Food Choices DOCUMENTARY - The truth about Food, Diet and Wellness

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our planet faces a lot of problems but

in some parts of the world people live

in a time of over consumption abundance

of food and an eagerness to be fit and

healthy

the supermarket is overflowing with

options but despite that we are poorly

advised in nutrition and easily

vulnerable to misinformation

unreliable slogans inaccurate health

promises and colorful tempting packages

are cluttering our relationship with

food and risking our well-being

we are bombarded by conflicting

information about food diets and

supplements

so how can we know what's best for us

which foods improve health and which

ones can potentially promote disease

i have struggled with these questions

for a long time

and it has been a challenge to find a

diet that would help me achieve my

health goals

after trying several yoyo diets over the

years i decided to change my lifestyle

by simply incorporating lots of

plant-based foods into my diet

so far it has worked for me i lost 50

pounds got my blood pressure blood sugar

and cholesterol under control and

overall felt really good

but it was a work in progress and i

still had many questions and concerns

about nutrition and living this

plant-based lifestyle for the long run

especially now with a recent addition to

our family i felt that i really needed

to find answers so i decided to go on a

journey to search for the truth and to

uncover many of the myths surrounding

food for three years i traveled across

the country and interviewed the world's

top authorities on the subject as well

as people that had experienced amazing

life changing benefits through healthy

eating

all to explore the idea of what is the

healthiest and most sustainable diet for

ourselves future generations and our

planet

so join me on this journey of shocking

discoveries and buckle up because what

you're about to learn might forever

change the way you look at the food on

your plate

well there's a lot of difference of

opinion about it

and there are there's a faction of

people who insist that there are

different diets for different people but

i think that the evidence is fairly

clear that that's not true and there

really is an appropriate diet for humans

just like there's a best diet for cats

dogs elephants and any other mammal

and the best diet for humans is one that

is plant-based almost all calories

coming from

four principal food groups fruit

vegetables whole grains and legumes it's

low in fat high in fiber

not very much processed food none is

great but in today's world i don't know

how realistic that is what we have seen

in nutrition for many many years

i must say

is a lot of confusion you go and survey

people

you know outside of the science and ask

them what do they think about nutrition

is and you can hear all kinds of

comments i eat this i eat that and this

is good and this is not good there's

also confusion in the professions you

know medical doctors not trained in this

field and there's confusion in my own

field you know biomedical research we

don't get an opportunity

to tell you know the real science i

think the way it should be told

because we're overwhelmed

with the corporate sector trying to sell

stuff we are living in extreme times

where we have 27 of people dying of

heart disease 25 percent of cancer 10 of

stroke

4 or 5 from diabetes the same number for

alzheimer's i mean these are

in many many cases diseases of

nutritional ignorance and diseases that

are all based on our lifestyle choices

there are a lot of different dietary

theories out there but i think one fact

is kind of indisputable having a diet

that is rich in whole plant-based foods

is truly a great way to get you to good

health everywhere i go around the world

there's not a single person i've met

that doesn't know that fruits and

vegetables are good for them

we all know it

it's not about the knowing it's about

the doing there was a time when there

was no heart disease no colon cancer no

breast cancer no multiple sclerosis no

inflammatory arthritis of course these

days in asia the middle east

in central america and around the world

people have become rich

they have given up much of their starch

and they replaced it with meat and dairy

throughout history

rich people the royalties the pharaohs

the queens the kings the priests the

priestess

the people could afford to eat the meat

they had artery disease

they had obesity they were sick

nothing's changed except for the number

of kings and queens living in the world

a question kept coming to my mind if

plant foods are so good for us and the

consumption of animal products in excess

appears to do us harm

how about the ancient populations of

people that survived on diets based off

mostly meat eggs and dairy and appear to

be healthy

after all aren't we known for being

hunter-gatherers

all large successful populations of

people

have gotten the bulk of their calories

from starch rice corn potatoes and other

starches breads and so on

particularly when you live near the

equator as you move north and south in

latitude then you end up eating more

animal foods and if you get far north

like for example the inuit eskimos

they are largely carnivores because

that's what's available but that's a

small population of people that exists

on the extremes of the environment

that's the exception

not the rule

we have become the most successful

species on this planet

no one comes close to us we share it

with animals and insects and microbes

and plants but we're number one and the

way we got to number one was all about

survival we see in color i believe

because fruits and vegetables are

colorful our hand is perfectly designed

to pick forge grab dig peel and feed

ourselves fruits vegetables nuts beans

and seeds plant food food made by mother

nature this idea that we're hunter

gatherers

is true we're hunter-gatherers but

mostly we've been gatherers

one of the problems has to do with

sexism it has to do with the fact that

the gatherers

were grandparents

women

and children the hunters were men

and they got the glory the people who

really provided the bulk of the calories

for most of the civilizations through

all the verifiable human history have

been the women children and grandparents

even when i began considering the idea

of eating mostly a plant-based diet i

was still haunted with many questions

how was i going to be able to live

without animal foods

i didn't want to become nutrient

deficient and how about things like

protein calcium and omega-3s

in my head i always associated these

nutrients with animal foods

i needed to find out if those were valid

concerns or simply myths

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it's almost impossible to design

