Milk?

According to the narrative, Sebastian Howard was confused about whether or not milk is supposed to be good for humans. He then set out on a two-year journey to find the answer. He interviews industry veterans, food scientists, dietitians, proponents of veganism, and more in his heartfelt search for the truth.

Now, I don't know for sure how representative this narrative is to the man's real motives, but I believe it. Why? Because at the end, he admits to being just as confused as he was when he started. He advocates that people look into the matter themselves and interpret the data as best they can. I can't remember the last time I've seen such an unbiased documentary!

True, I don't tend to trust the anti-milk scientists all that much (they interview the guy behind "The China Study," a book which is pretty much useless, for instance). That's hardly the point, though. The most prominent people on all sides of the debate (pro milk, anti milk, pro raw, pro pasteurized) are given their time, and it's our job to judge their credibility.

Hopefully, in a few years we'll have more iron-clad scientific data on the subject. Until then, this documentary is a good place to start when looking into the subject.

This is a pretty unbiased film, unless you have even a basic knowledge of science. I would have like to hear arguments against milk based on real threats to our health (if there are any - this film never has any), but the film interviews complete Wal-mart scientists who advocate the status quo (vegan, low fat) that has been found time and again to be killing us. One actually advocates AGAINST protein. So ridiculous it's funny. The funniest part is that the anti-milk scientists are rail thin, no muscle mass yet fat, very unhealthy looking people. They don't help their own argument at all. I was hoping to get some facts, but all you get are infomercial scientists promoting dead science.

This movie creates a false sense of being presented in an unbiased way. Hearing "both sides" (namely scientist and farmers) is not really the way to go about this. In one of the voice-over clips, the interviewer mentioned that there was a lot of disagreement about the data which is found in research. To me, this indicates that there is data on the subject available. This data gets very little viewing time. The only counter arguments for milk being good for you is made by non-scientist.

It's a nice try and it was interesting, but the interviewer talked to the wrong people to answer the question he proposed at the beginning of the film.

This important documentary about milk screened at the 2012 New Hampshire Film Festival in Portsmouth, NH. The first thing I want to say is that I loved Sebastian Howard and Mark Westberg's editing. In at least two places they spliced their subjects into sound bites and had them all contradicting each other in staccato segments, sometimes as short as one word, "Yes!" or "No!" and let the audience see in summary just how controversial the simple subject of milk really is. With so much lackluster editing in film, I was delighted to see someone getting creative in their story telling and it reminded me of similar devices used in the novels of Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Chandler where the key images are summarized in a montage of memory at the end of the book. The subject of the film was how healthy is milk and Howard interviewed some of the leading industry, medical, scientific, and nutrition authorities in North America, yes including Canada, on this topic. As a person who does not drink plain milk, raw or pasteurized, I was happy to see someone investigating this health issue in a balanced way that tells both sides of the story. I also wished I could hear more on the topic of how cultures and bacteria change the properties of milk when it comes in the form of various cheeses and yogurt and how experts view the health impact of these foods as opposed to plain milk. What I did not expect in the film was the moving portrait of a Canadian farmer producing raw milk who was persecuted and later exonerated by the Canadian government and his inspiring cry for freedom to make, drink and sell raw milk. In his words, "Politically, food is a weapon". Wow! And that was just the beginning. This film is well worth seeing for anyone who is interested in the political and health issues related to the production of food and milk.