Primary Aim:

The primary aim of this documentary is to show that America is facing a massive health crisis.The number of people developing and dying from chronic disease is skyrocketing. The top two killers in America are heart disease and cancer, and almost half of the US population is obese. America spends over 2 trillion dollars a year on health care, but we are sicker than ever. There is no other reasonable explanation for the decline in health in Americans than that the American diet is not a good one. This documentary attempts to prove that adopting a whole foods plant-based diet is the answer to America’s health problems.

 

Supporting quotes:

• “No less that 40% of Americans today are obese, and about half of us are taking some sort of prescription drug”(1:42)
• “One in five American 4 year olds are now considered to be obese” (2:00)
• “We spend over 2.2 trillion dollars a year on health care”(2:15)
• “We pay more per person for healthcare than any industrialized country in the world, yet     were sicker than ever”(2:21)
• “Today, over 500,00 Americans go under the knife annually for heart bypass surgery”(14:07)
• “The consumption of unnaturally dense foods is the main cause for the epidemic of obesity in America”(32:05)

Ideology:

The main ideology that this film is promoting is that adopting a whole food plant based diet will solve many health problems. Throughout the documentary, there are case studies and experimental studies all showing how consuming animal based foods, like meat and dairy, are linked to many chronic diseases like heart disease and cancer. One of the main points made supporting this ideology is that countries like the Philippines, Japan, and Korea do not face nearly the amount of chronic disease as Americans, and that is because their diets revolve around rice, vegetables and other plant based foods. In the last century, Americans have been consuming more and more meat, almost doubling the amount of pounds of meat consumed annually. Human instinct tells us to search for the most calorically dense foods that require the least amount of effort. The American diet is filled with artificially calorically dense food, like fast foods and ice cream, and people are instinctively attracted to those foods. Eating highly concentrated processed foods has a drug like effect on our brains, and this creates a low-grade addiction to foods concentrated in fat and sugar. As Americans continue to eat this food so highly concentrated in fat and sugar, they are becoming sicker and sicker. Americans are addicted to eating animal-based diets, and it is causing the rates of chronic disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and other conditions to skyrocket. The research highlighted in this film show that diet should be used as medicine. The research shows that adopting a whole foods plant-based diet can prevent and even reverse many different health conditions like heart disease, cancer, hypertension and diabetes.

 

Supporting quotes:

• “In today’s environment, we can artificially increase calorie density well beyond what our ancestors would have found in nature. The resulting foods give us a hypernormal amount of pleasure, leading us into the pleasure trap”(34:42)
• “Let food be thy medicine” (6:22).
• “Near the beginning of the 20th century, Americans were eating about 120 pounds of meat annually. In 2007, Americans were eating about 222 pounds of meat annually”(9:06)
• “In 1913, Americans were eating about 40 pounds of processed sugar annually. By 1999, that number had risen to over 147 pounds annually.”(9:18)
• “The more affluent families in the philippines who were eating more animal based foods were the families whose children were more likely to get liver cancer.” (16:10)
• “Nutrients from animal foods promote cancer growth, while nutrients from plant food decreased cancer growth.”(29:17)
• “When we compare these high protein low fat milk products with prostate cancer, the relationship is as strong as it is for cigarette smoking and lung cancer” (1:04:30)

Key Storylines:

1. One key storyline in the film was the story of Joey Aucoin who lived in Tampa, Florida. He stated that “he doesnt eat to live, he lives to eat”(14:32). He spent his whole life eating whatever he wanted. In 2004, doctors discovered that Joey had dangerously high cholesterol and blood sugar levels. This made him a type 2 diabetic and a candidate for a heart attack and/or stroke. Joey took multiple medications daily to keep his blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar under control. He stated, “I know it makes me tired, and I just don’t feel normal”(15:17). Joey then adopted a whole foods plant based diet and started to exercise. After 8 weeks of eating plant based foods, Joey was off all of his medications. Near the end of the film Joey said, “When I started this I had all these side effects from the medication and from being so unhealthy, but now I’m getting in better and better shape everyday”(43:09). 
2. Another key storyline was the study done by a researcher named Dr.Campbell. In his study he had two groups of rats, and he fed one group a diet with 20% casein, the main protein in milk and dairy, and he fed the other group a diet with 5% casein. The group of rats who had the diet higher in casein had a greatly enhanced level of early liver cancer tumor growth. The rats eating the diet lower in casein had no evidence in cancer whatsoever. (25:30) Dr. Campbell then alternated the rats diet from 20% casein to 5% casein every 3 weeks. He found that the tumor growth went down during the weeks of a diet lower in casein. This means that changing the diet can actually reduce tumor growth that has already occured.
3. Another key storyline was a study conducted in China. This study was also done by Dr. Campbell, and they found that certain types of cancer were highly concentrated in certain counties in china. Some of the differences were up to 400 fold. They believed that the cause was dietary and nutritional. Dr. Campbell did a decade long study and found nearly 94,000 correlations between diet and disease. Dr. Campbell stated, “The major message we got out of all of these correlational analysis is only one message. The plant food based diet is always associated with lower mortality of cancer, stroke and coronary heart disease.”(50:21).
4. Another key storyline was the study conducted by Dr.Esselstyn. For this study, Dr. Esselstyn was given 18 patients who were sick with heart disease and were not given much more time to live. He put them all on a whole foods plant based diet. All of them survived the initial 12 years of the study. Today, 12 patients are still alive, over two decades after the study began. The plant based diet has shown to reverse the effects of coronary heart disease, repairing the damage done to the arteries in the heart. “Dr.Esselstyn has now successfully treated over 250 patients with heart disease using almost exclusively a whole foods plant based diet.”(59:02).

