What The Health - Full Documentary

[Music]

so

worldwide we're looking at approximately

350 million people with diabetes

there's no question that we're in the

midst of a diabetes epidemic

right now one in three medicare dollars

is spent in the care of people with

diabetes

one in 10 total health care dollars is

spent

on people with diabetes there's no

question that this is a major problem

what in particular is the correlation

with the diet and diabetes

i'm not going to get into that into diet

[Music]

my name's kip i'm a filmmaker from san

francisco and i have a confession to

make

i'm a recovering hypochondriac like so

many of us i have a family history of

diabetes

heart disease and cancer my dad had his

first heart bypass of 49 his second at

age 50.

my grandpa died young from diabetes

complications and both my other grandpa

and grandma died of cancer

i was always paranoid that i would also

get one of these diseases

like any good hypochondriac webmd

symptoms checker was essentially my

browser's homepage

even in my teens i took metamucil every

day and a daily aspirin

i read all the latest self-diagnosis

books i had every multivitamin i could

get my hands on

and i was obsessed with bodily functions

i followed all the large health

organization's recommendations for

preventing disease

i exercise regularly don't smoke don't

drink soda

get enough sleep reduce stress and grow

up eating what i thought was a healthy

diet

until world health organization this

morning has classified processed meat

such as bacon

and sausage as carcinogenic directly

involved in causing cancer in humans

processed meat is clearly linked to an

increase in cancer

hot dogs or bacon could be just as

dangerous as smoking

cigarettes the world health organization

had looked at over 800 studies from 10

different countries finding a direct

link to consuming

processed meat and cancer just one

serving of deli meats daily increases

your risks of colorectal cancer by 18

i had no idea that what we ate affected

cancer rates

but i never felt like i had eaten a lot

of processed meats until i realized that

processed meat includes hot dogs bacon

sausage salami ham

pepperoni cold cuts and deli slices

basically everything i grew up eating

the world health organization classifies

processed meat as a group 1 carcinogen

the same group as cigarettes asbestos

and plutonium

and classifies red meat as a group 2

carcinogen

was this like i had essentially been

smoking my entire childhood

if processed meats are labeled the same

as cigarettes how is it even legal for

kids to be eating this way

i thought this was new information but

many of these studies have been around

for

50 years i couldn't believe i'd been

eating processed meats virtually my

entire life and was just now finding out

how dangerous they are

why hadn't i been hearing about it from

the american cancer society

the largest cancer group in the nation

when i went on their website i was

shocked to see that

none of this information was featured on

their homepage but even more shocking

on their eat healthy page they actually

encouraged eating group

1 carcinogenic foods like processed

turkey and canned meats

this is after the world health

organization reviewed over 800 studies

definitively linking processed meat to

i'm a cancer information specialist

probably i help you today hi i was

calling because i was wondering why you

all recommend

people to process meat on your website

which the world health organization is

classified as a group

one carcinogen which is in the same

class as tobacco smoking

asbestos and plutonium

this would be like a lung association

having a how to roll your own cigarette

section on their website

it's kind of the same thing but let me

just place you on a brief hold because

he wasn't able to answer my questions

and said someone would get back with me

i had always been concerned about cancer

because both my grandma and grandpa died

of cancer

i wondered if things would have been

different had they known the link

between diet and this terrible disease

in the u.s one out of every four deaths

is from cancer

oh sweet american cancer society rep

confirmed an interview this week

so we just went in for the interview

with the american cancer society rep

and the security guard said there's no

interview scheduled

so i went into my phone and it turns out

last night after i told her that the

interview is going to be about the

correlation between diet and cancer

she said she could no longer do the

interview

after repeated emails asking why she was

declining my interview to simply talk

about

diet and cancer she stopped responding

altogether

why would an american cancer society rep

not want to talk about this

i was however able to connect with a

growing movement of doctors who are

willing to talk about the link between

the standard american diet and disease

and it goes beyond just cancer i took my

old trusty van

super blue once again out on the road

two-thirds of adults are now overweight

or obese

and we have an epidemic cascade of

debilitating disease that's overcoming

the country

there's no way we can sustain the

current style of care

with the epidemic that we're creating

with our diet lifestyle choices

the diabetes the arthritis the heart

disease the dementia

the obesity the cancers are affecting

about 70 percent of deaths

all the data is that those 70 percent of

deaths

and morbidity are largely lifestyle

related and preventable

most kids by age 10 in the u.s

already have fatty streaks in their

arteries the first stage of

atherosclerosis leading to heart attacks

strokes here in american medicine we

operate from the disease model

we are in the business of treating sick

people we are not in the business

of trying to prevent people from

becoming sick when you look at chronic

disease risk all the things that we walk

around worrying about

actually dietary choices trump smoking

when it comes to those risks if i could

deliver one message

to the researchers who are looking for

the cause of diabetes and the cause of

clogged arteries

and the cause of high blood pressure and

the cause of obesity

i would tell them the answers in three

words it's the food

it's what americans are eating today

with two-thirds of americans being

overweight

clearly there's a food issue in the next

25 years one out of every three

americans will have diabetes

my name is michael abdallah i'm from

atlanta georgia

and unfortunately i was diagnosed about

10 years ago with diabetes

and eight years ago i had two stents put

in

i don't know where to go i don't know

what to do you're just like out of

options

and you don't know what to do you're

taking medicine you're listening to this

doctor

and the cardiologist says take this and

and the endocrinologist says take that

then your general

practitioner doctor says you don't know

what's going on here and

it's a it's a real it's a real

challenging thing and it's something

that

you don't want to get it you just don't

want to get it government

and media almost exclusively blame lack

of exercise in sugary foods as a cause

of diabetes but i wanted to talk with an

actual

expert on the role of diet and diabetes

i went to speak with premier physician

diabetes expert and researcher dr

neal barnard what role does sugar play

in causing diabetes

it drives me crazy diabetes is not and

never was

caused by eating a high carbohydrate

diet and it's not caused by eating sugar

the cause of diabetes

is a diet that builds up the amount of

fat into the blood i'm talking about a

typical meat-based animal-based diet you

can look

into the muscle cells of the human body

and you find that they're building up

tiny particles of fat

that's causing insulin resistance what

that means is

the sugar that is naturally from the

foods that you're eating can't

get into the cells where it belongs it

builds up in the blood and that's

diabetes

i had never heard that meat was

associated with causing diabetes we had

always been told that sugar obesity

caused it

renowned weight loss bariatric surgeon

dr garth davis though agreed

everyone thinks that they get diabetic

because of carbs they did a huge study

in that epic study 500 000 people carbs

consumption was inversely related with

diabetes in other words

the more carbs someone ate the less

diabetes they had

but meat was strongly correlated get

that aha moment the starches the carbs

are good for you

they're not bad for you this idea that

carbs make you fat

is utterly ridiculous carbs cannot make

you fat in and of themselves we have

storage

in our muscles and in our liver for

carbs called glycogen so when we eat

carbs we either store it or we burn it

now eat fat

that goes straight to your fat your body

can't turn those carbs

into fat unless you're really over doing

the calories obesity

it's a death sentence you're at much

higher risk of getting cancer you're

almost certainly going to get diabetes i

mean

no one wants to fat shame and we all

want everybody to be comfortable with

our bodies but this movement to be

comfortable with our bodies has made us

comfortable with being sick

and that's a huge problem i go into the

hospital and i look around me

people on dialysis all these sick people

and just about every disease in there is

because of what people are eating here's

the thing if i eat a sugary

cookie the sugar lures you in like the

trojan horse but waiting inside that

cookie is a huge load of butter or

shortening and that's what fattens you

up and that's the part that leads to the

diabetes it's the fatty foods

not really so much the sugar it's not

that sugar is good for you there's no

nutrients in it

it's excess calories but when you eat

sugar you don't get inflammation right

away when you eat sugar you're not

getting plaques forming in your vessels

when you're eating sugar

your body is going to store most of it

as glycogen or burn it as calories and

so this focus on

sugar has taken all the focus off meat

dairy eggs pork turkey chicken

people need to understand now if their

child gets diabetes you've just

taken 19 years off their lifespan we're

talking

life and death i realized there was so

much more about diet and disease that i

hadn't ever learned

it felt as if this information had been

practically withheld

processed meat causes cancer sugar

doesn't cause diabetes

i had doubt about the claims these

doctors were making so i did some

searching on my own

harvard researchers looked at nine

prospective studies finding that just