a protein deficient diet

surrounding you know a variety of whole

plant foods

what people need to know

is there's never been a case of protein

deficiency ever described in the world

literature on any natural diet that

meant the sufficient amount of calories

you know back to 1839 when protein was

discovered it had this incredible

reverence associated with it and it just

gained traction but the evidence is very

clear that humans do not need to eat a

lot of protein and when they do

they get a lot of health problems as a

result i mean human protein needs are

just tiny percentage of calories maybe

two and a half three percent of calories

and if you were to eat the lowest

protein foods in the plant world which

would be foods like rice you're at eight

or nine percent protein so you're not

going to become protein deficient but

the promoters of the low carb diets the

promoters of the sports drinks the food

bars and all these kinds of things

insist and market to the public that

they absolutely must have more protein

it's just not true in practical sense in

reality the way we humans operate we get

ideal levels of protein if we just get

it from plants

when we

consume animal foods to get that protein

if you will

what we're actually doing we're

displacing

the consumption of those foods that

matter

and the foods that matter are plants the

amount of animal protein we eat is the

problem you know in rural china in

japanese populations healthier places in

the world people eat a little bit of

animal protein but for economic reasons

it's very very very tiny they use one

little piece of meat they slice it up

and it seasons a dish for eight people

here in this country we have one

gargantuan piece of meat we put it on a

plate with a tiny little bit of

vegetables we call that a meal

the problem is that when you eat too

much protein of any type you stress your

kidneys you stress your liver

and when it's animal protein you

increase your risk of cancer and we see

cancer is geographically distributed the

more animal food consumed in the society

the more cancer more heart disease you

get and it's amazing all the animals

that we choose in this country to eat

for protein and calcium

are vegetarian animals where's the logic

in that and i always like to remind you

also when you're eating your garbage you

never ask where am i getting my protein

in the calcium it's only when you come

into the healthy world that all of a

sudden you're concerned with where it's

coming from we're in the midst of this

amazing protein push everywhere you look

the message is clear protein protein

protein this idea that you need massive

amounts of protein to simply uh breathe

air in and out of your lungs you know

and to be healthy or to perform as an

athlete prior to making this dietary

change my main

nutritional strategy in a day

was

to see how many grams of protein i could

get in like that was that the only

calculations i ever really did i didn't

count calories i didn't count anything

was just

like trying to get in exorbitant amounts

of grams of protein in my day

just because there are grams of protein

on the nutritional content of something

doesn't mean that your body can actually

process all of those grams protein does

some other things it elevates blood

cholesterol levels which most people

have not heard of but that's about a

hundred years old that idea

and been repeated several times always

ignored animal protein it starts heart

disease

it increases things like the production

of so-called free radicals

which are those highly reactive

molecules that actually

stimulate aging

and encourages cancer formation it also

stimulates the production of the wrong

kind of hormones it tends to increase

the level of estrogens for example in

women which in turn associate with

breast cancer

it changes the microflora in our

intestine when we're consuming too much

protein

i mean it does all these things there's

lots of things we have to worry about

the american diet

fiber 97 of americans don't reach the

daily minimum intake of fiber 98 of

americans don't eat the daily minimum

intake of potassium for example the

nutrients of concern for most americans

are the ones that are found in plant

foods mostly fruits and vegetables and

the ones that we're getting too much of

in excess

whether it's calories sodium cholesterol

saturated fat are found in processed

foods and animal foods in general

many people decide they want to improve

their health by staying away from red

meat and instead they begin consuming

more white meats like chicken turkey and

fish

i always wondered if certain types of

meats were really better than others

people think that they're going to be

healthy by giving up red meat and

instead eating poultry and fish

stop and think about this for a minute

what are meat

poultry and fish they're mussels of

animals

in one case they have to move a limb

another case they flap a wing in another

case they wiggle a tail they're the same

high fat

high protein

high cholesterol no dietary fiber high

in the food chain so heavily polluted

from the standpoint of the effect of the

protein and fat and those foods and

their effect on health it really doesn't

matter it's dose dependent not type

dependent so fish is not healthier in

many cases it has more fat than chicken

and pork

but you have other issues with fish too

in the ocean you have this whole

hierarchy of things eating things that

eat things that eat things and so you

concentrate all the pollutants in the

ocean including mercury and fish like

tuna that are some of the favorite that

we like to eat so fish is really not

healthier don't kid yourself in thinking

that if you're eating fish and chicken

you can eat more of it because one thing

in common with these healthy populations

around the world that do eat a little

bit of animal food whatever type they're

choosing it's really a tiny tiny

percentage of what they're eating in the

diet so fish doesn't get a free pass a

lot of people are being told to eat fish

by cardiologists or to take fish oil

that's the other thing by cardiologists

who say that if you do that

you'll increase your hdl cholesterol

and here's the problem with that

it's true by the way it just doesn't

make any difference studies are pretty

clear that in populations with very low

incidence of heart disease total

cholesterol ldl and cholesterol and hdl

cholesterol are very very low

so that's the wrong reason to eat fish

or to take fish oil capsules is to

increase your hdl cholesterol work on

getting all your cholesterol low

since i was a kid i always heard that

milk was a very important food

and i consumed a lot of it

i also loved all kinds of dairy products

cheeses butters ice creams yogurts you

name it i had it all

it took me many years to begin realizing

that perhaps that was not such a great

idea

but i still wondered how about calcium

would i be able to get enough of it from

plants

well we have a lot of calcium in dairy

but it's never been a problem to have

too low calcium in a diet an orange has

110 milligrams of calcium all right so

if you're trying to take in 1 500

milligrams a day that doesn't sound like

so much but when you're only trying to

get 500 it sounds pretty good as a

percentage of your daily intake

milk is a healthy food

for calves for baby cows i mean milk is

for babies literally we're the only

species that drinks milk of another

species and then the only species that

drinks milk after weaning into adulthood

why

is milk associated with increased

prostate cancer risk for example well

what is milk milk is

a cocktail of growth hormones to get a

little bovine animal who's you know

who's susceptible to predation out on

the african savannah

to you know put on a few hundred pounds

in a few months right because they don't

get eaten by a lion and so it's

engineered it's this growth fluid for

rapid growth which is great if you're a

little baby cow but if you're

an adult person

those that extra growth hormones

is not a good thing you know one of the

hardest things for people to give up is

dairy and they're sometimes really

resistant to it so one of the things i

tell people is well why don't you look

at the evidence and then decide because

i've always said taking control of your

health is not doing what i say instead

of what other people say taking control

of your health is

looking at the information and making a

conscious choice about what you want to

do dairy products i describe as liquid

meat

they're basically just like red meat

high fat high cholesterol no fiber in

fact they may be worse than meat the

casein that they use to bind the cheese

is so full of chemicals the chemicals

are as addictive as heroin that we don't

have for stomachs like a baby calf and

unfortunately it is in everything they

put cow secretions i know you have other

names for it dairy butter ice cream

uh cheese but it's really breast milk

from a cow the only reason people think

we need

actually calcium is because a few

decades ago scientists

they raised the bar on how much calcium

we needed

that in turn was influenced by the dairy

industry

what they're really saying is we're not

drinking enough milk

because that's what the dairy industry

wants us to say

when in reality if you look at the

relationship between how much calcium

that people consume in different

societies

as it relates to let's say osteoporosis

the bone disease

the higher the calcium intake

the higher the risk of osteoporosis no

one wants to hear that

but that's what the data show

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what goes on inside an egg during

incubation

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well after a week

the eye shows up clearly in the embryo

as the first external organ to develop

gestation is much further advanced at 10

days

the chicks outline is more pronounced as

other organs begin to form

at 14 days you can see the shape of the

chick the contents of the egg provide

nourishment during the incubation period

most people can't imagine starting their

day without eggs it's the favorite

breakfast option around the world and

eggs make their way everywhere in breads

cakes candies dressings and even drinks

eggs have played an important role in

our foraging ancestors nutrition and

survival

overall eggs are regarded as a healthy

food rich in protein minerals and fats

but in today's world are eggs really a

good food choice

i was shocked to discover the mounting

amount of scientific evidence showing

that eggs and especially commercial eggs

might not be the healthy food that we

all once wanted to be

eggs are the most concentrated source of

dietary cholesterol

in

the

in the average person's diet

and dietary cholesterol can lead to an

increase in blood cholesterol levels

which is a leading risk factor for our

number one killer of men and women heart

disease eggs have a different have kind

of the same issue as as dairy in some

ways because commercial eggs

are from chickens that are commercially

raised so if you ever knew how they were

raised it's horrible you would never go

near it once so that's it's disgusting

but aside from the disgustingness of it

commercial chickens are fed antibiotics

to keep them bigger it makes them bigger

selfless born to be specific

they are

fed feed that's usually corn and soy

genetically modified so bt toxin corn

roundup ready corn roundup ready soy

so those are affecting again the

bacteria in the microbiome of the

chicken and then of you because you're

ingesting it it's bioaccumulative a

commercial chicken egg is mostly omega-6

it's not omega-3 so it's a horrible

polyunsaturated profile

and that's you know the least of the

problems because like i said you've got

the residue from glyphosate and bt toxin

and pesticides

the next nutrients on my list were

omega-3 fatty acids who hasn't heard

about fish oil capsules and their

supposedly great health benefits

there seems to be a lot of controversy

on this topic

i was curious to find out how much of

these fats we needed to stay healthy and

how would someone get them if they

didn't eat fish

a lot of these silly dietary fads become

an industry there's a lot of money to be

made making products that cater to them

and that sort of thing and i'm convinced

that's the omega-3 thing

okay so here's the deal there are two

essential fatty acids omega-3s and sixes

all the rest of them your body

synthesizes essential means must come

from food

all right so we find omega-3 fatty acids

in foods like seafood walnuts flax seeds

some soy all right and then we find

omega-6 fatty acids in land animals

chicken pork

beef and polyunsaturated vegetable oils

all right so you can see what our

problem is we eat a lot of omega-6 fatty

acids and in fact the ratio of omega-3

to omega-6 fatty acids used to be

between 1 to 1 and one to four

you know what it is today between 1 to

25 and 1 to 30.

