forks over knives

I watched a documentary the other night called Forks Over Knives which was truly fascinating.  I liked it so much that I had a friend over the next night and watched it again with him.  It basically advocates for a vegan lifestyle, although they call it a whole foods, plants based diet throughout the film.  That's probably smart on their part due to all the connotations that vegan has to go along with it.

Throughout the film, it talks about how animal protein has been shown to turn on cancer cells in rats.  It then talks about how many of our modern day diseases are solely Western diseases that have been shown to increase dramatically in a culture once their people adopt a Western diet.  Naturally, they come to the conclusion that a Western diet is the culprit.

The film was so moving and persuading I'm trying to move towards a vegan diet myself.  This has proved extremely difficult so far and I know myself well enough to know I need to take baby steps in that direction.  For instance, I'm trying to have at least one meatless day a week to start off with.  I realize this may not sound like much, but I've been hooked on meat for a long time, minus an 8 month period where I was essentially a junk food vegetarian.

I think it's just a much healthier way to live.  My roommate who watched the film with me said that Bill Clinton had adopted a vegan lifestyle after his heart problems and now looks better than he ever did in the White House.  While he was in power, he had the basic American diet that was and is still supported by American policies that subsidize the wrong things.

I've read several books about how we subsidize corn and soybeans and as a result we have farmers that only produce that crop.  I don't purport to know the answer or pretend that it's an easy one, but there's got to be something we can do.  My parents both grew up on farms so it hits close to home.  Recently, I saw with a spending bill that Monsanto received some form of protection hidden in the bill.  That's discouraging to say the least.

Forks Over Knives also talked about all the processed sugars and foods we have nowadays that are completely devoid of any nutrients.  Now we're set on finding that one essential nutrient that will solve all our problems when what we need to do is stop processing all our foods so much.  It reminds me of some time ago when I was in the grocery store and saw a box of Lucky Charms that advertised that it was made with 7 whole grains.  How can Lucky Charms claim to be healthy?  How'd they get away with that one?  Similarly, many food brands advertise 0g trans fat now.  If you look on their ingredients label, you will see astonishingly high amounts of saturated fat on there.  What would happen if they advertised that?  I'm aware of the need to advertise and market your goods, but it seems like some of these are dangerously misleading.

A couple nights after watching that documentary, I started watching Food Matters which I think advocates for a raw diet, basically the same thing as veganism only without cooking anything.  It was really interesting too but I had something else going on and so I'll have to finish watching it another day.  I really love documentaries and books that challenge the mainstream status quo.  Two of my favorite books I've ever read are Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne and Everything Must Change by Brian McLaren.  Both of those books have been largely influential in my life and as a result in my friends' lives although they don't know it.  Books and documentaries like these challenge you to think outside the box.  You may not agree with everything they have to say of course, but it at least challenges you to investigate the reasons you believe what you've always believed.