one serving of processed meat per day

increased risk of developing diabetes by

51 percent

the link between eating meat and

developing diabetes became undeniable

but when i went on the leading diabetes

organization's website the american

diabetes association

not only did they not have this

information front and center

they were featuring recipes for red and

processed meat

and on their recipes for healthy living

they had bacon wrapped shrimp

what the health all right send an email

to american diabetes association see if

they'll get back to us

as destructive as diabetes is it pales

in comparison to heart disease

over 17 million people die every year

from cardiovascular disease

it is the leading cause of death around

the world nearly one out of

every three people will die from this

disease

the amount of people who die from

cardiovascular disease is the equivalent

of

four jumbo jets crashing every single

hour

every single day every single year

my name is amy resnick and i'm from

swampscott massachusetts a little bit

north of boston

and i recently went to my doctor for

asthma because i had a very hard time

breathing

and while there she did some blood work

and one of the tests was

c reactive protein and a scale from

there was a scale of one to three one

being low for cardiac event

three being high for a cardiac event and

my number was

10.82 what does that mean

that means i am on the road for a heart

attack and she said probably within the

next 30 days

30 days 30 days if i'm going the way i

was going

i take this for my heart arrhythmia

take this for pain oxycodone for pain

and lorazepam for stress

cyclobenzaprine for muscle relaxer also

take topmax

and prozac and i also use a cpap machine

to help me breathe

and my asthma has been so bad this past

year

i use it during the day as well to get

some air

i am tired when i wake up i'm tired

during the day

i take a nap i'm still tired i can't

breathe

and i know i need to make a change

from my health or else i'm not going to

be here

for my family when we speak of heart

disease i would say the role of alcohol

is

pretty small the role of sugar is very

small too

smoking is big but the good news is that

most people have quit or never did smoke

the problem with

animal-based diet its contribution to

heart disease is huge and it is

pervasive

all this expensive imaging

procedures bypasses

medication none of which

has one solitary single thing to do

with the causation of the illness so you

die of a completely benign

foodborne illness that never had its

causation treated

when we eat these kind of dead meat

bacteria toxins

within minutes you get this burst of

inflammation within your system such

that

you basically paralyze your arteries you

get the stiffening of the arteries

their inability to relax normally in

half so it's not like

decades down the road eating unhealthy

there'll be some damage no we're talking

damage

right then and there within minutes of

it going into our mouth many people

are given the diagnosis of alzheimer's

disease

when it's not true alzheimer's at all

the vast majority of people suffer

dementia

due to their tiny blood vessels and

their brain clogging up

and their nerve cells being short

changed of oxygenated blood and guess

where that blood vessel dementia comes

from those little tiny arteries are

clogging up from that steady stream of

fat cholesterol etc

it's really quite clear from the

standpoint of cancer and the standpoint

of cardiovascular disease that animal

protein

plays an enormous role is chicken better

it's a question of whether you want to

be shot or hung the flesh food that i

would

eliminate from the american diet would

be poultry would be

turkey and chicken a brilliant

advertising campaign has convinced

people that oh it's white

meat it's healthier the leading source

of sodium

in the american diet for adult is

chicken it can be labeled all natural

chicken

but be injected with the salt water i

think up to 800 milligrams of sodium

heterocyclic amines

are clear-cut carcinogens and they can

form in any kind of meat as

it's heated as it's cooked but by far

the biggest

source is chicken we sent researchers

into fast food and family restaurants

not only were there

carcinogens in every single restaurant

but we found them in every single

chicken sample that we took if somebody

brings their family in and they're

buying a bucket of chicken nobody tells

them that there are carcinogens

if you're selling carcinogens to people

you've got to warn them

that they're in there but the american

cancer society encourages people to

switch from red and process meat to

chicken

why would the american cancer society

tell people to switch from eating one

carcinogenic food to another when a

harvard university study showed that men

with prostate cancer who eat large

amounts of chicken

increase their risk of the disease

progressing four times

the number one dietary source in america

of cholesterol is chicken because of the

volume of chicken you know chickens

become

grilled chicken and organic chicken it's

machismo

but it has nearly as much cholesterol

per gram as

red beef so just ensure volume it's the

number one source

yeah eggs being close by i never really

thought about eggs much

i just thought of them as a standard

part of a healthy diet but then i found

a study suggesting that eating just

one egg a day can be as bad as smoking

five cigarettes per day for life

expectancy

the yolk of a hen's egg is the most

concentrated glom

of saturated fat and cholesterol it is

made to run a baby chicken for 21 days

with no outside energy it is pure fat

and cholesterol

and when we put that into our

bloodstream it coats our red blood cells

our blood gets thicker and more viscous

it changes our hormone levels it raises

our cholesterol levels there's nothing

healthy about

eating the yolk of the egg but i thought

cholesterol unsaturated fat wasn't an

issue anymore

you know the saturated fat studies that

have come out trying to vindicate

saturated fat is a campaign by the dairy

industry right number one source of

saturated fat

is dairy it's not meat 2008 the global

dairy industry got together at a meeting

and explicitly

read their agenda was to neutralize the

negative impact of milk fat by

regulators and medical professionals

unquote so

what did they do they funded studies the

main study that started the whole

saturated fat media craze

was funded by the national dairy council

the egg industry similarly funds studies

that confuse consumers by making claims

that eggs don't negatively affect heart

function

that is only when compared to eating a

mcdonald's sausage mcmuffin

so what they're really saying is that

eating eggs is just as bad as eating a

mcmuffin

when you eat foods like beef or steak or

a processed meat a hot dog you're not

just getting saturated fat

you're also getting other additional

toxins that are in that food there's

heme iron

carcinogens processing chemicals this is

all a lot more complicated than just

looking at saturated fat

you know the strategy is not on making

their products any safer

the strategy is to just try to confuse

the public to introduce doubt you know

there's a famous tobacco industry memo

it's called doubt is our product

that's all they had to do they didn't

have to convince americans that smoking

was healthy

right they just had to introduce doubt

then they would win

if there's just enough controversy

people kind of throw up their hands i

don't know what to eat

confusion is their game

i really don't think people thought what

they ate led to heart disease they think

oh

it's genetic my parents had it i don't

think people really think that what they

ate led to diabetes i think

oh my parents had it i was gonna get it

and certainly cancer they don't think

that way

people have bad lifestyles that they've

inherited environmentally they've been

exposed to a certain way of eating and

living that they've carried on

into their adulthood passed on to their

children that is why

they go on to develop the same diseases

that their parents and grandparents may

have had before them but it is

not inevitable even if you have a

genetic predisposition doesn't mean it's

going to necessarily manifest and what

determines whether it manifests or not

maybe those epigenetic variables the

things that you can control

the environmental factors the dietary

factors the lifestyle factors

we can actually change the expression of

genes tumor suppressing genes

we're activating genes by what we eat

what we put into our body so

you know even if you've been dealt a bad

genetic deck

you can still reshuffle it with diet i

had always thought that i would develop

heart disease at a young age because

both my dad and grandpa had heart

attacks

i was taught that they were genetic but

their heart attacks probably had less to

do with genes and more to do with their

diets high in meat

that's why when i went on the american

heart association's heart healthy

recipes page

i could not believe they had an entire

section on

beef recipes this was just like the

american cancer society encouraging

eating group one carcinogens on their

site

meatloaf pork loin steak

on your recipe list are you kidding me

it's like this menu is trying to give

people heart attacks

at your website we notice heart-healthy

recipes and we're

kind of bewildered by why there's a

bunch of recipes

on a whole section on beef beef recipes

and there's also a section on

egg recipes when there's such a strong

link between beef red meat

and heart disease

i i i honestly don't know because i

don't do that i guess that's not what i

do

another organization rep that wasn't

able to answer my questions

but he said that he'd have someone get

in touch shortly i was however

able to talk to the president of the

american college of cardiology dr

kim williams so the american college of

cardiology is a 47

000 member and growing organization with

a dedicated mission to

reduce heart disease and to improve

patients lives

and if you look at the incidence of

hypertension and diabetes

uh and mortality in men they they

actually get reduced as you

uh go higher and higher in terms of how

much you restrict animal products

what about fish so fish is a little

different you've got the four

worries which is pcbs mercury

saturated fat and cholesterol and the

cholesterol

is all over the place you can hit tuna

and water that'll be

almost less than a glass of milk to