so this has led a lot of people to say

my gosh this is so out of whack omega 6

is up here omega 3 is down here maybe

what we ought to do is take omega-3

fatty acid pills fish oil pills and

encourage fish eating to get that

omega-3 back up to that ratio that we

have been accustomed to as a population

okay it does there's no evidence that it

works in fact a large meta-analysis that

looked at 89 studies showed that it

didn't make any difference in health

outcomes but besides that wouldn't it be

better to lower the omega-6 fatty acid

in the diet

stop eating all those land animals stop

consuming all that plant oil

and the ratio goes back to normal

so let's not supplement with omega-3

let's ratchet down omega-6 and we end up

where we need to be there's no money in

the decreasing omega-6 there's a lot of

money in selling people omega-3 pills

and getting them to eat fish in fact

when you take a supplements omega-3s

we've got some really good evidence now

summarizing a lot of studies

the higher the use of omega-3s the

higher is the risk for type 2 diabetes

and even there's evidence that cancer

goes up too it does exactly the opposite

what people think it does

it's disgusting it's one of those those

ridiculous things early on there was

data suggesting that it might be

beneficial but now

the preponderance of evidence is that

fish oil is useless so there's this

billion dollar industry that's basically

selling people fish oil as snake oil

for many guys eating a diet rich in meat

is seen as a reflection of their manhood

and associated with being strong and

manly i felt the same way for most of my

life

so i was really surprised to come across

studies that showed that such a diet

might actually have the contrary effect

in the long run

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here they are eating a meat that's going

to make a macho right

has the opposite effect

that's not being very much to have

erectile dysfunction it's all about

blood flow they even say it in the cyan

cialis and viagra commercials so if your

arteries are clogged with cheese and

dairy and meat and bacon and all this

what's the main vein

come on it's simple science man it's

unquestionable that that men think that

they have to eat a lot of protein and

that eating a plant-based diet may not

be really masculine but i'll tell you

what's really not masculine is erectile

dysfunction

if you want to be virile if you want to

have a great masculine life eat a

plant-based diet

there is a great deal of evidence that

erectile dysfunction

is caused by diet in many instances and

the reason is that if you have coronary

artery disease in one area of the body

you have it everywhere so those very

tiny blood vessels that lead to the

penis are some of the first to get

affected and so erectile dysfunction has

been referred to as the canary and the

coal mine

it's the sign that something is terribly

wrong and you need to fix it and at that

stage it's much more fixable than if

you've already had the heart attack or

the stroke or something really serious

happen

obesity is linked to more than 60

chronic diseases and it is common

knowledge that there is an epidemic of

obesity around the world today two

thirds of adults and nearly one third of

children in america struggle with it

it seems like in the last 30 years human

wastelines have simply grown out of

proportion and if obesity rates stayed

consistent by 2030 51 of the american

population could potentially be obese

as far as dieting or losing weight

people take two approaches that

don't work for the long term and so of

course they say diets don't work one

approach is they try and starve

themselves and be hungry all the time

these are portion control diets typical

diets that people have followed they

don't work because you're hungry all the

time you can't tolerate that kind of

pain

the alternative is the make yourself

sick diets and those are the high

protein

high fat

low carbohydrate diets

over the last few decades there has been

an explosion of commercial diets in the

u.s

most of them revolving around the idea

that eating few carbs and lots of animal

protein helps with weight loss

all orchestrated by multi-million dollar

ingenious advertising campaigns and

celebrity endorsements

as a result nowadays most people

associate carbs with weight gain

for many years i worked really hard to

cut my carbs

without any long-term results and

without fully understanding why i was

doing it

i wanted to find out what the latest

science had to say about these low-carb

diets

rob atkins some years ago in 1973

published his first book

in which he argued that it's not the

problem with the fat

it's not the problem with the protein

but mostly fat he said that's not the

problem the problem is we consume too

much carbohydrate and he made that point

we should be consuming low carb diet he

said and then many other people wrote

the same thing

the south beach diet is only a copycat

for the most part of the atkins diet the

zone diet is basically a copycat

different name the blood type diet in

many regards is also a copycat good

calories bad calories gary talbot same

thing even michael pollan i have to say

you know omnivore's dilemma and the

paleo diet in this day and time is a

copycat

they may give it different names they

may try to throw out you know different

kinds of arguments for why that's right

they're all wrong everybody wants to

hear good news about their bad habits so

when you tell people you can eat all the

lobster you want you can have steak and

eggs and you know some include dairy

some don't include dairy but but that

sounds good to people because it sounds

less restrictive this is written by

people i should tell you who don't have

experience in this field of nutrition

research period

most of them have never even published a

single paper into scientific leadership

some of the people who are talking about

low-carb diets are a little better than

news reporters and that's not to

take anything away from their skill in

investigating things but they cannot

don't have the skills to evaluate

scientific information

low-carb diets they make you sick

and as a result your whole body gets

sick with artery disease and kidney

damage liver damage and so on they

increase mortality that's been shown

over and over again in major studies but

they also make you sick in a way that

you lose your appetite the dieter goes

oh i finally found it and then you go

into ketosis you lost your appetite

as a result you're able to sustain

yourself without thinking about food all

the time because you're sick these diets

are dangerous

and people should not be on them well

you know the biggest lies in the world

are the ones that have a little truth

we all know that it's a very it's a

great tactic

it's true i happen to agree that we

should cut down on simple carbohydrates

you see that's out of context of the

whole

you know sugar white flour

that makes sense

so in that sense there's a little truth

but they don't always point that out

they just say low carb low carb low carb

listen forget about what you like and

dislike

think about what your objective is

all right let's let's just acknowledge

we all like eating junk food if you put

chocolate in front of me today i'll have

some right but but that doesn't lead to

health

i personally knew several people who

experienced amazing healing and health

benefits after adopting some kind of a

plant-based diet

including myself but at the same time i

had also met others who were still

experiencing health issues or were

struggling with their weight after

adopting this lifestyle

some for many years

so it made me wonder was there a flaw in

this diet

first vegetarian that i knew well

about 40 years ago

was actually a vegan he was a very

strict vegetarian he lived on

coca-cola and potato chips he was fat

greasy and unhealthy so being a

vegetarian means really nothing to me

ninety percent of the vegetarians are

still consuming dairy 90

and they also consume sometimes some

fish and sometimes some chicken and eggs

and so forth the neutral composition of

the vegetarian diet is not very

different

from the non-vegetarian

so as a result if you compare the health

of vegetarians with non-veg you can't

expect to see very much when somebody's

decided they're going to be vegan in

other words need eat no animal foods

they've made a declaration

as to their physical and mental strength

and their interest and their willingness

to work hard

after all if you become vegan

you have to stand up to your

mother-in-law

and your doctor your dietitian you have

to quote risk protein and calcium

deficiency even though that's not true

but the problem is is that too many

vegans they don't look good they're

overweight they're unhealthy looking i

don't really like to use the words vegan

and vegetarian because

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it's not describing the kind of science

