Last night, I finally watched What The Health, a documentary focused mainly on the problems eating a vegan diet could solve from heart disease to global environmental issues.
It came highly recommended by many of my readers after I shared my thoughts on Fed Up, a documentary focusing on sugar in our packaged foods and the obesity epidemic in America. Both are currently on Netflix and I while I recommend Fed Up, I unfortunately cannot recommend WTH.
Why?
The short answer is that it was stressful to watch and made me feel like a bad mom unless I feed my child a vegan diet.
In all honesty, the information was not that new to me. Since I began this blog, I’ve learned more than I could ever hope about the food, health and fitness industry. Fed Up was not new news for the most part but what was eye opening was how many people still weren’t aware of basic health truths that I consider basic knowledge at this point. For that reason, it was really helpful and the principles are easy for anyone who watches to apply to their daily lives.
WTH focuses on eating a plant based diet. Based on my own knowledge prior to watching this movie, I’ve always said that if I ever were diagnosed with cancer, I would become a vegan. I do believe in the power of a plant based diet when it comes to overall health and wellness. However, literally you only live once hence #YOLO. This documentary made it feel like everyone who eats meat or dairy would die of cancer, heart disease and diabetes and as a parent feeding my child, I am literally poisoning them every time I serve cheese.
Tommy is a picky eater and I don’t have the time to cook delicious from scratch plant based meals that he will eat. I can’t imagine how hard it must be for people who don’t live in a major city with a Whole Foods in walking distance. This documentary came across as too extreme in my opinion and propaganda like.
Here are some of the more interesting points the movie talks about in my opinion:
- Processed meats are listed as a Group 1 carcinogen according to the World Health Organization along tobacco.
I looked on the WHO website and found the following:
- 70% of deaths are the result of diet and lifestyle.
- 1 in 3 people will have diabetes in 25 years. WTH says it’s caused by fat cells building up in the blood, not sugar. It’s not sugar that causes diabetes, it’s fat.
WTH suggested that the media’s focus on sugar has taken away our focus on processed meats and dairy and how they are contributing to diabetes and obesity.
I have to admit I was surprised to see that the doctors and nutritionists thought it wasn’t sugar but rather that meat leads to developing diabetes. The documentary then proceeds showing the American Diabetes Association website recommending recipes made with meat.
The World Health Organization lists processed meat, not chicken or fish but the documentary also talks about why those are bad as well as eggs.
Certain foods can’t be called “healthy” – like eggs according to the FDA. However, did you know that neither can a Kind bar due to the fat content? I feel confident that Kind bars are a healthy snack, especially the low sugar ones but legally they too cannot claim to be “healthy” like eggs.
One point that I do agree with the documentary is that we should be focus on fiber, not protein. You can get plenty of protein from plant sources. This is true but I’m not opposed to getting protein from animal sources.
There was also this silly segment that tried to suggest our diets should be based on our teeth. Apparently chimps eat 97% plants, the other 3% from insects. Our teeth are similar in being flat. Bears eat animals and have teeth with sharp canines so they can kill and chew I guess… I hate playing the game of what are we supposed to eat based on how we are biologically engineered because I believe the evolution of our diet has enabled us to thrive as a species.
One point that I agree with suggested that you may be able to reverse some diseases with a plant based diet
However, they feature one lady who went off all her meds after going vegan for just 14 days which I think is a bit of an unrealistic example.
I did not include a bunch stuff mentioned in the documentary above because it was stressful to watch, one sided and did not allow anyone to counter their arguments. My takeaway was that organic meat/dairy is not better, all meat is bad and if you want to be disease free, a vegan diet is the only answer.
The problem for me with this documentary is that there was no happy medium. To go from a meat eating cheese lover to a vegan is a drastic call to action. There are also plenty of studies to support the health benefits of certain fish and lean meat, none of which were reported in this documentary.
Here is Robb Wolf’s (Paleo Guy) reaction to the doc as well.
As a parent whose child loves chicken fingers and cheese, I felt hopeless and guilty. As a mom, I don’t need another reason to feel bad about my parenting skills and that’s exactly what this documentary did.
I think the director would have done a better job at discouraging the consumption of processed meats and grilled red meat with char on it.
If you believed everything you saw in a documentary you wouldn’t eat gluten, corn, anything with added sugar, and you’d be a vegan. It’s just not an enjoyable way to live unless you have allergies in my opinion and unrealistic to expect a parent to feed her a child a diet as such.
So for this reason, I wasn’t a huge fan of What The Health but I do plan to eat more plant based meals and do think I’ll eventually become a pescatarian but I’ll never label myself as such so that if I decide to have a buffalo wing during the Super Bowl it won’t be the end of the world.
I think Michael Pollan said it best, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
What were your thoughts on the show?
My Opinion on What The Health Documentary posted first on http://sarahfit.com
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