salmon or tilapia which is higher than a

pork chop

if you look objectively at fish what you

find is they've become essentially

mercury sponges

and that's why in many parts of the

country they warn you you know don't

have more than so many of these fish a

week because it's getting too much

mercury can kill you

fish are eaten by bigger fish who are

eaten by bigger fish and these

pesticides and herbicides

bio accumulate in the fish flesh and the

big fish including the salmon which

people think is the healthiest fish

truth is the amount of pesticides and

herbicides in the flesh of these fish

are shocking and they have estrogenic

and cancer promoting properties in them

they'll say well but don't sardines have

less concentration of toxic waste

product than

other ones something being less toxic

doesn't

make it healthy it just makes it less

toxic farmed

fish is by no means healthier all the

antibiotics that these animals have to

be fed

similar to chickens and turkeys kept in

confinement these fish get infections

they get fungal infections they get

bacterial infections you've got to feed

them antifungals antibiotics

and these substances accumulate in the

fish flesh as well

i always knew that pollution was bad for

our health but i never thought about the

environmental pollutants affecting food

dioxins being the most toxic man-made

chemicals known to science cause

all sorts of things they cause

endometriosis they cause

cancers they cause endocrine disruption

problems

most of your exposure 93 of it comes

from eating meat and dairy products

because it climbs up in the food chain

so effectively

so you can get exposed living near these

incinerators and breathing it but it'll

take you

14 years to breathe in as much dioxin as

a cow will ingest by eating the grass in

one day

and that dioxin will accumulate in its

fat which includes the milk

and the meat and anyone eating meat or

dairy products

is going to get that dose of dioxin so

it climbs up the food chain every step

men have no way in their bodies to get

rid of dioxins

but women have two ways they're both

involving having a baby

one is that dioxin crosses the placenta

into the growing infant

and the other is that it comes out from

the breast milk so if you have a meat

and dairy consuming mother

breast feeding that infant then the

highest impacts

of toxic exposure like mercury and

dioxins will go to that infant

pregnant women are told that certain

types of fish should be avoided

but what about all these other animal

products which are introducing

imagine as the fetus is developing

introducing these very harmful

toxins which create reproductive

abnormalities

developmental problems and hormonal

issues right as the child is

developing the most critical stage of

development it does make you worry

when people say don't you want to have a

little bit of milk because you're

pregnant don't you want to have some

fish because you're pregnant who do you

think is going to get the chemicals that

are in that

all these environmental toxins and

toxins from the feed that they're being

fed

accumulate in their tissues and are

released into the mother

and unfortunately to the child when you

eat these products when you're pregnant

so this includes antibiotics hormones

steroids in animal feed commercial

animals are largely fed gmo

corn and soy which are very laden and

pesticides

pcbs have been banned since the 70s but

they persist in the environment

dioxins all these compounds can create

hormonal reproductive developmental

damage as well

eating organic beef poultry pork or

fish will not help you avoid

contaminants like mercury

like dioxins like strontium 90 because

they fall out over all sorts of farm

fields and water bodies and

they don't skip over the organic fields

and so really the contaminants are

coming in

regardless of how these animals are

raised i had always been concerned about

the possible health impacts of gmos but

then found out that most of the world's

gmo crops are actually consumed by

livestock with dairy cows consuming the

most per animal

this fact with everything i'd learned

about bioaccumulation made dairy

terrifying

especially considering how much cheese i

ate in my life

cheese is an amazing product when you

think about it it's probably one of the

single best foods at compromising health

that you're going to actually feed to

people think about it you've got an

animal product

so you've got all the issues of

biological concentration

you have a highly processed food product

and not only does it have naturally a

lot of saturated fat but you put a lot

of salt into it there's a strong link

between dairy foods and autoimmune

diseases

and so that can show itself up as

excessive

production of mucus and exacerbation of

asthma in kids who are prone to that and

even adults

and also there's an association between

dairy foods and multiple sclerosis

and type 1 diabetes which is an

autoimmune disease

and other rheumatologic problems cow's

milk

is baby calf growth food that's what

the stuff is there's absolutely no child

or human on earth who actually needs the

milk of a cow

any more than they need the milk of a

giraffe or a mouse

most people in the world are lactose

intolerant i mean that's the normal

state of affairs why would your body

create this enzyme digest lactose after

weaning after infancy it doesn't make

any sense

73 of african americans are lactose

intolerant

95 of asians uh roughly

70 of native americans and about 53

percent of

hispanic americans are lactose

intolerant our government

is encouraging americans of color to eat

foods

that it knows is going to make them ill

ultimately what that boils down to is

the government is telling

me as an african american eat food

that's going to make me ill for no

health benefit

so that it will benefit dairy farmers as

a form of institutionalized racism

yeah milk is a risky food for human

consumption as a pediatrician

i see on a daily basis children

suffering

from conditions that are linked or

associated to

dairy consumption such as eczema acne

constipation acid reflux iron deficiency

anemia

cosmic protein is the most allergenic

food people say well no i want hormone

free

not injected with bovine growth hormone

but milk

is this hormonal fluid so it's just

packed with

sex hormones and natural sex steroid

hormones like estrogen progesterone in

fact

doesn't matter if it's conventional milk

doesn't matter it's organic milk

milk without hormones it's an oxymoron

organic dairy

has just as much saturated fat and

cholesterol and galactose

and all the things that you don't want

as conventional dairy

dairy products in general have a lot of

other products associated with it not

the least of which is pus

i mean they actually have laws limiting

how much pus you can actually have in a

milk and still sell it i believe it's

like 750 000 plus cells per cc

because i mean you wouldn't want too

much possibly like pure past people

might object

in fact you could think of cheese as

kind of coagulated cow pus

if you would but i was always told that

we need milk for strong bones

i'm jane chapman and not too long ago

finally got some x-rays of the hips and

back

severe bilateral osteoarthritis of the

hips

and actually i'm scheduled for two hip

replacements

that's bone on bone it's the grinding

of the joints my stability is scary i

hold on to the walls

if i'm at home i've been told to use a

walker

i'm only 61. this is not how you're

supposed to live when you're this old

i have a really hard time believing that

that's all that's left researchers have

studied

bone development in kids and whether

they get stress fractures and that kind

of thing and the kids who drink the most

milk have

zero protection milk does not build

strong bones harvard researchers have

looked at

a large group of older women over an

18-year period the milk drinkers had

zero protection from fractures so this

old notion that somehow milk is going to

build strong bones or protect your bones

later in life it's a myth

people that drink milk have higher rates

of hip fractures

have more cancer and live shorter lives

it turns out that countries with the

highest dairy consumption also have the

highest rates of osteoporosis

so clearly drinking more milk doesn't

protect your bones doing more research i

found that dairy was linked to many

different types of cancer as well

just like many of us i thought that the

majority of cancer was due to genes

but only five to ten percent of cancer

is actually genetic

any cancer is caused by a dna mutation

but that's not enough so that can cause

that first cancer cell but

one cancer cell never killed anyone two

cancer cells never killed anyone but a

billion cancer cells

now we're running into problems so we

need to reduce the growth factors in our

body like

igf-1 insulin like growth factor one is

this cancer-promoting growth hormone

involved in

every stage of cancer cell growth and

spread

and metastases any animal protein boosts

the level of igf-1

dairy products increases your risk for

various forms of cancer especially those

related to your hormones so breast

cancer prostate cancer ovarian cancer so

this is not a product

even in its most pure state you want to

be consuming

because it does come with risk i found

out that dairy can increase a man's

chance of getting prostate cancer by

34 percent and for women who've had

breast cancer just one serving of whole

dairy a day

can increase their chance of dying from

the disease 49

and dying from anything 64

why weren't breast cancer sites like

susan g komen warning

everyone about this for calling susan g

coleman this is johnson

how may i help you so we're wondering

why you don't have a huge warning about

the dangers of consuming dairy in a

website

when there's a direct link to breast

cancer it was a study published in the

journal of the national cancer institute

that found out women consuming dairy

who has had breast cancer increases

their risk of dying of breast cancer 49

percent

it's wondering why it's not on your

website

we cannot answer these types of

questions once again another health

organization rep saying someone else

would have to answer my question

rather than risk being stood up again i

went straight to the local susan g komen

chapter to see if they would answer my

questions

they didn't want to answer my questions

in person either and told us to stop

filming but promised they would connect

me to the national office directly

[Music]