i'm talking about i would call myself a

fat vegan when i first started out

that's exactly what i was and i was

trying to tell everyone how great this

lifestyle is and it saved me it reversed

my heart disease but yet i was still

walking around about 75 pounds to 100

pounds overweight

now why is somebody a fat vegan

not because

uh they give up the animal foods that's

a good thing you need to give up the

animal foods but what they haven't given

up is the oil

the olive oil the other vegetables the

fat you eat

is the fat you wear whether it comes

from a plant or an animal so

i made the change i removed the foods in

my diet that were empty calories the

oils the fats the sugars

the processed foods the food additives

that kept me coming back for more those

companies add those things purposely to

get us to not eat just one potato chip

we need the whole bag there's millions

of overweight people in this country and

they're all struggling trying this diet

or that diet and they try this diet for

a week or that diet for a week and

they're spending a lot of money on all

these different diet programs and pills

and supplements and adding things to

their diet to lose weight or to get

healthy and that's where we need to

realize that a whole foods plant-based

diet is free there's no shakes there's

no bars there's no powders there's no

counting calories we eat until we're

full and satisfied and stop and that's

it

as much as i like the idea of eating

exclusively a plant-based diet

especially since it had worked for me i

wanted this film to be very accurate

with the latest science on food

so i wondered if realistically from a

scientific perspective could every

person in this day and age eat a

plant-based diet 100 percent of the time

i can't say and i don't think science

can say that everybody has to be 100

you know all the time i can argue the

case i think for the vast majority of

people we ought to be at least

90 probably 95 we've got good signs for

that

and in many cases if people already have

a disease

it's a good idea they should be 100 all

the time so that's my scientific

argument i have another practical

argument though on this question

concerning how far do you go and that is

that

if we're going to adopt this dietary

lifestyle

it's really important that we become

accustomed to it and we should go

probably 100 if we can

and stay there and don't tease ourselves

with the other things

because what happens we never become

accustomed to this where our taste

preferences change

if you do it right there are no health

issues in fact the side effects are

you're going to lose weight you're going

to look better you're going to have more

energy you're going to avoid most of the

common degenerative conditions most of

the time you're going to have a longer

life and a healthier and a better life

you know that's about what happens when

you do this so there isn't a downside

we often hear that the key to good

health is moderation

and it makes sense

but why then does it not seem to work

for most people

[Music]

you know for some people that's a really

easy thing to do but unfortunately for

most

finding moderation

is like finding a needle in a haystack

and because others can do it they feel

lost and they feel like an absolute

failure because they can't

and the truth be told most people can't

find moderation so they're actually in

the majority and not the minority

but this minority few

that are on television that have never

ever been fat never ever been sick have

genetics very much on their way they're

out there saying it's all about this and

all about that i mean how are they going

to relate to that poor person sitting at

home that's 350 pounds that feels like

their world is over

now i know what they feel like i was

310 pounds i was loaded up on medication

for eight years i understand i can

relate i won't tell anybody that

moderation is easy moderation's damn

hard

really hard

i still haven't mastered it i'm a work

in progress when it comes to moderation

but what i'm finding

is that

i'm away from an extreme now

of 93 of my energy coming from this

processed and fun part of town animal

part i've now got this moderation up

i've now moved it up and it's working

so how are people supposed to get all

this information

since every day we're bombarded with tv

ads infomercials news talking about the

new food trends

how can we know who is telling the truth

and has honest non-biased science behind

their products

the media always approaches things with

the idea that if we're going to

interview somebody about diet we have to

let somebody with a different opinion

give their opinion all right so here's

what happens

somebody like colin campbell at cornell

university writes this book the china

study it has hundreds and hundreds and

hundreds of references

it represents decades of very meticulous

research work that he did right and so

they're going to interview him well then

they go find somebody who's promoting a

paleo diet or a low carb diet because we

have to have the contrary opinion that

person may have written a terrible book

that's a little more than a storybook

it's not referenced it has no

credibility but in the eyes of the

public now those two are equal

colin has an opinion and this other

person has an opinion so it confuses

people and it gains traction that way

we tend to look at the fast food

industry as the big villain responsible

for all the havoc surrounding food

choices

but these same companies that are

contributing to the problem may also

hold the key to the solution

it is a supply and demand issue

so if enough people begin demanding

healthy plant-based options

perhaps that could be a good approach

after all it is us the consumers who

should dictate what the market has to

offer and not the other way around

you can make better cleaner healthier

products by incorporating more

plant-based foods into your products and

not to shy away from that so i don't

take a negative approach like down with

these fast foods we need to

make them understand that they can still

make money and they can still have a

sustainable business

because there are people out there that

want this food we just have to make it

available to them

[Music]

most people rely on their doctors for

information about diet and nutrition

but several medical school programs show

that doctors get very little training on

nutrition

sometimes none at all

as i went to medical school and then i

went through residency and i started

after that working on my own as a

physician

after a while i became kind of a little

bit

frustrated with my inability to really

really help people because what i

thought was happening was that

i was just basically seeing patients

asked to see them very quickly and was

really left with limited options as far

as what i could do i really felt what i

needed to to do with the time that i had

what i was left to do was just basically

treat symptoms

instead of trying to get to the root

cause of the problem or the root cause

of their disease so it left me basically

practicing i think the kind of medicine

that the majority of people are

practicing in the u.s which is

pharmaceutical based medicine and and i

don't have a problem with medication i

think medications are wonderful

medications are great they're necessary

for a lot of people they are really the

only option and for many people they're

a good option

but i think what we're missing is that

there's something else that's out there

i was outsourcing my health to somebody

else i was coming along saying here's

some money

you fix me i'm busy over here

and when you're gonna come up with a

drug that's gonna like cure me

by using more chemicals to correct the

imbalance we're actually causing the

imbalances to be even stronger i found

that

people who've been on medications for a

long time are developing a lot of side

effects from those medications where

then are causing other organs in their

bodies to become diseased

their functioning is weakening their all

overall health is weakening their immune

system is getting deficient

you really need to infuse that with

something that's going to help rebuild

it

so if somebody comes along and says you

know doctor

i can take this patient and by doing

these these simple things you know

changing their diet getting them to eat

a little bit differently more

plant-based getting them to exercise a

little more do you realize that i could

make this diabetes essentially if you

were to test them again virtually go

away and a lot of doctors in this

country some may be familiar with the id

but a lot of them even to this day would

still say

no you know i don't think that would be

possible the cause of most of our

diseases and the cure

is within anybody's reach who gets the

knowledge the problem is is they have to

make some change that's a small problem

the real problem is there's no money in

doing the right thing

there's money in selling you statins and

blood pressure pills and powerful

arthritis drugs and laxatives and

assets that's where the money is so

that's where the education goes we have

to shift the dollars

from expensive procedures

and shift it more towards

education teaching people showing them

about their disease and and and why it's

there and teaching them the things that

they can do day in and day out that

would positively impact that disease and

possibly even get it certainly improved

and maybe even reversed in some cases

you can expect

artery disease to stabilize and reverse

and the symptoms to go away you can

expect the type 2 diabetes if it's

really type 2 diabetes to be cured 100

percent of the time with diet chains

associated weight loss you can expect

the arthritis to improve and go away and

be cured many times with their

inflammatory arthritis the bowel

problems all the way from indigestion to

constipation to colitis you can expect a

cure when you

direct your attention to the cause of

the problem and you fix it

[Music]

