This week Nick over at Macheesmo posted a recipe for Spicy Orange Greens that caught my eye. The noodle salad was spot on; it was what was referenced in that post that caught my attention. Nick prefaced his recipe by stating he had watched the movie “Forks Over Knives.” The salad had been inspired by it. I decided to watch the documentary that day, and I am going to tell you how I think it fits into the REAL food movement.
While I watched the movie, I found myself yelling at the computer. (Of course, there was no one around, except my very accepting cats and a dog that thinks I am crazy.) What drove me to yelling? If you have ever seen someone on the internet that thinks someone else is off-base, then you saw me that day.
I had to see more. I went to the book store and checked out the companion book/cookbook. What I read floored me.
Now, you know what I think of vegetarianism. Honestly though? To each his own. I just hate it when someone pushes “veganism” as a “healthy” way to cure all the diseases known to man, backed up by crappy, shoddy science.
To be fair, I actually gave the movie a shot. The companion book was a little harder, but I did skim through it. Read below for what I think of both the movie and the companion book:
The good
- The movie starts off with focusing on what eating processed food does to you. You have to figure that out for yourself, but it’s not that hard to equate KFC with processed food. More on how this is bad later.
- The message is that if we eat whole, minimally processed food, we will all be healthier. I can’t agree more.
- We have the power to change our health, and even reverse chronic diseases with what we chose to eat. This is shown at the start of the movie with the reporter getting his blood work done. By the end of the movie, his numbers have significantly improved.
- A plant-based diet is a conscientious way to eat, to feel better about how your food got to your plate. Again, nothing wrong with a whole foods diet. Knowing how your food is produced is key to making conscientious choices for your health.
The bad
- The science is lacking, without any mention of references. An example? Talking about how the rate of cancers in places like Kenya are lower that that of the United States. Instead of saying it’s a correlation, it is implied that because they don’t eat as much animal products as we do, they don’t have cancer. Thing is, how does that correlate? Could it be because they also don’t use agricultural products that are known to cause cancer? There are too many variables to definitively state the correlation is causation.
- Whole grains are processed, so technically they are not a whole food. In the companion book, they describe them as “lightly processed.” That’s still not a whole food. Organic apples? There is a whole food.
- While the documentary implies that whole plant based foods are better for you, there is nothing looking at how that food is produced. Sure, there is a lot of rhetoric against meat producers, but non-existent for plant producers.
- Why can’t they just come out and state the documentary is about veganism? I get that the word “vegan” is loaded… but why not just wear your badge proudly? I get that you don’t want to alienate people, but do you really think people are that stupid? Oh, wait… see below!
The Ugly
- From the get go – the documentary focuses on how bad animal products are for you – while only showing people eating processed and fast food “animal” products. Where is the free-range chicken? Where is the fresh seafood? Pastured beef? Free-range eggs? Are we to believe that all animal products come from a fast food joint?
- We hear about World War II, how the Germans occupied Norway, confiscated all the “animal products,” and after liberation, the heart attack deaths skyrocketed. They make the correlation that the decrease in deaths from heart attacks are from the decrease in eating animal products. The data used for the documentary actually shows that the Norwegians ate less sugar, butter, fruit and meat. Did you know that the average person in Norway ate more twice as many vegetables, and fish and seafood instead?
- Forks Over Knives seems to imply that there is some magic “single way of eating” to solve the problems of obesity and chronic diseases like heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. We all know there isn’t, otherwise we would have instinctively figured it out millennia ago. Wait… we did. Is this documentary suggesting that evolution and nature made a mistake?
- A good portion of the “science: is based on the China study. In fact the scientist responsible for the study, (Dr. Campbell,) is the main doctors pushing the Forks Over Knives diet. Denise Minger has a better post debunking the science behind the study.
The Very Ugly
- In the companion book, there is an unfair reference to food warning labels, with a bias towards plant verses animal products. It is here where the bias really shines.
- “A platter of tree nuts, legumes, alliums (onions and garlic), vegetables, fruits, and grains might carry this warning label:” There is a small list of things to watch out for, like – “Contains tree nuts, legumes (peanuts and soybeans), and the grains wheat, rye and barley (which contain gluten, a protein composite),” or, “Peels, shells, and other biodegradable materials.” There is no mention of herbicides, pesticides, environmental destruction, GMO products, or the systematic enslavement of people to produce the plant products. Take tomato production for example.
- Plant products “promotion of good health…. may reduce the risk of some forms of cancer, heart disease, stroke, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, constipation, osteoporosis and other diet-related chronic diseases.” Of course, there are no references to back it up, nor any warnings about consumption of foods with the products mentioned above.