susan g komen's pink ribbon campaign had

done a lot to raise awareness for breast

cancer

although it was confusing to see pink

ribbons on dairy yogurt containers

breast cancer can be prevented with a

healthy diet and lifestyle but we're not

we're talking about

pink ribbons and putting all the money

into research for the cure i for one

know that i would want

my daughter my mother me i want to focus

on not

getting to that point and that's where i

would like to see more energy and effort

put

i had been a hardcore cheesyholic

virtually my entire life despite the

risks but like so many others i seem to

have been addicted to it

it turns out that the casein protein

that's the main protein

in dairy products and particularly in

cheese it breaks apart in the human

digestion

to create what are called casomorphins

casein-derived

morphine-like compounds that go to the

brain and they attach to the very same

receptor

that heroin attaches to don't get me

wrong they're not as strong as that but

they are strong

enough to make you come back again and

again and again despite the fact that

you're gaining weight

you're more unhealthy than you've ever

been but that cheese just

calls out to people casomorphin uh may

play a role in

sids and sudden infant death syndrome

may play a role in autism

this is one of the reasons why we don't

want

infants drinking milk from cows human

breast milk has 2.7 grams of casein per

liter compared to 26 grams per liter for

cow's milk that's practically

10 times more no wonder it's so

addictive

this talk about addiction made me think

about all the drugs animals are fed

i went to the headquarters of the center

for food and safety the nation's leading

fda government

watchdog group to see how concerned we

need to be about drugs and our food

so that we know of there are at least

450 different

drugs are administered to animals either

alone or in combination

these drugs are given to animals for a

variety of reasons

very very few of which are actually

beneficial to consumer health

we've got drug companies that work real

hard to make sure

they can sell lots of drugs to people

raising cows pigs and chickens

the pharmaceutical industry sells eighty

percent of all the antibiotics that it

makes in the united states to animal

agriculture

antibiotic residues are found in meat

other antimicrobials are found in meat

there has been ractopamine found in meat

there's been hormones found in meat so

right there you're talking about four

different drugs

it could be you know in the same piece

of meat the pharmaceutical company

supposed to show the safety of animal

drugs they're not really testing to see

what the impacts of these drugs are on

humans they're really looking to see

what the impacts of these drugs are on

animals

you know when we try to get information

on on some of the health studies

and the environmental studies from

federal agencies

we get back page after page of blacked

out

information because the company

claimed confidential business

information consumers have no

idea what is in the products that they

consume so

how sick something makes me and how bad

it pollutes the environment

is a secret for a company in the animal

agriculture industry as in the tobacco

industry

these companies really have a vested

interest in making sure that the public

doesn't have

information about their effects and what

risks are really posed to

consuming them you have this system

where animals

are living in their own waste they're

living next to

animals that are sick or even dead and

they're stuck in cages with these

animals that bacteria tends to spread

that the pathogens that are being

created in these filthy conditions are

breeding resistance to antibiotics and

the public are becoming exposed to those

we already have people dying from

salmonella and

other things that you eat we have about

3 000 people die every year

in the united states that's more than

the number of people that were

killed in 911 in the twin towers in new

york

if we had some terrorist organization

killing 3 000 people

a year we would be all over it the

antibiotic

resistant bacteria deaths that we have

on top of that you get

20 000 people dying a year that's

seven 911s every year

can you imagine if that many people were

being killed by

some terrorist group in the united

states every year we would find them

you know the world health organization

has said we're nearing a post-antibiotic

era in medicine

you'll be at risk in minor surgeries to

have a fatal infection

you'll be at risk going to the dentist

if you have a tooth extracted or it'll

be like civil war medicine

you get an infection in your leg and you

cut your leg off so you have this

very dangerous situation by crowding

these animals in

they become a perfect engine for

generating a new flu virus that can come

out into the community

if you lived near a swine spray field

not even the cafo but the waste disposal

field

you were three times more likely to have

a mrsa infection

you can't see how it impacts

the average person's life in duplin

county north carolina

and not be a little upset about it

from an environmental standpoint from a

community standpoint

from all other aspects north carolina

we're in a we're in a state of emergency

we've already had bouts of swine flu or

h1n1 as they prefer to refer to it

that particular swine flu incident was

uh originated on a farm here in north

carolina

there's approximately the same number of

hogs in north carolina as there are

people

between eight to ten times the amount of

feces is produced by a hog an adult hog

as compared to an adult human 10 million

pigs in north carolina produce the waste

equal to 100 million humans

this is the equivalent of the entire u.s

eastern seaboard flushing their toilets

into north carolina but there is no

waste treatment the pig's waste falls

through slats in the floors of the sheds

they are forced to live in it is then

pumped into giant waste pits which leach

into rivers and streams

and is pumped out unfiltered onto fields

further polluting the environment and

neighboring health

when you go back and you look at where

these hog facilities are located

there's a disproportionate number of

them that are located

near communities of color low income

communities it is definitely a human

rights issue

my sister she have aspen and you know

her brother you have aspen

he's three and we don't know what she

might have

i have aspen i have sinus i have

sakadosa

this is the bacteria and i have a

pacemaker which is six sinus syndrome

but you know mostly everybody in this

neighborhood got asthma or either cancer

my neighbor there died from cancer

probably just last year

my nephew down the street he's got

cancer he's internment of cancer

stage four not a smoker not a drinker

and it's not in his lungs it's in his

lymph nodes

let's see if you live here and saw the

way they do

you don't need no pork well i don't eat

bacon

because i know where it comes from when

they die they go into a box

and they decompose because they swell

from stretch from the heat

a truck come and pick them up take them

to the process and plant the rose hill

ground them up into feet and feed it

back to the hogs

if i come out this door if he's spraying

there it's gonna come in my face it hit

you right in the face

you smell like something that you have

never smelled before it's not working in

dead body it's the family graveyard

i have my grandmother out there my

sisters

my brothers when we go to the funeral he

used to spray

during the funeral dinner yes during the

funeral

yeah you spray and when the people come

everybody be closing their nose up

saying hi stink they can want to have a

cookout on sunday

yesterday do you think he does it on

purpose

i think so because he just sprays sunday

he always prays sunday

and most of these area hog houses and

turkey house

is in the black area or the hispanic

area

it's either r do you think it's also a

civil rights issue

yes yes i do yes i do

there have been times in the past that i

have

gotten ready on the sunday and got ready

to go to church and come out and the

smell was so strong that i had to go

back and regroup because it got in my

clothes and i just couldn't go to church

smelling like hogs you know i just

couldn't do it so i don't think

the government cares they care more

about

cooperation than dude people individuals

and they're going to keep on they're

going to put more chickens in this state

this is the feast season you're in

captain of the world right here in north

carolina

my state look there's a blue line stream

right here come

into my property almost and the

continental creek right here i've seen

that blue line stream they're filled

with feces and urine from that hog pin

and they can say well we feed the world

they're not interested in feeding the

world they're interested in making money

you take the money away from it and let

the folks starve

because if you want to feed the world

you can feed the world with more corn

using corn and wheat and stuff like that

and you can meat meat is a luxury item

when we're doing things that hurt other

people

we're wrong but a lot of good people

will sit there and eat bacon

knowing that it's causing someone else

to be very unhappy

i woke up the next morning to find the

burden river had experienced another

massive fish kill from the pollution

running off hog farms

tens of thousands of fish were washing

up on shore

all this talk about health i realized

that i was only focused on personal

health

but health started to mean so much more

to me it was about health of my family

and our communities

i couldn't under good conscious support

an industry that i knew was harming

others

pollution from animal agriculture isn't

just an issue in north carolina though

raising animals for food produces more

greenhouse gases than the entire

transportation sector it is a leading

cause of rainforest destruction

species extinction ocean dead zones and

freshwater consumption

american diabetes association actually

finally got back

and they agreed to an interview

preparing for the american diabetes

association interview i took a look at

their diabetes diet and meal plan

recommendations and they were

loaded with foods associated with

causing diabetes

how could they expect people not to get

diabetes if this was the food they're

recommending

and then i saw multiple peer-reviewed

studies published on the national

institute of health website showing that

a low-fat plant-based diet was more than

twice as powerful controlling and even

reversing diabetes

than the ada recommended diet that

included meat and dairy

the mission of the american diabetes

association

is to identify a

prevention and a cure for diabetes

but in the meantime to improve the lives

of all people who are affected by

diabetes

and uh what's the best way to prevent

to prevent this for type 2 diabetes it's

unclear

we can't prevent type 2 diabetes in

everybody

when we're doing research we came across

a lot of studies that said

that you actually could potentially cure

reverse diabetes with a purely

plant-based diet

i don't believe there's sufficient

evidence to

demonstrate that how does it compare to

the ada

diet that you recommend we don't

recommend a specific diet we recommend

we recommend healthy eating the one

that's on the website

we recommend healthy eating there is do

you have a whole uh

you have a whole list of exact

day-to-day

the meal plan the whole meal plan all

they are selections of foods to consider

we do not have a diet diabetes diet but

with with that selections i

consider that that plan compared

to an all plant-based plant no one's

done that study

we found actually some studies that a

74-week study found that low-fat vegan

diet versus the ada

plan and type i think we're done here

i'm not gonna i'm not gonna get into an

argument about that oh no just wanting

the studies of uh

the studies that if this is true or if

it shows that if

any diet works

any diet works if people follow it

but if it's a diet that's not the proper

diet like if anyone follows a diet that

they

i can't i can't tell you what a proper

diet is

i can tell you what an improper diet is

so then we can talk about the good diets

i'm not sure why

i'm not going to get into that into diet

no

if that's if that's where you want to go

with this i'm sorry i'm not the person

that you should be talking to

and why is that though if that's what

you want to get into i'm not the person

you need to be talking to

who do we talk to about diet you can

talk to anybody you want

but that's interesting though why not

recommend a diet because the data don't

exist

but if i see we see data that we looked

up

that supports it with like you know the

nih the uh

in europe the european european

side we're done i'm sorry

i'm not going to get into this argument

but i don't sorry anymore i'm not going

to get into why

is it an argument it's just talking

about in european study of diabetes and

other

places that have studies why there are

lots of stuff why is it even an argument

there are lots of studies in the

literature

many of which have never been replicated

or

frankly are wrong that's why we do peer

review

okay the european association of study

of diabetes

has been peer reviewed or i don't know

what study you're

you're referring to and in the absence

of being able to see that study i'm not

going to comment

i could show it to you i'm sorry i don't

have the time for that i just don't

understand why it's an argument though

or

okay

that was interesting what he wanted to

talk about was people living along with

diabetes

but once you mention eliminating

diabetes or prevention

oh whoa now you cross the line

prevention and cure

whoa whoa let's not go there

not only did dr ratner the chief medical

officer of the american diabetes

association not want to talk about diet

but the fact that he had such an

emotional reaction to my question made

it feel

i was digging into something that he

didn't want and covered

i had always thought there was no

prevention for type 1 diabetes

but then i did research and came across

countless studies referencing the link

between exposure to dairy at a young age

and type 1 diabetes

i mean this is a food made for baby cows

cow milk protein gets

into the bloodstream and the body says

hey this isn't supposed to be in the

bloodstream it makes antibodies the cow

milk protein which then attack

the pancreas and destroy the pancreas

how is this possible that ada wouldn't

have this forefront on their website why

wouldn't they be warning all parents

about this even if they're only a slight

chance

why were they recommending people to

actually eat these foods

linked to diabetes it seemed all of the

large health organizations were

encouraging people to eat the very foods

linked to the diseases

they're supposed to be fighting against

american heart association promoting

beef

american cancer society promoting

processed meat pink ribbons on dairy

products

and bacon wrapped shrimp on american

diabetes association

and then it all came together

what if

[Music]