on the supplement aisle is where things

get really crazy it seems like every

product can improve our health in one

way or another some support each of our

different organs others give us energy

stimulate our immune system prevent

colds reduce appetite or promote weight

loss

it makes me really confused

if they're all so good for us

should we even have to worry about

eating healthy

too tired too often

try ributal if you too need extra

amounts of thiamin and riboflavin

ributal can help you gain new strength

new energy let just one person among

thousands of users tell you about

amazing benefits gain from ributal

there's some products out there that

could be beneficial to our health and

there's nothing wrong with them but but

i think the problem comes when people

overdo or overuse that one product and

look at it as as the you know the silver

bullet the thing that's going to cure

all my ills when people go to that

extreme i don't think there's a product

out there like that

i discourage supplements most of the

time for most people

and and part of the problem with

supplements is that supplements drugs

procedures

they all have application for specific

populations so the whole pitch if you

will is based on the idea

that you can't get enough nutrients from

food you don't eat the right diet so you

can somehow make up for it by taking

these dietary supplements so it's become

a 40 billion dollar industry the sales

pitch has worked people are doing it

they're buying this stuff and the people

who sell it they're hanging on for dear

life and they're not about to give in to

the scientific truth

but the reality is that all of the

nutrients that you need are in food

and they're in food in very specific and

complex

combinations that we don't really even

understand all of yet and so when you

extract a single nutrient and purify it

and put it in a pill

you're overloading your system with

something that it's never seen before

and is really not adapted to deal with

much better to eat smaller amounts of it

in the food and again i'll grant that

there are exceptions and in my office i

recommend supplements sometimes but but

not to the general population

and that's the problem in medicine too

we want to take everything and sell it

to everybody because that's how you make

money a lot of people have done a lot of

disservice

to many many people trying to offer a

magic pill or a magic this or a solution

in five days that is going to change

your life

and the simple reality is is that you

can't do

20 years of damage

by ignoring mother nature's best the

fruits the vegetables the nuts the beans

the seeds

you can't

spend 20 years

saying no to that and then expect

people in white coats to come up with

something that's going to solve that

in five days

so what we have to do is we have to see

the error of our ways

which was turning our back on mother

nature

and we have to turn towards her for a

solution

vitamin supplements for example we've

got a lot of data that when you take

them out out of context like that use

them that way in the short run yeah they

look sort of interesting maybe they're

looking they're looking good for a

little while especially people who may

be really low on them

but in the long run no you know they

don't work

and yet we're spending 32 billion

dollars a year on nutritious supplements

the most important supplement for those

eating plant-based diets

is

a vitamin b12 a regular reliable source

of vitamin b12 doesn't have to be

supplements but they're b12 fortified

foods but it's

very important it's critical for

everyone eating a plant-based diet to

get a regular reliable source of vitamin

b12 there's only two vitamins not

created by plants one is vitamin d

created by animals such as yourself when

you walk out into the sun

um and the other is vitamin b12 not made

by plants not made by animals either

maybe little microbes that blanket the

earth so you know might have gotten

enough from

drinking out of a mountain stream or

well water but now we chlorinate the

water supply to kill off any bacteria so

we don't get a lot of

you know b12 in our water anymore don't

get a lot of cholera either that's a

good thing

um above the cost for the way we live in

our you know sanitized modern world got

to get between somewhere our fellow

great apes get it from you know bugs

dirt and feces but i prefer a more

sanitary rod which is a one 2500

microgram supplement once a week costs

less than five bucks a year

or

vitamin b12 fortified foods every day

we spend more money on healthcare than

any other country in the world

yet we have some of the highest rates of

chronic disease on the planet

fortunately it seems that some health

insurance providers including medicare

are beginning to embrace the concept of

disease prevention through diet

instead of spending millions of dollars

trying to simply manage the problem when

it might already be too late

so medicare now accepts for

reimbursement both the dean ornish

program for reversing heart disease as

well as the pritikin program

and this is out of a recognition that

it's not only safer it's not only

cheaper but actually more effective

kind of the traditional approach which

is

very costly surgery in a lifetime of

drugs and so

i mean this is this is great from the

whole i mean most important thing is

reducing suffering and saving lives but

from a kind of a fiscal responsibility

these are i mean

it's so much cheaper it's so much more

cost effective

that and who's fitting the bill well if

it's medicare it's taxpayers so they're

saving money by making people healthier

for most people it is hard to imagine

that anybody could perform well as an

athlete without consuming any animal

products

not to mention being a world class

athlete or even a world champion

i am a professional triathlete

specializing in the ironman distance

i'm also the ultraman world champion i

have been racing triathlon

professionally for 10 years i've

finished 66 ironman races

and

i love to

train and race

all the time

i'm an ultra endurance athlete most

people have heard of an iron man

if you haven't an iron man is a very

long triathlon during which over the

course of a one day period you swim 2.4

miles you ride your bike 112 miles and

then you run a marathon well ultraman is

essentially double that distance and in

2009 i was the fastest american and

sixth place overall in this race

i do believe that last season on a

plant-based diet was my strongest that

i've ever been i did a couple of iron

man races that were amongst the top five

best performances in my career

and i was able to win the ultraman world

championships what you're also seeing

are athletes like mma fighters they're

realizing performance gains they're

recovering more quickly in between their

workouts you see nba players nfl players

nhl players olympic athletes all kinds

of athletes who are starting to

experiment and explore this way of

eating and getting good results

[Music]

i've been doing this for over eight

years right now i've never had a problem

building lean muscle mass i continue to

get stronger fitter and faster

and it's fine for me now the proof is in

the pudding i know that

i am like stronger than i've ever been

without animal products and so

i proved it really like to myself and

i'm hopefully proved to other people

that

it can be done

[Music]

i'm a

neurofibromatosis patient i'm an

ambassador for

a couple organizations that do

philanthropic work for sick children

i'm an mpnst cancer survivor

npnst

is a rare sarcoma

it's one of the most aggressive and fast

infiltrating cancers that there is on

the planet

i've had over

325 tumors removed from my body

i've lived a very very rigorous

and painful last three and a half years

battling for my life

and um

i had a decision to make

i'm either going to let this take me

or i'm going to fight

like giving up wasn't an option i don't

know what's going to happen

but i'm not going to die sitting down or

laying down i'm gonna keep my hands up

my head tug and i'm not gonna stop

swinging until it's over

and without a plant-based diet i would

not be here today

it kind of

kept my cancer at bay and it's allowing

me to thrive in ways i didn't know was

possible the insane mindset that

animal protein is the key

to being very healthy you know almost

killed me

i'm not saying plant-based diets

cure or they're the end-all be-all but

what i am saying is that

if you're going through some type of

health crisis

your odds are very very much greater

when you embrace a plant-based lifestyle

those are just the facts

and my life is the living proof

[Music]

in 2006 i attempted suicide whilst i was

on 250 milligrams of zoloft

for what the doctors diagnosed as major

depressive disorder

and i was told that i'd be most likely

on it for the rest of my life a week

after that i went into a personal

development course

and changed my beliefs from there i

started to look at what i was putting

into my body

and i started to look at

nutrition and nutritional healing and

what i could do and

it led me to

going within and back to nature i

stripped away all of the processed food

i went back to

just eating raw fruits and vegetables

and juicing and green smoothies

and

i started to have a sense of a natural

natural happy hive started to come into

my body and i was

feeling

better than i'd felt in many years

the

symptoms of depression started to drop

away the heavy sluggish tired feelings

that i couldn't cope

the chronic fatigue

the aches you know everything started to

shift and i started to to feel

that my cells were transforming on some

level

i'd made the decision that i i didn't

want to put

ever again the fear death and suffering

of of another life and eating eating

animals into my body

and that

translated to a shift for me i cured my

own depression

and i've never looked back

[Music]

