You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment

Hi, I'm vegan by the way.

Throughout the 4 episodes, several times vegan diet is refered as the one with less proteins, or the one with limited protein sources. The few ready vegan meals they showed us looked tiny and like a side dish not a whole meal.

But, there are so many sources of proteins for vegan diet? All kind of beans, lentils, tofu, tempeh, seitan, whole grain pasta, nuts, just from top of my head.

When I first went vegan, for two months I was using nutrition calculator to make sure I get enough proteins (I was also working out a lot back then). It was easy. Everyone could do it.

I feel like people from the study didn't give enough resources like this to the vegan twins. Teaching them how much they should actually eat a day and what are their protein options.

At the beginning they also say that vegan diet lack some nutritions like B12 and iron. And yeah OK, but in the real world we vegans just get our supplements for these, so it's not like we don't have access to that. I wonder if vegan twins got their supplements.

Anyway, good documentary. I learnt a lot. I loved the side stories like the one about that fancy New York restaurant or the chicken farmer.

Happy veganuary 2024!

By the end of the 4 episodes, I was quite confused about the results and the ins and outs of what they ate, how they cooked the food themselves, how they trained, and the differences in the results. It started off really interesting with presenting the study and all its different components and what they could find out. Sadly, by the end they just focused on convincing people to go vegan. The context of the food industry etc especially the bacteria in some meat was quite interesting, but again it was quite heavily biased towards veganism, not showing one drawback of a full plant based diet and it felt like they were trying to do 2 things in one - the actual study and a documentary about the bad meat industry.

I agree with a lot of the reviews, specifically the ones who mentioned the shows being pro vegan. What did the mayor of NYC have to do with this study? Nothing. The whole sexual thing and checking the heat of peoples genitals was just SO out there and really didn't need to be in the shows. The education about the cow/pig/chicken farming was interesting. I don't eat those things but was still interesting. I've also never seen salmon like what they showed in the shows, that was the nastiest piece of fish I've ever seen. I'd like to have known more about their blood test results, I don't think we ever know what their good cholesterol # was. I wanted to know if their iron levels changed, that kind of info. Did their blood pressure change much, and other vitamin levels. All the men seemed pretty fit too, should have had chubby guys since it would be nice to see if the vegan diet helped the guys.

The show aims to raise awareness about the global food crisis and addresses critical issues such as deforestation in Brazil caused by cattle ranching. It advocates for a shift towards veganism as a potential solution. However, its singular focus on the negatives of meat consumption and the glorification of a vegan lifestyle may alienate its primary audience: meat eaters. The portrayal of veganism is somewhat biased, with its benefits exaggerated and its drawbacks often overlooked.

This one-sided approach could result in the show missing its mark. A balanced discussion that fairly represents both diets, acknowledging their respective pros and cons, would likely be more effective. Additionally, exploring middle-ground options like vegetarianism might appeal to a broader audience. In conclusion, while I appreciate the show's content and intent, I believe it could better achieve its objectives by adopting a more inclusive and balanced perspective.

I thought this was going to be a documentary about a fairly interesting study; what it turned out to be was insanely heavily biased vegan positivism based on bad science and seemingly bad faith. It also was pretty lacking in the "documentary" area as well, as it seemed to be to be mostly an advertisement both for veganism and for the vegan companies and owners which appear in the series.

The focus of the documentary is not on the twins and the experiment for which this documentary is named, but rather the effects of meat/processed foods on the environment and human health. However it: 1. Provides us with really no new information. Everyone knows by now that eating tons of bad quality and processed foods is bad for you. No need to hammer us over the head with it in 2024, and 2. Does not provide insight, studies, research, or really anything other statements presented as absolute fact provided by the kinds of people who have vegan tattoos. Maybe they're a little biased? Hmm.

Speaking of biased, this documentary does not provide ANY arguments for the other side. Not one. In the minds of whomever made this, and the people in it, there isn't a single benefit to eating meat. In one of the experiments they do to prove how bad our meat is, they get the most diseased looking salmon I've ever seen and try to cook it and it turns out looking horrible. Their point is that farmed salmon these days is plagued with all sorts of nasty things, but I've never in my life seen a salmon like the one they used in a grocery store or really anywhere. If they were fair they'd get several salmon to back up their claim (that something like 1 in every 25 farmed salmon in the store is messed up). Surely they didn't just get an abomination of a salmon to reaffirm their argument? Well actually yes they did do this and you can tell because you can see the another salmon in the shot, meaning they intentionally picked the worst looking one to demonstrate; this is called selection bias and is not the basis of good science or a good documentary. Also, they do not mention AT ALL how money is factor in preventing people from eating healthier, how overpopulation is leading to many of these issues, really anything socioeconomic, in the end it's just all blamed on the meat industry.

Lastly, the study itself was incredibly flawed. They give one twin a plant-based diet and the other an (healthy) omnivorous diet, have them exercise, and then measure their bodies before and after the 8-week long study and make conclusive statements based on that? They do not measure (or if they did they didn't show it) how many calories or macros each twin is eating with each meal. Surely if you're going to see how a vegan diet vs. An omnivorous affects a person, you'd make sure the calories and macronutrients are at least similar? There's no transparency at all in this study, so it just comes across as fearmongering.

I do agree with the sentiment of eating less meat and processed food. I think everyone is aware of the dangers of everything provided in this documentary now. Everyone knows they should eat healthier, and everyone knows which foods are healthy and which aren't. If plant-based meat tasted and had the same texture as meat, I'd switch immediately, and I think many others would as well; it's kind of a no-brainer. However when you present an incredibly one-sided biased flawed piece like this as if it's some sort of scientific breakthrough, really all it does is make the people involved look better.