and there it was the american diabetes

association was taking money from dannon

one of the world's largest dairy yogurt

producers kraft foods makers of velveeta

processed cheese

oscar meyer processed meats lunchables

processed kids meals and bumblebee foods

makers of processed canned meats

american cancer society was taking money

from tyson one of the world's largest

meat producers in

yum brand owner of pizza hut kfc and

taco bell

susan g komen was supposed to be

fighting breast cancer was corporate

partnering with kfc

deets watson processed meats and yoplait

yogurt

and the american heart association was

probably the most disturbing of all

taking hundreds of thousands of dollars

from the beef industry

poultry and dairy producers and millions

from fast food and processed food

manufacturers

every single one of these organizations

was taking money from meat and dairy

companies that are associated with the

causes of these diseases

this would be like the american lung

association taking money from the

tobacco industry

i was sick of not getting answers so i

went to the headquarters of these

organizations myself

we have to speak someone in person

there's millions of people dying

from the foods that they're recommending

people to eat

i wanted to find out why susan g komen

had accepted 35 million dollars from

yoplait when their products can increase

a woman's chance of dying from breast

cancer 49

and ask american cancer society if

taking money from kfc and tyson was the

reason they promote eating meat

but every one of these organizations

declined to be interviewed

what's really sad is that we cannot

trust information from

these leading health organizations like

the american heart association the

american diabetes

association because they are taking

money from the very industries who are

causing the problems that they're

you know supposed to be helping to

prevent so that makes the

the truth something that you are not

going to be hearing

as far as nutrition goes from these

organizations

well that would be the end of their

funding that would be the end of their

jobs that would be

lawsuits they would bring the entire

catastrophe down upon their heads and

they would essentially disappear as

organizations this one time i got

invited

to a charity fundraiser for the american

diabetes association

i showed up and they had a whole buffet

and that was all just

animal products i remember like a big

thing of barbecue chicken

and i was like i stormed out i said it i

said

like serving chicken at a

diabetes event is like serving alcohol

at an a.a meeting it just doesn't make

sense

we had scheduled to film an interview

with a prominent surgeon

but before we could get inside the

building the hospital's media relations

manager stopped us

actually i understand that doctor said

that you could film here today but

unfortunately that's

not going to be able to happen i know

that he advocates for

patients changing their diets but the

hospital makes money off these surgeries

and the reality is he does too

so we can't do anything that's gonna

negatively impact the hospital so

unfortunately you're not gonna be able

to film here today

i was sickened by how open she was about

the hospital being more interested in

profits than people's health

but it wasn't just this hospital or

these organizations

even the u.s government is involved too

every five years the u.s department of

agriculture creates dietary guidelines

for americans

the committee who writes these

guidelines has been made up of

individuals who have received money from

mcdonald's the national dairy council

the american meat institute the national

dairy board the national livestock and

meatboard the american egg board dannon

canny and sugar companies coca-cola and

anheuser just to name a few

which means we're getting our dietary

recommendations from the very industries

that are killing us

and when they the usda makes a pyramid

or a power plate

every five years for the american public

they're going to guarantee that on that

plate are going to be foods which when

consumed

will result in millions of americans

perishing

the usda which is supposed to be

protecting us has two missions it's

supposed to protect us

and it's supposed to protect the

producer and guess what when those two

come ahead to head they usually choose

the producer in internal documents

uncovered by dr greger the usda admitted

that eggs cannot legally be called

nutritious

low-fat part of a balanced diet

low-calorie healthful healthy

can't say it's good for you are even

safe yet they still promote these

products to the american people through

federal check-off programs

if you ask somebody if they've heard of

a checkup program the odds are they

haven't although

daily they are seeing the messaging that

these programs produce

so check off programs are responsible

for the messages that we see

on tv on the internet on bus billboards

and magazines that say things like

milk it does a body good or milk life

beef it's what's for dinner

pork be inspired the incredible edible

egg

the dairy check off program gave 12

million dollars

to dominoes to just market cheese heavy

products and this is the usda this is

the government

if you've seen those ads for the pizza

hut pizza the stuffed crust

or a pound of cheese those are all

government advertising schemes for the

industry

how can we put more cheese on beef how

can we put more

milk in a coffee things like that to

just drive

consumption of these just unbelievably

unhealthful

products so mcdonald's for instance has

six people

staffed full time according to records

we found

whose salaries are paid for by this

government program

but funded by the producers who are

regulated by it

and these six people sit there at

mcdonald's headquarters and just

come up with ideas triple cheese decker

mccheese muffin stuffed bacon

cheese slider

with extra cheese no yes you don't think

of it

on a day to day basis that these are

government programs the

wendy's bacon double cheeseburger

government program the steak fajita

dunkin donuts

government program you would just never

think that this

just pure garbage from a food standpoint

is coming

from a federally funded program that's

one of the things that makes chekhov's

so incredibly creepy is that it is our

government

telling us eat more beef drink more milk

eat more cheese

eat more pork one of the very effective

ways that the dairy industry

promotes its products is to reach

children because kids are impressionable

they're going to be consumers for their

entire lives

and you might as well get them while

they're young so darry spends at least

50 million dollars promoting its

products

in public schools throughout the country

with

posters with people with milk mustaches

and messages like milk it does a body

good or

milk life targeting young people right

the tobacco industry had to keep

replacing

their customers who are dying with new

customers

mean industry knows they have to target

young people that's why we have

these foods in schools and marketing

messages at a younger younger age

for kids to get hooked on all the wrong

kinds of foods

so there's all kinds of parallels school

districts where

processed meats are all over the place

maybe it's going to be bacon on the menu

sausage hot dogs or pepperoni pizza any

of those things are processed meats and

those are pretty much the worst of the

worst with a direct link

to colon cancer i mean and yet you have

every day in the schools meal items

with processed meats if the surgeon

general puts warning labels on tobacco

because of their cancer risk

why aren't the same warning labels on

meat

based on the publicly available data we

know they spend at least 557 million

dollars

promoting their goods through check off

programs we know that they spend at

least 138 million dollars

lobbying congress we expect that they

spend a good deal more than that

that in figures that simply aren't

publicly disclosed the industry's

lobbying power is so strong that they

can create laws and push through

legislation that doesn't benefit

americans in any way

such as ag-gag laws that criminalize

whistleblowing of photographing abuses

by this industry

activists in the us can be charged as

terrorists for disrupting the profits of

any business that uses animals under the

animal enterprise terrorism act

to the even more ridiculous ones like

cheeseburger laws

a cheeseburger law is a law that says a

plaintiff cannot recover

against a manufacturer distributor

retailer on the theory that the food

made the plaintiff obese

or caused in an obesity-related disease

cheeseburger laws are a direct response

to

a problem that the tobacco industry has

had big tobacco has paid

400 billion dollars to state medicaid

programs

cheeseburger laws proponents say we

don't want to see the same kind of thing

happen to the meat and dairy industries

the fact that these laws are based on a

model template called the common sense

consumption act is actually ironic

because what they're saying is

you the consumer should have the common

sense to know that

our food is bad for you i've often

typified the meat industry

to people who maybe don't understand its

power and reach as it's got

all the money of big tobacco and big

pharma

and it has the personality of the

national rifle association

so any any little thing that comes up

man they

they beat it to death robert martin

wasn't exaggerating

when the profits of the egg industry

were threatened by egg alternative

company hampton creek foods

extremely disturbing emails were

uncovered by ryan shapiro and jeffrey

light

we uncovered documents demonstrating the

american egg board

considers hampton creek quote a crisis

and major threat

to the future of the american egg

industry the american egg board

considers a successful egg replacer

company

to be such a threat that they joke on

their government email addresses

about murdering the ceo in internal

government emails with the heads of the

egg industry

they suggest having the ceo of hampton

creek josh tetrick

murdered including a menacing email from

executive director of the american egg

board

the meat producers don't have to pay for

the heart disease or the environmental

destruction or any of the other

externalities as economists call them

that their products cause you know then

there's a whole pharmaceutical

aspect of it and the fact that there's a

very strong pharmaceutical industry and

lobby

that has a huge stake in preserving the

status quo these chronic diseases

