making a movie about eating healthy? Or about saving the environment from pig and cow poop? Or is it about saving minorities from having to live near pig farms? Or is it about corporate agriculture? Or greedy drug companies? Corporate greed generally?

In the end, I could only stand about half of what the movie maker put on the screen. The fake ADA guy was the worst. How about just discussing legitimate dietary problems. Oh, I'm a vegetarian. After seeing these two movies, I'm investigating the Mediterranean style diet that seems to have allowed people to live longer and have less heart disease in Greece and Italy.