Linkage to Class:

1. A concept from class that can be linked to the film is the concept of food systems. The food system is referred to a lot in this film. The film talks about how to food system in America is heavily focused on the production of animal-based foods, even though it takes much more energy to produce animal-based food in comparison to plant-based foods.
   1. Supporting quote:
      1. “It takes over ten times the amount of energy from fossil fuels to produce a calorie of animal based foods than it does to produce a calorie of plant food.”(1:17:31)
2. Another concept from class that can be linked to the film is the concept of the bio-cultural framework. This film is basically about the bio-cultural framework of America and how it is affecting the health of many Americans. The environment and ideologies in America heavily support and promote an animal-based diet, so that is the diet that most people adopt. A whole foods plant-based diet is a way to solve many health problems in America, but the environment that has been created in this country makes it fairly difficult to follow such diet.

Tiffany’s Opinion of Film:

Overall, I think that this was a strong documentary. I feel that the producer had a lot of good support for the ideology he was promoting. By including the research of two different highly educated doctors, Dr. Campbell and Dr. Esselstyn, the producer created a strong backbone of support for his point of view. Another strength was the individual cases that were included in the documentary. There were two individuals, Joey Aucoin and Sandara Nation, who both a multiple health issues like high blood pressure, high blood sugar and dangerously high cholesterol levels. The documentary showed how both of these individuals adopted the whole foods plant-based diet, and they both were eventually off of all of their medications and were happier and healthier than ever. These two specific cases explicitly show how food and nutrition can be used as medication. One weakness of this documentary is that it is very one-sided. This film fails to share the downsides of the whole foods-plant based diet. A plant-based diet can leave some people deficient in critical nutrients like iron and vitamin B12 because these nutrients come primarily from animal-based foods. I think this documentary could be made even stronger if they acknowledged the disadvantages of the plant-based diet, and then gave advice on how to combat them.  

Danny’s Opinion

I believe this documentary maid many strong and supported arguments for what they were trying to prove, that the plant based diet is largely linked to, and can help minimize the affects of heart diseases and other chronic diseases. The individual that they brought in that were in Dr. Esselstyn’s study greatly helped their advocation for the whole food plant based diet. Particularly with Evelyn Oswick, who was told by her doctor to “prepare for death”(45:18).  The inclusion of her testimony particularly struck me because many of the other’s included were only at risk for heart attacks or had other chronic issues like diabetes, and were not preparing for death within a year. While watching Joey’s health improve throughout the documentary and get off his medication was impactful, seeing that this diet was fully sustainable for an extended period of time, after switching from a poor diet was significantly more impactful.

References

1.  Corry, J (producer), Fulkerson, L (Director), (2011). Forks Over Knives [Motion Picture]. United States. Monica Beach Media

Image References 

1. [Untitled illustration of forks over knives] Retreived March 1, 2019 from https://www.forksoverknives.com/wp-content/uploads/chef-del-recipies-FORKS-OVER-KNIVES.png
2.  [Untitled illustration of meat] Retrieved March 1, 2019 from http://www.sportingshooter.com.au/latest/un-anti-meat-preaching-stark-raving-mad
3. [Untitled illustration of vegetables in basket] Retreived March 1, 2019, from https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/sites/default/files/guide/guide-image/2014/04/balanced-diet-vegetarians-guide-image-700-350.jpg