these are the cash cows of the

pharmaceutical industry you have a five

billion dollar

stent industry do they ever want to see

that go away we've got a 35 billion

dollar

statin drug industry do they ever want

to see that go away i'm talking about

the pharmaceutical industry

effectively controls what doctors are

told most research isn't put into

prevention it's put into

the medication that we might use for

that particular disease

i'm on two different high blood pressure

medicines

six asthma type medicines even after

four years of shots and then another

medicine to help take care of side

effects from some of those medicines

i'm on high level anti-depressants

a couple of different pain meds for my

back and hips

i'm taking about 16 drugs not counting

the insulin in the morning

i i take insulin in the morning insulin

night you know

32 to 34 units of insulin

atlantis to be exact some of these meds

are for diabetes this is for peeing i

have to

use this for my prostate and then i have

to use this for the heart

and i have to use this for blood

pressure and

and it's just on and on and on and on

the doctors are telling me this what

i've got to do for my whole life and

it's frustrating

and it's very stressful and i don't know

how long my liver is going to last

taking all this stuff under conventional

medical treatment whether it be for

autoimmune disease

or even conditions like high blood

pressure or diabetes

you're told that you have to take drugs

and not just for a week or a month

or a year you're told you have to take

drugs forever

you're guaranteed that if you follow

your doctor's advice

you'll be sick forever you'll never get

well

that's the guarantee because the

strategies are all

about manipulating the symptoms not

dealing with the underlying cause you

come in with that diagnosis you get a

bunch of pills that have nothing to do

with the disease causation or you get

these procedures that have nothing to do

with disease causation

it's a deception you say this pill will

help you unclog your arteries this one

will save you from a stroke no it

doesn't

the people who take the stems etc they

still get their heart attacks they still

get their strokes this is not reverse

disease this does not make plaque

smaller

this is a fraud of massive proportions

in the u.s treating chronic disease such

as heart disease cancer and diabetes is

a 1.5

trillion dollar industry that's the gdp

equivalent of the 10th richest country

in the world

i went back and dug deeper into the

health organization's funding

and there it was again these

organizations were accepting millions of

dollars from pharmaceutical companies

that are making billions of dollars from

the very same diseases these health

groups are supposedly trying to end

it seemed like a major conflict of

interest unless ending these diseases

isn't really the goal the pharmaceutical

industry spends more money on lobbying

than any other single industry

just like animalia culture they are so

powerful they write their own laws that

have had activists in prison to silence

them

government's in bed with anyone that

gives them the most money which is the

pharmaceutical industry which is the

animal ag industries like they are

pumping the government full of money and

resources and in return the government's

giving them what they want subsidies

imprisoning activists that go against

them and i think it's quite telling that

these industries

are working so hard and spending so much

money

to criminalize people for simply taking

a picture for simply recording

what's going on inside of these

facilities and making it known to the

public they're behind walls

and they're underground they're in these

secret facilities that no one

knows about but if they did they would

be shocked and outraged and i think

people would not

want to think that their pharmaceuticals

that their food are coming from these

places

and that's why i think it's the ag laws

are what they are is because they are

trying to silence

people into not speaking out and not

showing the truth

i finally realized how deep the

collusion truly is between government

and these industries and how dangerous

it could be to expose them

these concerns intensified after meeting

the usda whistleblower who revealed mad

cow disease in the u.s meat supply

oh usa operates like the military so

when i got on tv and that right away

usda sent out memos

to all the veterinarians and food

inspectors if anybody from the media

ever contacts you do not talk to them

refer them to washington dc

and we will talk to them so right away

shut up everybody

american publisher very very concerned

about this

what's going on with usda here in the

united states

we have at least four cases of cow

disease

but i'm almost positive there's more

cases than that but the government isn't

looking for it so what you're saying is

that there could be already mad cows

disease in humans

right i think a lot of it was

misdiagnosed with the alzheimer's and

dementia

it takes several years you see the

progression but to make it easier these

doctors just sign off on is dementia

alzheimer's

without actually taking a biopsy of the

brain to see if it's that

or is it actually a prion disease like

khrushchev jakub disease or male counter

disease

do you think it's safe to eat neat i

personally don't think it's safe to eat

it because of the fact

how the line speeds are increasing and

also

our inspectors are not well trained

enough at the present time the wine

speed now is going about 220 cows an

hour

that gives you about some ways around

four cows per minute so that's

15 seconds per cow these dangerous

slaughter speeds means that animal waste

ends up

everywhere testing shows 88 of pork

chops are contaminated with fecal

bacteria

90 of ground beef and 95 of chicken

breast sample contain animal waste

bacteria

there is nothing clean about eating this

way

but it just isn't waste it's also

pus-filled infections

you can see there's a bump or some kind

of abscess underneath the hive

most of the time when the height is

pulled off either that

will open up the abscess and the bus

will come out

or if it's deep seated when inspectors

are doing their work or the company

employees

they might stick their knife into an

abscess and it explodes all over the

place

i had heard enough i was utterly

disgusted by the corruption the greed

the disease and the abuse i was learning

about

the very animals we were killing were

killing us and the planet

but so many people eat meat and dairy

every day of their lives

and we are so concerned about getting

enough protein do we have to eat meat to

get complete protein

oh my god oh my god you want me to jump

off this building don't you no

well first of all all protein

is made by plants i'll state that again

for the record

all protein is initially made by plants

all of it

and it is not necessary to eat animal

tissue

in order to get protein only plants

have the ability to actually take

nitrogen from the air

break those molecules apart and

incorporate that nitrogen

into amino acids and then make protein

any protein you get from an animal

is simply recycled plant protein if you

ate a diet that was

calorically adequate and even things

like brown rice and broccoli and you got

enough of it

you'd get enough both quantity and

quality of protein 2 000 calories of

brown rice and broccoli is going to be

about 80 grams of protein a day

including the essential amino acids that

you need in order to maintain optimum

health i mean

grains are loaded with protein beans are

loaded with protein

vegetables are loaded with protein you

really want to get your protein from

plants because plant proteins have a

much more beneficial effect on our

physiology

the funny thing about protein is most

americans get about twice the amount

they need

most americans get less than half the

amount of fiber they need but the

conversation tends to always be about

protein so in my mind it's just this

magical marketing campaign that protein

has taken on over the decades

the question is not where to get your

protein it's where do you get your fiber

i have never in my professional career

seen a protein deficiency i've never

seen someone come in eating normal

amounts of calories

and they're protein deficient you just

don't see that so human

milk has the lowest protein content ever

in any species ever tested i mean that's

the fluid that's been designed by

evolution over millions of years and

that's just like the perfect

food for human babies right perfect food

lowest protein content any other mammal

and so it gives a sense of

kind of protein requirements for food

anything so

then rat milk ate milk donkey milk any

milk has ever been tested

and you hear this a lot in bodybuilders

they're like well i need you know

chicken or i need fish to be you know to

be strong to build muscle tissue

that is utter nonsense the largest

strongest

terrestrial animals on the planet are

all herbivores the biggest strongest

animals are all herbivores

when we bring in people and they're on

meaty diets and we transition them to a

plant-based diet we always track what

they're eating

their vitamin intake goes up their

nutrition overall goes

up dramatically better and these same

people might worry in advance

will i get the nutrition that i need on

a plant-based diet the fact is

you're not getting the nutrition you

need on a meat based diet and you're

going to get dramatically

better nutrition on a plant-based diet

for an average sized guy like myself

i need about 56 grams of protein a day

that's optimum probably i really need

30 to 40 grams a day diets are really

high these protein

create diabetes create heart disease

create cancer and create the diseases

that

i'm treating on a daily basis but this

is the opposite of what all the high

protein diet fats say

the food you eat determines the bacteria

that live in your gut

well you eat animal flesh every day you

are

summoning up bacteria that eat carnitine

and those bacteria will turn that

carnitine

into a molecule called trimethylamine

your liver then turns that into

trimethylamine oxide

that's a molecule from hell that

molecule drives cholesterol into the

artery walls

and the people who are consuming this

flesh-based diet

are contributing to plaque building up

they may lose weight

on this diet and that's good but what's

happening inside your arteries paleo

friends what's happening is that black

is building up and these are the folks

who dropped dead at the gym at 39.