- A platter of meat, fish, and dairy, on the other hand, would carry a more extensive label – with a huge list under headings like, “Allergens, Ask a doctor before use if you have, Biological agents, (bacteria, parasites, prions, viruses, chemical and other ethological agents, bio-accumulation in animal tissues, other risk factors, global public health risks”
- Also, curiously missing is the food-borne bacteria in plant products. Need I remind anyone about bean sprouts, cantaloupe food poisoning from Listeria (which was NOT from animals, but spread through human contact – most likely from the failure to clean the machinery in the plant,) lettuce and spinach, almonds (in which the source of Salmonella was never found,) greens onions, (a hepatitis A outbreak, no less!)
- Farming and animal products – the thought that plant based products are cheaper/better for the environment – nothing about the impact of mono cropping, pesticide use, wholesale devastation of lands for farming practice for soy, wheat, corn – all of which are used in the “whole foods” diet..
- Most disturbing is a doctor who has the BALLS to call poor people “not equipped” to make the “right choices.” This is implying no money = they’re stupid. I take issue with that. People aren’t stupid, unless they continuously make the same mistake without learning from it. Like, implying that poor people are stupid. Wonder how his practice is going?
- In fact, you can’t just simply watch the movie – there’s even “Guide” to help you for when you watch the movie with your families, friends, or doctor. (The site even implies in the text that a doctor doesn’t know what they are talking about when it comes to nutrition. I agree – but they also think the doctor needs to be educated as much as the poor, stupid folk.)
Conclusion
The documentary attempts a very good thing; get the watchers to switch to a whole, real foods (vegan) diet. Unfortunately, they are blinded by their vegan dogma. What could be a ground-breaking opportunity to show people that food is the way to good health is lost through junk science, outright misrepresentation of the facts, and anecdotal evidence presented as if it were actual science.
If you want to see the movie – I have added it and the companion book to my Amazon store for you all to check it out, and decide for yourselves. I might get a small commission if you buy it from this website. (About enough to buy me a tea bag or so.)
Your Turn!
Have you watched Forks Over Knives? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I couldn’t agree with you more! It was a TERRIBLE DOCUMENTARY!!!!!!!!! I follow the Perfect Health Diet. On this site, he debunks the China Study as well.
@Helena – I have heard a lot about the Perfect Health diet. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get a hold of the book up here in Canada yet, looking for a way to find it.
I find that I follow a lot of his philosophy – that is the primal style diet with the addition of rice and their products.
I figure, around 4 billion people on this planet eat rice – can’t really argue with that.
Thanks so much for writing on this subject!! I just watched “Forks Over Knives” a couple days ago, and found myself very confused….. I had just skimmed through Nina Planck’s excellent book “Real Food” and had been blown away by the (ever increasing hope!) that returning to Great-Grandpa’s way of eating was the best way to go. I continue to be amazed/disappointed by the medical community, and the dearth of good info on human nutrition…. A reasonably intelligent person would assume that we would have most of this stuff figured out by now! Even if you ARE concerned about how to eat in a healthy way, which of the HUNDREDS of voices do you turn to??? I had been researching and experimenting with the raw foods movement, but my Naturopathic Doctor (who includes traditional chinese medicine in her treatment regimen) was of the opinion that vegetarianism and raw foods were NOT a balanced approach for optimal health. It seems to me that the Docs on “Forks Over Knives” have missed a very simple correlation: heck yeah people switching from a S.A.D. diet to a vegetarian whole food diet would see great health improvements!! They are eliminating sugar, highly refined carbs, and franken-foods (along with all the animal products – throwing out the baby with the bath water???) For me, the big question is the long term health of these people. An M.D. internist I used to go to stated emphatically that vegetarians were the SICKEST people he treated….. I wonder if the “Forks Over Knives” people ever heard of the Inuit, or other similar “primitive” populations eating a VERY high animal based diet, all the while enjoying excellent health??!!?? The only thing that concerned me with the China Study is this: if it wasn’t the animal foods causing all those chinese cancers, then what was the culprit in those rural populations? If anybody would care to post additional primer reading for someone new to this fabulous concept of REAL FOOD, I’d greatly appreciate it!! (Please include real science and easy to read facts!)
@Randy – Thank you for your insightful comment! I have heard anecdotal “evidence” that vegetarians are the sickest people out there, but I really have nothing to prove it. I can tell you there are some cultures out there that refuse to eat anything related to animal products, (including vegetables grown in manure!) I have cooked for them in the past. They had a special chef come out and prepare their food.
