Forks over Knives by Brian Wendel

Written by Tim Boyd

October 7 2011

Forks over Knives
Executive Producer Brian Wendel
Monica Beach Media

"Forks over Knives" kicks off by looking at the statistical indicators of health, or lack thereof, in America today. Diabetes, obesity, cancer, heart disease and allergies are so common that it is getting hard to find anyone who doesn't suffer from one or more of those conditions. We spend over two trillion dollars on health care per year. As the movie points out, it is easy to find a profit motive for the health care industry to maintain this status quo. There is no money in healthy people and no money in dead people. The money is in people who are alive, sort of.
Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn and Dr. T. Colin Campbell both grew up on traditional American farms where dairy or beef were the main food products and key elements of their diets. Several minutes of footage are spent showing how healthy these men are. That kind of diet seemed to serve them well, especially Esselstyn, who was an Olympic athlete. Their message now, however, is that their dietary upbringing was a mistake.

We are treated to a discussion of the lipid theory that claims heart disease is caused by fat and cholesterol jamming up our arteries. This is backed by a detailed movie animation showing cholesterol plugging an artery. Many moviegoers may be convinced by such animation but I hope I can be forgiven for being a little skeptical if an artist’s rendition is all the proof they have.
Campbell elaborates on rat studies in which rats fed diets of 20 percent casein deteriorated rapidly while rats fed 5 percent casein stayed healthy or recovered if they were not healthy. This outcome is meant to somehow prove that animal protein in general is at the root of all cancer.
What I see in this film is a whole-food, plant-based diet being compared to a non-whole-food, animal-based diet. It is generally accepted that a high protein, lowfat cuisine is bad for rats. As many scientists and non-scientists have noted, there are many similarities between rats and humans, and therefore rats are used in experimentation as models for humans. I would agree that high protein, lowfat diets are bad for humans too. A whole-food, plant-based diet probably is better than non-whole-food (or non-food), processed, pasteurized, homogenized, chemicalized, plasticized, animal-based diet. All this leads to one very important question: So what?
Real food is better than junk. Apparently this revelation is a great epiphany to the scientific community. There are, however, important details the movie carefully avoids. Animal foods are lumped in with junk food, sugar, and sugary chemicals. The film makers don't compare whole-food plant-based diets to whole-food animal-based diets. Campbell, as the author of The China Study, likes to cite China as an example of a healthy plant-based diet culture. Kenya is mentioned in relation to having much lower cancer rates than the U.S., but there is no mention of the Masai and their animal-based traditional diet. There is no mention of Eskimo dietary traditions or other counter examples.
The producers include an explanation in some detail of why removing fat from milk concentrates the protein, making it much less healthy to consume, but there is no analysis of whole raw milk. The net result is a distorted picture complete with the usual politically correct agendas. You can see this movie if you want, but there are better ways to waste a couple hours of your life that you can never have back. The thumb is DOWN.

This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly magazine of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Fall 2011.

About the Reviewer

Tim Boyd was born and raised in Ohio, graduated from Case Western Reserve University with a degree in computer engineering, and worked in the defense industry in Northern Virginia for over 20 years. During that time, a slight case of arthritis led him to discover that nutrition makes a difference and nutrition became a serious hobby. After a pleasant and satisfying run in the electronics field, he decided he wanted to do something more important. He is now arthritis free and enjoying his dream job working for the Weston A. Price Foundation.

Set as favorite

Bookmark

Email this

Comments (2) Add Comment

Subscribe to this comment's feed

...
written by Jenna, May 08 2012

This feels like a very biased review of the film and the research. It seems that you did not really watch the film with an open mind, or even really watch the entire film at all. People get very defensive when their diet is challenged. The goal of this film is clearly to publicize very surprising research (surprising even to the researchers) done on a mass population and it is pretty clear that a whole foods, plant heavy diet is the healthiest diet for disease prevention. While I agree, quality animal products can be used in moderation, your review is doing a disservice to your readers. We are all have the same goal, to live a long, healthy, disease-free life. Absorbing as much knowledge as possible that gives us tools to do so is in the best interest of us all. Its disappointing to see someone dumb down such a quality and life improving film that can really help fix the broken health of the American public. We are all on the same team- better health for all Americans. We need to start working together to do this and stop being so defensive of our current ways of eating.

...
written by GibbyNC, Dec 28 2011

Thanks Tim! My wife watched this then started telling me how bad it was to eat meat. It sounded like a plug for vegetarianism so I didn't watch allthough I love docs about the food industry. Came here to find the scoop and you had it! Thanks!

Write comment -

Last Updated on Wednesday, February 01 2012 16:52