oh it was lean and it looked really good

but where is that cholesterol going it's

going to your artery wolves

so i believe these paleo folks are

setting themselves up for an epidemic of

clogged arteries colon cancers

autoimmune diseases this is not a

healthy diet we are not carnivorous apes

humans closest living relatives are

chimps who get 97

of their calories from plants and the

remaining three percent mostly from

insects

comparing the anatomy of true omnivores

like bears feed both meat and plants to

frugivores like primates who eat almost

exclusively plants the differences are

pretty clear

frugivore teeth have flat molars for

chewing plants where omnivore teeth are

serrated for stabbing and tearing flesh

frugivore jaws can move forward and back

and side to side

omnivore jaws cannot omnivores have much

stronger stomach acid for digesting meat

compared to less acidic stomach acid of

frugivores

the intestines of frugivores is nine

times their body length compared to

three times for omnivores this is

because meat will putrefy in the gut

unless it has moved through quickly

if humans were indeed true omnivores we

would need to change our physiology

and appearance quite a lot but we fit

every requirement of a frugivore

we may behave like omnivores but

anatomically we're frugivores

human beings unlike bears and raccoons

and to some extent dogs

don't have that mixed anatomy and

physiology that you see in the true

omnivores

and thus we are not true omnivores in

humans the canines have become

really small and rounded and actually

function like

accessory incisors they're utterly

useless for ripping and tearing anything

other than an

envelope so the idea that the

mere presence of the canine somehow

means that we're supposed to eat meat

is silly he was right i always thought

my canines were for meat but what kind

of animal could i actually kill and eat

raw with these tiny teeth

the thought alone was disgusting i mean

everybody loves a smoothie made with

fruit

and even some vegetables but if you

think about putting a fish

or piece of beet in a blender and

grinding it up

the thought is absolutely repulsive all

these diseases i had learned about were

from eating a diet our body wasn't

designed for

what would happen if we started eating a

diet our body actually was designed for

the data is crystal clear that you can

stop and reverse heart disease with

plant-based diets

scientifically shown i've seen in my own

patients people who adopt

low-fat plant-based diets can actually

reverse their heart disease and that

literally means watching the plaque

start to go away something they didn't

think could happen

my experience with patiences and those

studies show that when people adopt a

fully plant-based diet their cholesterol

levels plummet within a few days

and if you do blood tests in a couple of

weeks you'll see dramatic improvements

yes your numbers are going to look great

within a week or two your cholesterol

can come crashing down in fact if you're

on medications your doctor may have to

pull off your blood pressure medication

so your blood pressure don't drop too

low

because it can work too good like that

the side effect is not having to take

drugs

in a groundbreaking study published by

dr esselstyn following patients

suffering from cardiovascular disease

99.4 were able to avoid major cardiac

events by going plant-based

because it's not just heart disease it's

hypertension it's diabetes

it's strokes it's heart attacks several

of the autoimmune diseases

lupus asthma gerd

osteoporosis i mean there's a multitude

of diseases

even rheumatoid arthritis it can be so

dramatic

when you see these poor souls with just

absolute crippled with rheumatoid

arthritis go plant-based

then they come up come off their

medication i wanted to follow up with

jane chapman who had been suffering from

severe osteoarthritis and i could not

believe

what i saw after only a few weeks of

fasting and changing your diet

so those are so amazing

i know from going from the walker

needing wheelchair assistance at the

airport

to strolling down the street enjoying

the fresh air the sunshine

two weeks it's all it took two weeks to

get off all the meds

and start to to feel the inflammation

just kind of drain out of the body where

the movement was much easier

just a lot of healing occurred very very

rapidly just by doing the right things

for your body

when you're treating diseases with drugs

you know there's

one drug you take for cholesterol a

different class of drugs you take for

high blood pressure

different class of drugs you take for

diabetes but with diet a plant-based

diet

affects all these diseases one diet to

kind of rule them all

the impacts of eating this way go far

beyond ourselves by getting rid of heart

disease alone we would save up to 48

trillion dollars in usa

three times the us gdp conditions like

high blood pressure

you don't have to take the drugs the

rest of your life and be sick forever

what you can do is live in such a way

that it gives the body a chance to heal

itself we took 174 consecutive patients

with high blood pressure

and 174 people were able to lower their

blood pressure enough to eliminate the

need for medication

for uh inflammatory bowel disease like

crohn's the best remission rates

ever achieved through plant-based diet

ms multiple sclerosis

the best results ever achieved compared

to any medical surgical any kind of

intervention was a plant-based diet

you can see that with every sequential

reduction in animal products

people live longer they have less heart

disease they have less cancer they have

less diabetes you can actually take

human cancer cells you put them in a

petri dish

you can drip the blood of those eating

vegan get about 72

suppression in human prostate cancer

cell growth in vitro they wanted to try

this again with women

and breast cancer they said let's see

what a plant-based diet can do after

just two weeks their bodies cleaned up

you drop their blood on the same carpet

of cancer cells

you can clear off the whole plate this

is after just two weeks eating healthy

which raises the question

you know what kind of blood do we want

in our bodies my background is

in industrial and systems engineering

and that was my career path

for a long time until i had thyroid

cancer

and everything changed from there

i decided that i wanted to

try alternative methods and treatments

rather than have surgery

and have my thyroid removed which meant

i'd be on medication forever and i

didn't want that

i just started reading how a plant-based

diet

can heal the body and it has worked for

so many people

so i immediately just switched to a

completely

whole food plant-based diet after a year

the cancer was completely gone and my

thyroid had shrunk to normal size

and i was completely free of that this

was tough to believe

couldn't this all just be from eating

healthier though like no sugar

turns out dr walter kempner from duke

university back in the 1940s was

reversing some of our worst killer

diseases with diet

alone and the diet he was using was not

only strictly plant-based but it was

made up of

white rice fruit and table sugar and he

was reversing

diabetes he was reversing malignant

hypertension

reversing heart disease the diabetic

complications

reversing diabetic blindness so these

people basically

had death sentences went to him and were

given basically

sugar you know this horrible diet but it

was

strictly plant-based if this information

had been around since the 1940s why

don't all doctors know this

we're not taught about the power of food

in medical school no one is taught

that the changes that we make with our

diet

are probably the single most powerful

thing we can do to determine our destiny

it trumps our genetics why isn't your

doctor telling this

odds are your doctor never learned any

of this in fact there's even a bill

introduced it's just mandating

physicians get seven hours nutrition

training every couple years

just kind of stay on top of it and who

came out against that

the california medical association even

the family physicians the surgeons

all the mainstream medical groups came

out opposed

it's seven hours that's that's a lot

even if it's over

one four year period so they're not just

kind of neutral but they're actually

actively opposing

nutrition education ironically when

patients come to doctors with questions

they assume that the doctor

knows something about nutrition and so

it's kind of a double whammy that

doctors haven't been taught much about

nutrition

why don't we hear about this from

dietitians when nutrition is their

entire specialty

turns out the american nutrition and

dietetics association puts out nutrition

fact sheets written by the industries

themselves

the industries pay 20 000 per fact sheet

and explicitly take part in writing them

so you can learn about eggs from the egg

industry you can learn about lamb from

the lamb industry

this would be like learning about the

benefits of smoking from the tobacco

industry

when people are eating meat i think of

it as a bit like smoking

it's sort of russian roulette you may

not get diabetes but your chances of

getting diabetes

about one in three you may not get

cancer but your chances if you're a man

about one and two

a woman one in three your chances of

gaining weight two out of three

it's not all diet but most of it is the

best thing that you can do to make sure

that

you empty all those bullets out of the

chamber and

taking risks to your health is to get

the animal products out of your diet

eating healthy foods

he came to true north to help me with my

asthma

and to lose a little weight and it's

amazing just in two weeks changing my

diet

don't have to take any asthma medication

no antidepressants no pain medication

no heart medication nothing no

medications at all

and it's really it's just incredible i

was taking

oxy and advil and i was taking 800

milligrams of motrin three times a day

just to get through the day because i

was in so much pain

and now nothing nothing at all two weeks

two weeks fourteen days all that

medication are completely off

completely off everything it's just been