eating tasty food is one of the biggest

pleasures in life

so many people might argue that even

though eating an unhealthy diet is not

good for them they don't want to

jeopardize the fun aspect of it and

therefore they continue eating unhealthy

things

but one thing that i came to discover is

that when you transition into a

healthier eating lifestyle you do not

have to compromise on taste

yes you will go through a transition

period but once your taste buds and your

body's chemistry begins to change you

will start to crave and really enjoy

these foods

it is important to find food you like

and once you realize that almost every

dish can be made plant-based you will

see that is not that hard at all

there's such a stigma with the word

vegan i guess that people just get

automatically turned off and just assume

that it's gonna suck but it's like it

doesn't it's if anything to me and like

that's another big thing why i do it

because it's better to me i think food

just is way better this way i would say

just try it you know you'll surprise

yourself

when you're becoming vegetarian and

you're giving up the meat and the dairy

and the eggs the only thing you know for

food you think you're going to starve to

death you have to understand that

marinara sauce and pasta and lasagna and

bean burritos and oatmeal and hash brown

potatoes and so on things you love

that's where you get your calories and

your protein your vitamins your minerals

there are so many beautiful wonderful

amazing delicious plant-based foods out

there

in fact when i started to do this a

whole world opened up to me and when you

begin to eat these nutrient-dense foods

that are actually fueling you that are

actually nourishing you with all these

amazing phytonutrients and

micronutrients and you start to feel

good your cravings change and your taste

buds change

you know that that cheeseburger that you

couldn't get out of your mind suddenly

you're not thinking about that anymore

and you're actually craving that kale

smoothie and that's something that

happened to me that i would have never

thought would have happened people think

that vegan food just tastes like crap

and that's not true i think people think

that being vegan might potentially be

strange

that people are weird that you have to

be a hippie or you have to embrace

wearing hemp clothes or something you

want to have a burger you can have a

burger you want to have spaghetti and

meatballs you can have spaghetti and

wheat balls you want to have fries you

want to have chocolate mousse you want

to have pumpkin pie you want to have

stuffing you want to have you know even

hot dogs so when you're looking at

the idea of taking the leap

into this way of eating and living don't

look at what you're going to be not

eating

embrace and be excited about the

adventure of all these new foods that

you're going to be bringing into your

life

eating healthy will not do you much good

if you can't afford it or if it leaves a

big hole in your pocket

so my next question was

is it possible to eat healthy on a tight

budget

a common misconception is that a whole

foods plant-based diet is very expensive

i

routinely post pictures of my grocery

receipt and i take my whole bounty that

i bought at the produce market and put

it out on the table so people can see

how much i end up with and they're

shocked

whole grains that we buy in bulk are

very inexpensive you're going to cut

your grocery bills in half from a

typical standard american diet in the

beginning it might seem like a lot of

effort but in the long run you're saving

all this money for all the new clothes

you're gonna have to buy

for the new slim you that is produced

from eating this whole foods plant-based

diet it's easy to go into those markets

and say there's no way that i can do

this but the truth of the matter is that

it doesn't have to be expensive it

doesn't have to be inconvenient it

doesn't have to be difficult it doesn't

have to be time consuming and my

experience is that it has actually

simplified my life and it's been cheaper

than eating the other way around

at this point of my journey i already

had seen enough evidence about the

benefits and safety of a plant-based

diet for adults but was this lifestyle

also ideal and safe for children

not only can children grow healthy on a

plant-based diet they'll grow healthiest

on a plant-based diet we have an

epidemic of childhood obesity

and

children raised plant-based

actually grow taller by about an inch

they grow about an inch taller than

medium compact and most importantly they

grow less in a horizontal direction

right they don't have the um the same

problems with childhood obesity so dr

benjamin spock the most esteemed

pediatrician of all time wrote one of

the best-selling books in human history

recommended in his final edition of the

seventh edition of his book before he

died in his 90s

that all children should be raised with

zero exposure to meat and dairy and he

did this because he saw what you know

the older generations were dying from

and wanted to get them off on a good

start i mean the leading killers

of our children

will eventually be

same thing heart disease cancer stroke

copd diabetes hypertension these are

diseases that can be prevented many

cases arrested or even reversed with a

healthy enough plant-based dye

as a new father i wondered how could i

get my daughter to eat healthy since

getting her to eat anything at all can

sometimes be a problem

there's so much junk being marketed to

kids out there and it is often difficult

for parents to transition their children

to healthier food options

i would not be surprised at all

that if in 15 20

25 years time

people will

look back at the last 10

to 20 years and they'll say

how

did those people give that food to their

children

[Music]