The difference in those people to a conscientious vegetarian is that they have a culture with traditions to back up their beliefs. Their race learned the hard way what works, what doesn’t – without the benefit of “science” to help them along.
That’s where we are with REAL FOODS. The problem we have is we are really over-thinking our food, and have been for the last 80-100 years. It seems the more we get involved in the “science” behind what is proper to eat, the more removed we become with what food is naturally. A great example of this is margarine, or “healthy” canola oils. The science behind the paradigm suggested that animal fats (or saturated fats in particular,) were responsible for an increase in heart disease. Whether the science was junk, misinterpreted or not, is really a moot point – fact is, we acted on science alone. We stopped trusting our bodies, and what they are telling us.
Now we have a society that believes that animal fat is inherently dangerous compared to an oil that is made through chemical extraction, treated with bleaches, deodorized, and homogenized to look like butter. Its as if science has provided the answer to our problems… but wait – why are cancer rates going up, obesity, diabetes, etc? This despite the “advances” in science. We are eating scientifically enhanced food – and I believe we are getting sicker from it.
My great grandfather, (or even my grandfather) had it right – just eat REAL food, and don’t be complicated about it. It’s when Poindexter starts messing with things that we get into trouble.
A great primer for you might be Nourishing Traditions, or even Westin A Price’s books. A book full of the science is Robb Wolf’s The Paleo Solution. I will make a post on this in the future…
i absolutely agree. i saw it in theaters a while back and (as a once-vegetarian) i just kept thinking to myself: “yes, they’re right. processed meat & their products are bad for us. yes, they have a point. BUT EATING NON-MEAT PRODUCTS DOES NOT = ETHICAL AND/OR HEALTHY EITHER!!….” The fact that there are labor conditions, social consequences, ecological devastation, etc… involved in eating “vegetables” doesn’t even get talked about in the film. which is why i started eating meat again. But “ethical” meat and in low quantities. Essentially, that’s where the film fell flat for me.
@Kristy Lynn – You got that right. That’s the #1 issue I have with the “righteous” vegan movement. I hear talk all day about the suffering of animals, but no talk on the suffering of humans. It’s almost as if everything is backwards!
Hey, I haven’t seen the movie yet, but one thing in your commentary struck me. Re. the ‘lower cancer in places like Kenya’ issue, I think there’s an even bigger hole in that than the correlation-causation issue (which is not quite so simplistic an issue). Do you know if they looked at cancer rates in the populations at the SAME periods in their lives and found disproportionate rates? Or did they just say that cancer rates were lower? Reason being is that average life expectancy in Kenya is about 20 – 25 years lower than for the U.S. (depending which Google source you look at). So, if they just say the rates are lower, that’s a stupid argument because people in Kenya and similar places are dying of other things before they really get old enough to be afflicted with these ‘diseases of old age.’
There were actually several other things in your commentary that I would like to chime in on, but I am short on time so I picked the one that would be fastest to respond to!
But an excellent and insightful review overall! If I actually get a chance to sit and watch the movie, I will probably have another cent or two to add. 
@Michelle – Awesome question. Nothing blows holes into a stupid argument like a good question. That brings me to why i disliked how the information was presented: there was no backup to data, except a vague, “they don’t eat as much animal products as we do in the west.”
What’s more ironic is in that sentiment, Kenya appears to be better off – because they are not as affluent, yet further along in the movie, we have a doctor tell us that poor people are “not equipped” to make the right choices.
That begs the question, are we better off being poor, living in Kenya, or rich living here in the West? According to the strawman logic put out by this fantastic documentary, if we just ate like them Kenyans, gosh-darnit! We’d be healthy as a horse! Pass the gruel, please. LOL
I guess I’d need to see the movie to really comment on the “not equipped” thing, because it could be an accurate statement depending on the context/meaning. If the doctor meant it in the way that poor people are not equipped financially to make the right choices, that’s a fair statement, I think, since it is more expensive to eat good, fresh food than the cheap processed crap. But given what you’ve described about the movie, it doesn’t sound like that’s what the intended meaning was.
@Michelle – The doctor’s name is Terry Mason, M.D. he is a Urologist, and a commissioner for a city. Around 36:00 minutes, the documentary states that he contends, “Unfortunately less affluent people… have difficulty making the best food choices.”
That’s where I kind of lose all respect. Sure, state that they can’t afford it, maybe are addicted… but implying they are too stupid to make the right choice? Not sure why the dude is in office.