so frustrating to me because

i went to so many different doctors for

help

and i tried so many different

medications to help me with my asthma

and nothing helped and i was stuck on

the couch for the last 10 months

unable to breathe and

now in two weeks time 14 days i'm off my

medication

and i can breathe and i feel good and i

can walk my life has changed and it only

took

two weeks of a whole plant-based diet

that's incredible yeah that is

incredible

it really is that's amazing it really is

i feel so blessed and so good and

just so happy to be doing this and

i'm hoping that i can be a role model

for other people and

not be pushy about it because everyone's

going to do it in their own time

but thank god my time is not

thanks

as powerful as amy's story was i knew

for some eating a hundred percent

plant-based would still seem extreme i

think there's this sense

that everything's okay in moderation

right but we haven't seen

that moderation works there really isn't

a study that shows that by eating meat

and eggs in moderation you can actually

turn your heart disease around and get

better

but i know people who've gave up meat

and they felt sick

yeah it's it's unlikely that anybody's

symptoms are caused by a dead decaying

flesh deficiency that

the lack of highly processed animal food

products in the diet is not going to be

associated with the causal factor about

why they're they're sick there is going

to be a reason why they're not feeling

well but that's not going to be one of

them

so i've had people go vegan and they

come back to me and they're like i'm

hypothyroid and my doctor says i'm

hypothyroid

because a plant-based diet makes you

hypothyroid

i'm like so what does your doctor tell

all his meat-eaters that are hypothyroid

what's an animal flesh or dairy that you

can't get in plant-based

cholesterol heterocyclic amines

e coli you know if you think about it uh

there is nothing

in an animal-based diet that you can't

get in

healthier form somewhere else the only

other vitamin

is vitamin b-12 it's not made by plants

not made by animals either made by

little microbes that blanket the earth

so

because the way we live in our sanitized

world unless you're eating bacteria

contaminated foods we need to get a

source of b12 from somewhere

so the healthiest cheapest safest source

is to get a vitamin b12 fortified food

or vitamin b12 supplement

not to get it from meat and dairy what

about people who say they have to eat

meat for their blood type

or their genes it's just like it's like

i need me because i'm a capricorn

i need me because i have an a plus blood

i mean it's like what do you say no one

has to eat meat i mean there's no

vitamin mineral nutrient that you

can't get from non-animal sources

valentine's day i decided to go

vegan and give up all meat which was

never in my thoughts in a while million

years but

i've heard so much success from people

that are vegan

and so we i gave up all animal products

whatsoever i've lost

29 pounds i've been able to cut my meds

in half

i've been able to cut my insulin in half

and now i'm going for the moon i'm gonna

cut it all out

in the last six weeks we've just had

three grandchildren

and my ugly face is gonna be around to

see him graduate from high school and

college i'm going to be here

my mission is to let everybody know you

do not have to suffer

from diabetes and cancer and heart

disease because someone in your family

had it or because the doctors are

telling you

this is what's going to happen you can

take charge of your health

and have a positive outcome just like i

did the reason i'm so committed to this

is you know my grandmother had diabetes

and i didn't know what i know now about

healing the body and if i did i feel

like

she could have lived at least a few

years longer and so

it's in her honor that i do what i do

because i can save someone else's

grandmother aunt uncle

father from that you know

so

so i'm excited about about getting the

message out there

there's a common belief that eating

plant-based is expensive

not at all it can be done in a very

inexpensive way where you

buy foods that are in season and you

shop in the bulk bins

and that saves a lot of money you can

eliminate a lot of your

expenses on your grocery bill by not

buying

meat and dairy because those things are

expensive our

meal plan for a family of four is 25

dollars per person in the family

2064 2064.

whoa that's for an entire week of food

an exploding movement of elite athletes

are utilizing vegan diets to heal

injuries speed recovery times and

enhance their performance

before i was vegan i was only bench

pressing 315 like five times

then after going vegan i was doing 400

for 25 for 65 and i was like oh my god

this is amazing

i'm vegan and i'm bench pressing 465

pounds this is ridiculous

and as soon as i went vegan tendinitis

started disappearing

my strength and my right arm started

coming back high blood pressure was

going down

you can't be strong and be dying on the

inside that's not strong

that's weak that's really weak because

you look big and strong on the outside

yeah big man

no but your heart's crying for help on

the inside you're

dying i'm a professional poker athlete a

two-time world-fueling champion

and more recently i got into ninja

warrior where i'm captain of team europe

as we won

usa versus the world for something like

ninja warrior and parkour specifically

you really need to have a good strength

to body weight ratio so i was carrying

mass that i really didn't need and when

i went vegan you know i lost 15 20

pounds i was more agile i was more

efficient

more stamina in my body just that extra

bit of pop that i didn't have before it

just gave me that extra strength

this is a very vibrant way to live it

can enhance you as an athlete for me

100 better athlete than i was before to

unlock a whole new

chapter of my training the science is

there the health is there the athletes

are there proving that you don't need to

eat dead animals to be strong to be

healthy

i started working out when i was 47

years old all the muscles you see

i gained as vegan i gained 15 pounds of

muscles on my body

eating all plant-based vegan foods all

the

aches and pains in my body it just went

away

because i'm not ingesting so many

inflaming foods the acidic foods that

animal products are

gorillas rhinos and elephants they all

get their muscles and strength from

eating plants

that's what i do i travel all around the

world for

my surfing and i've always been able to

eat vegan

i feel like if you want something you

can make it happen

i just don't make any excuses i would

never not be vegan now that i know

all the benefits and now that i know how

it feels to be vegan

every aspect of my life has been

improved by adopting this lifestyle

i feel better i perform better

athletically i sleep better

my energy with my kids is better my

focus at work is better everything is

better my skin cleared up

kept myself trimmed for nine years now

doing this

all i can tell you is that i felt and i

continued to feel

better than i ever felt before my friend

jason lesnar and i were the first people

to do this challenge called epic five

which entailed doing five iron mans on

five hawaiian islands

in under a week an ironman is a 2.4 mile

swim followed by a 112 mile bike

and then running a marathon 26.2 miles

after that so we did

five of those in a row on five different

islands and a little under a week

yeah girls die yeah did you die

so i guess the famous question where'd

you get your protein in there

from plants like so many people i was

looking for excuses not to change my

diet

but once i finally did i felt liberated

within days i could feel the blood

running through my veins with a new

vitality

within weeks i felt a transformation

throughout my entire body and mind

not only could i survive on a purely

plant-based vegan diet i could thrive i

felt amazing

i competed in my first marathon in six

years training half the amount and beat

my personal record by

23 minutes less than a month later i did

my first full ironman

although i could possibly get away with

eating a little bit of meat and dairy

without ill effects to my personal

health

i could no longer willingly support an

industry i knew was causing so much

suffering to communities

families and all life on the planet a

whole new world opened up

i felt whole again connected to a

greater sense of what true health is

and where true health doesn't end with

me but begins

with us if people adopted a plant-based

diet

the changes we would see in

our individual health in our national

health situation

and in this physical environmental world

we live in

would be so profound i mean today you

you can say i'm not going to eat that

stuff anymore it's one thing that i

can do myself personally to make a

difference

it will give you a greater sense of

well-being and happiness when you know

that one

you're not destroying your health every

time you sit down to eat you're not

promoting

cruelty and you're not damaging the

earth i don't want my gains to be at the

detriment of the planet of other things

and yet i'm not weaker i'm stronger

that's the beauty of it when you're

altruistic when you make choices for the

greater good of others it comes around

benefits me as well it benefits us all

studies show that we can not only

survive but we can

thrive i just feel this is a great way

to live

not harming other beings when we can be

healthy and happier

i love it it's a great life i never

thought that i could feel this good

at this age and i just want everybody to

feel this way

i feel like a 20 year old i'm almost 50.

nothing

tastes as good as healthy feels

basically and so the choices that we

make

every single day day in and day out

around our food

has the capacity to bring us true health

and optimal wellness

not just individually but collectively

as a species

and for our planet we're not going to

live forever

but while we are alive we can live well

and for me as a doctor that's what i

want to see

where there's a will there is a way

and i believe that

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