big question that we get all the time is

how can i get my kids to eat better i

think every parent wants their kids to

eat healthy and it's it's difficult

especially when everywhere you look

there's a fast food restaurant or a

processed food snack that is being

marketed towards children and the first

thing i always say is you have to lead

by example as a parent you can't be

eating lousy foods and expect your

children to eat healthy because you tell

them to

so you have to walk your walk that's

number one the second thing is i

encourage all parents to

make

the preparation of meals and the

shopping of food inclusive with their

children the more you can bring your

kids into the fold

the more they're going to develop an

emotional attachment to where their food

comes from how it's prepared and the

impact that it's having on their health

really get inside their heads and sort

of think how they would think

telling them what is good what is bad it

won't probably work you have to

interact with them you have to show them

what's possible

get your hands dirty get the kids to

help you and let them own what they're

doing

if you always put something in front of

them in a silver platter and let them

consume that information you know it'll

only work for so long what you got to do

is you got to get them involved

let them have the responsibility

the way i approach it is that i try to

make as fun as possible use colors use

flavors

teach a little thing that they never

knew about use

gadgets that

normal people won't see but i want them

to go away with the feeling of

accomplishment

and something that they're eager to

share to their friends hopefully their

parents i think that's the best part

it's like holding a bird you don't want

to hold it too tight you're going to

hurt the bird you don't want to hold it

too loosely it's going to fly away

that's something that each individual

parent has a specific knowledge of their

kid i get the questions all the time

what do i do how do i start how do i

tell my kids oh they're going to be so

disappointed that they're not having

meat on their plates that they're not

having dairy try a vegan burger it's

basically the same thing you just leave

the meat out that's great for kids

because while you're going to put that

burger on that bun you're going to put

all the fixings on that whatever your

kids like and make it exactly the same

that's a great way to get started i mean

i think with the younger generation

what's so exciting is is that they get

to start young

i mean

i'm not going to have any regrets but it

sort of bums me out a little bit that

i'm just now discovering this in my 30s

because i wish i would have done this

when i was younger because

just the thoughts of like the energy

that i would have had in college i think

the other thing

is to not have

hard and fast rules with your children

you can't eat that and you know you have

to eat this and instead respect them as

independent sentient beings

who have uh you know the wherewithal to

make conscious decisions for themselves

so at our home we serve plant-based

foods all the time we don't have any

animal products here but when my 10 year

old daughter goes to a birthday party

she's surrounded by

you know chicken mcnuggets and birthday

cake and all of that

and we don't say to her you can't eat

those foods we say have a great time at

the birthday party and make the right

choice for you and that doesn't mean

that she always makes the right choice

that way you are empowering them this is

a lifetime we're talking about this is a

long road ahead so it's about getting

your children to think consciously about

their own choices so that when they

reach the age of maturity they are

informed and educated and prepared to be

responsible stewards of the planet and

responsible stewards of their own bodies

i could not make a film about food

choices and not explore the topic of

organic versus non-organic it seems that

everybody is obsessed with those words

and is becoming increasingly averse to

foods that don't carry an organic label

others fear that consuming more

plant-based foods might be damaging to

their health due to the increase of

pesticides in those foods

but should this really be our biggest

concern

fear of pesticides should never keep

anyone from maximizing their fruit and

vegetable intake

there's

you know so there's been like kind of

computer modeling studies that suggest

that so for example if half of americans

ate a single more serving of fruits and

vegetables a day we'd prevent 20 000

cancer deaths every year just half of

people did one more survey 20 000 people

would not have died from cancer would

normally have died if they hadn't done

that so that's how powerful fruits and

vegetables are but because these were

conventional

pesticide-laden fruits and vegetables

they estimated that it would that the

extra pesticide burden from all those

extra investments would cause 10 extra

cancer deaths so when all it would only

prevent 19 990 cancer deaths and that's

that's what we're looking at you get

this tremendous benefit and then a tiny

bump in risk so okay great choose

organic whenever you can why accept any

risk why not get all benefit sure but we

should never let concerned about

pesticides in any way dissuade us from

stuffing our face with as many healthy

fruits and vegetables as possible if

you're eating meat

and you're eating commercial meat and

you're worried about switching to

plant-based diet and worried about the

pesticides and the produce you're being

ridiculous because you're getting a

fraction of the pesticides by eating the

vegetable

that you can mostly wash it off remember

you can wash you can soak your

vegetables and use a wash to get

pesticide residue off you cannot wash

the pesticide off of the hamburger meat

you're about to prepare i encourage

people just to go ahead and buy whatever

produce they can afford whatever produce

looks the freshest that week in the

grocery store and whatever's on sale so

that's where they're going to save money

is not worrying about

i have to buy organic bell peppers and

they cost me four dollars each that's

not

a sustainable lifestyle

besides the health aspect related to our

food choices i also realized during the

production of this film that there was

another very important factor that is

often overlooked

ignored or misunderstood

the connection between food choices and

the environment

i was really shocked after reading the

united nations report on global warming

after all it is hard to grasp the idea

that the burger or steak on our plates

might be contributing to things such as

global warming water scarcity

species extinction the destruction of

the amazon forest the depletion of our

oceans and even world hunger i had a

hard time understanding it at first but

once i began digging a little deeper the

connection became clear

now at seven billion people what we eat

determines how the whole planet is used

and what's happening now is that as we

run out of land to grow these animals

and the food for the animals

we burn down rainforests to acquire more

land and the number one cause of all of

that is our food choices

it's expected to have a 40 shortage in

fresh water

supplies by the year 2030. we have again

irreversible loss of biodiversity

ecosystems and extinction of species

faster than we've ever seen before for

the past 65 million years we have a

world hunger issue with a little less

than a billion people on earth suffering

from hunger with about

350 children dying from hunger each hour

you might be asking yourself how is all

that possible

and i had the same questions because in

fact many of these issues are not only

related to our food choices

many are very complex problems with

several social political economic and

cultural variables

but here are some intriguing facts

70 of our arable land is used to grow

crops for animals and not humans

it takes on average twenty four hundred

gallons of water and twelve pounds of

grain to make one pound of

beef five million acres of rainforest

are destroyed every year so companies

can graze animals

and grow food for these animals

the excrements of 80 billion land

animals killed every year for food are

not treated and go back into our water

basins and our oceans

creating a lot of pollution

and these are just a few examples

so when you consider these facts

it all begins to fall into place

we need to focus more and understand

more what the footprint is the complete

life cycle analysis ecological

environmental depleting footprint is of

that item versus just how close it is to

you or whether it's even organic or not

it's much less of a footprint to eat

something that was grown 1500 miles away

if it was plant-based than it is to eat

a food item that was slaughtered that

was an animal product by your next door

neighbor our largest footprint is

across all sectors our food choice

specifically as it relates to eating

animals

no matter how green or eco-friendly we

try to be the truth is that by nature we

are a very destructive species

almost everything we do has a negative

impact on the environment

so many people often try to minimize

their footprint by doing things like

switching to more effective light bulbs

taking short showers

bicycling to work

using solar energy or even buying an

electric car

and those are all great things

but the question is are these actions in

fact the easiest and most effective when

it comes to helping protect our planet

and its resources

you look at the four major problems

we've got overpopulation and we're

adding about a million people every four

days net then you get to the way we live

and the way we consume stuff all that

stuff is coming from finite resources

which we are steadily depleting so those

first two factors the overpopulation and

the way we live

are driving the third one which is our

dependence on fossil fuels

look at the numbers since 1950

the line for consumption of fossil fuels

have gone steadily up every year and

there's no end in sight the fourth

big driver of all these environmental

issues

particularly global warming

is the way we eat is our consumption of

the meat dairy eggs and fish and that

keeps going up it requires per calorie

over 10 times as much land

10 times as much water and 10 times as

much energy

and it ranges but the average is well

over 10 times and that's a big number

now the good news is

we can change what we eat any individual

overnight

people say wow what would happen if

everybody changed it once well that's

not gonna happen the bad news is those

first three items

overpopulation over consumption and

dependence on fossil fuels

each one of those will take decades if

not centuries

to fix

with more and more people embracing the

idea of reducing their intake of animal

products or adopting some kind of a

plant-based diet it seems that things

are moving in the right direction

but are they really

you know i hear people saying things are

getting better

you know we see people putting solar

panels up and more people are eating

plant-based and there's vegan

restaurants going in down the street

things are getting better well not

really and not even close

for every individual that's moving in

the direction of a plant-based diet

there's a hundred people moving in the

other direction we've got to double our

food production in the next 40 years to

feed the 9 billion that we'll have by

2050.

when it comes to global warming the

production of animals for food currently

contributes to about 14.5 percent of the

total global warming effect

a contribution larger than the entire

global transportation sector combined

livestock amounts to 53 of nitrous oxide

emissions

44 of methane gas and 5 of the total

carbon dioxide released in our

atmosphere

raising livestock and eating fish and

also producing dairy is one of the

largest contributing factors to climate

change and the public needs to know this

and policies need to be enacted to help

eliminate that it's one of the easiest

ways that we have to not just adapt to

but to mitigate climate change and it

can be done as easy as just changing out

what you have on your plate

organic grass-fed beef

seems to be the new trend

and the idea sounds really appealing

cows that live off grass don't take any

antibiotics and therefore supposedly

provide a healthier food source for us

when compared to factory farmed animals

but is there a catch

it's a very large movement today and i

think that what's happening is that

there's been a shift because of more and

more people being concerned about the

humane raising of animals and moving

away from factory farms they're moving

toward grass-fed operations or

pasture-fed operations it's a complete

fabrication by the meat and dairy

industries to continue perpetuating the

slaughtering of animals because even

though some animal might be humane

raised they're still not humane killed

and all of the animals that are still

placed on your plate have to be

slaughtered in some manner and so

there's still a humane issue there but

from an environmental standpoint in many

aspects raising grass-fed beef is less

sustainable than

fed animals and the reason is because

it's so land intensive it may require

eight uh pounds of feed to produce one

pound of an animal product if it were

beef but in a grass-fed situation

sometimes it's ten times that much it

may be 70 80 times from a grass-fed to a

grain-fed beef additionally from a

climate change standpoint grass-fed

cattle produce 40 to 60 percent

more greenhouse gas emissions meaning

methane carbon dioxide land use changes

than a grain-fed cow wood

another thing often taken for granted is

the depletion of our oceans

we often think of fish as a never-ending

self-replenishing food source

but the truth seems to be quite

different

over ninety percent of all the big fish

in the oceans are already gone

eighty percent of commercial fisheries

are over exploited or depleted the

fishing fleets are chasing the last of

the fish and have to travel further and

further away from the land and deeper

and deeper into the ocean to catch them

i've seen the legal fishing in

antarctica and that's as far away from

land as you can get

when someone sits down at a table to eat

fish or seafood on their plate

what they're really doing is they're

eating a target fish that's becoming

depleted and to the point of near

extinction but they're also eating

baggage comes with it and typically it

requires about five to twenty times

more other seafood as by kill and

bi-kill is the term that relates to all

those other sea life living in the ocean

that are killed in the process of trying

to get that target fish to your plate

whether it's with per scene type of

fishing method or a long line or bottom

trawling or middle trawling our oceans

are expected to be completely devoid

of all fish that we recognize

commercially today by the year 2048. the

oceans are dying

and nobody wants to know about it and if

the oceans die we die it's as simple as

that and if you start destroying them

you're basically killing off the crew

and the life support system is going to

collapse and there won't be any air to

breathe there won't be any food to eat

the climate will be out of control and

not a good thing but we have to like

humble ourselves and recognize that we

need these

this diversity we need these creatures

we need this interdependence and if we

don't see that then our chances of

survival are quite slim my big concern

is not that we're going to wipe

ourselves out of sheer ecological

stupidity but that we're going to take

so much with us

so much confusion and so much debate

that it it just boggles my mind that we

can't think like third graders and say

why not just address the number one

cause here

you know we got we got 10 holes in the

boat the boat's thinking which hole do

we go first go to the big hole fill that

big hole first

i mean so often we're looking at just

what we would like to eat because it

satisfies our taste preferences well

we're at a point in time in order to

save humanity essentially save our

species which is not an overstatement at

all

we need to

start looking outside itself and start

looking at how our choices are fully

affecting those around us those species

that we share this planet with and

especially future generations

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a couple years back i saw a documentary

called earthlings that exposed the

conditions in which farm animals are

slaughtered it made a big impact on me

i knew that animals got killed for food

but seeing how it actually happened and

seeing the suffering pain and terror

that these animals go through put things

into a new perspective for me i was

already eating mostly plant-based foods

at a time but after seeing those images

i decided i could not contribute to the

killing of innocent animals any longer

so i became a 100 plant eater i was not

in a position to judge anybody

after all i ate animals for over 30

years of my life

but i wanted to understand how come in

this day and age such a massive genocide

was allowed and how come us the general

population

government and corporations

allowed for this to happen

we love some animals and eat others

because we have been born into a

invisible belief system that conditions

us to compartmentalize when it comes to

animals it conditions us to think of

certain animals as edible and other

animals as inedible and the invisible

belief system that conditions us to eat

certain animals is what i call carnism

one way carnism remains invisible is by

remaining unnamed if we don't name it we

can't even think about it so we can't

question it when we don't see something

obviously it becomes much easier to

maintain this mythology that there is no

problem there is no atrocity

this is not just something to eat

this is fuel for love joy

work

action

this

is life

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you think they're just animal they have

intelligence they have language

signal they have love so when they're

about to face death in a death chamber

they fear and they sad and they anger

you know everybody talks about the

holocaust what about the holocaust we're

creating for the animals

every year we're killing billions and

billions of animals and you want peace

on earth

peace on earth is for all living

entities

not just humans

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people just got locked up in utah for

photographing a cafe a concentrated

animal feeding operation

these people are

keeping the people ignorant and sick to

make to make money and if the truth gets

out if people know where their food came

from or where their food how their food

was produced they wouldn't eat that

when you start to

threaten the dominant paradigm of the of

of society you're going to become

a force to be reckoned with and they'll

do everything they can to destroy you

and that's exactly what that's happening

now

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there are still people who will see that

and they'll be resistant i mean i was

one of those people you know i grew up

in texas eating beef all the time and

and i loved animals i always loved the

companion animals i grew up with and you

know i never really thought much i

thought i was eating healthy so i think

a lot of the resistance that people feel

is because we're so conditioned to eat

these things all the time we've been

conditioned from a very young age and

even if we make the intellectual

connection even if we say yes i'm eating

a cow we still don't make the emotional

connection because if we did we would

feel the empathy that would cause us to

feel disgusted rather than

appetized i couldn't pretend anymore

that that was that was eating that chunk

of chicken breast was the same as the

broccoli next to it it just didn't i

couldn't i couldn't fake it from to

myself anymore there's a reason why you

know slaughterhouses and feedlots are

not located in densely populated areas

it's not for lack of space it's because

people don't want us

to see it and then those animals go on a

long journey to the slaughterhouse at

night usually so we don't see a lot of

that and that's by design who's to say

which animals are to be tortured and

killed we've decided in america and our

part of the world cows and pigs and and

lambs are to be eaten but in some parts

of the world they eat dogs and cats in

some parts of the world they eat snakes

and monkeys yes it's true that people

have eaten animals for thousands of

years

but today for many people in the world

there is absolutely no need to eat

animals you know we are causing as human

beings

massive

suffering

to other sentient beings

suffering that is completely unnecessary

when eating animals is no longer a

necessity for survival then it becomes a

choice and choices always stem from

beliefs

there is a popular myth that perpetuates

the idea that fish don't feel any pain

that makes it easier for people to

consume it

since it seems to be more humane

but is it really true

fish have proper reception they have

feelings and so there are a number of

researchers that would tell you very

clearly that it's a very uncompassionate

way to eat you're slaughtering between

one and three trillion fish per year and

all of those fish have sensory reception

they all have feelings

the industries depend on keeping these

facts out of our consciousness so for

example we learn to resist taking in

information from those who may help us

begin to question carnism if you shoot

the messenger you don't have to take

seriously the implications of their

message so we need to educate our

children the true meaning of what these

animals really are by showing and by

awareness about

life of the pig or chicken is very much

same as life of cat and dog

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our time on this planet is very short

and change can sometimes be difficult

and slow

but by taking the right steps

we can point ourselves into a better

direction

as for myself this was the most exciting

journey i ever took

and i look forward to continue living a

healthy plant-based lifestyle with my

family

and to keep empowering others with this

information

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it's so important for us to take care of

ourselves for our own human health

standpoint but

it really won't matter how healthy we

are if our planet isn't healthy

do you know what's unique about us

we are the only species out of the

millions

that does not live in harmony with

nature

at least it's good to educate yourself

and be aware and then you can make the

decision from there because ultimately

it's your choice to make you know it's

not like hey if you you know

you're the worst person if you don't do

this no it's not like that but at least

educate yourself find out you know so at

least you just know and then you can

make the choices on your own

i don't believe there's an evil cabal of

doctors and and

government people i believe there's a

system in place and the world is so

asleep

and they've forgotten intuitively that

people just follow the system without

thinking without questioning and it's

because they're asleep it's not because

they're stupid it's not because they're

not motivated i mean it's really

insanity when you think about it that we

are sitting here

in the modern day and we've got to talk

about eating fruits and vegetables you

know you go back in any time in history

past say the last 100 200 years and it

was just like

everyone was doing it if you want to be

a responsible

steward

of our

precious planet and its dwindling

resources

eating a plant-based diet

really is the only solution and by

voting with your dollar and eating a

plant-based diet you are saying no to

animal agriculture and all the

devastation all the havoc that it's

wreaking on our planet

i think that

every human being

wants to do good

i think that every human being

in their core

wants to do what's right

and i think that if we look at it and we

say you know what what is it that i can

do

today

to make the environment better

to make my health better

and have compassion

for animals for our fellow creatures

what is it that i can do today

i can start on the path to a plant-based

diet

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so

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you