Second of all… No, I don’t always think the government recommendations are exactly “up to par” and, yes, I think conflicts of interest may exist between pharmaceuticals and the government which is why I encourage others to take a more holistic approach to their health and choose whole, REAL foods most of the time. I’m not going to get into the statistics used in this documentary to scare people (such as, comparing eggs to cigarettes ::insert upside down smiley emoji here::) because other articles have already done a fabulous job of debunking those stats. Hit up Google for those.
Thirdly… Anytime in the history of diets ever that we have excluded entire food groups it realllyyyyy hasn’t gone very well for us. Allow me to refresh your memory… The low-fat diet. And now everyone wants to be Ketogenic and eat ALL THE FAT. The low-carb diet which resulted in Atkins which made everyone want steak and bacon all day long. Basically, all of these equate to us eating more of other shit we don’t need to eat more of (I disclaimered this wouldn’t be scientific so I can say, “shit”) or something that we would later say DID NOT WORK for the general population.
BALANCE GUYS. To insinuate that eating mass quans of sugar and carbs is all good as long as you don’t eat meat is frustrating to hear. So, we can eat biscuits and skittles everyday and in any quantity we want and it’ll be all good? C’mon, at least encourage healthful carbohydrate sources when you’re insinuating something like this. You know what a good carb source to eat more of is… VEGETABLES. What about taking an approach of encouraging people to eat more vegetables and the benefits of doing that rather than trying to create fear of meat?
To re-emphasize, I am not saying it’s wrong to be vegan or vegetarian and exclude meat. My philosophy is that there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to nutrition and I know vegans and vegetarians who do so healthfully. I know meat eaters who are healthy, too. There are SO MANY factors that contribute to health outcomes. A documentary supporting veganism is cool, but do so in a credible way. This documentary almost discredits vegans by being over the top.
All this being said, "What the Health?" has been successful in doing what it set out to do.. get people talking. The reason documentaries like these get so much attention is the same reason fad diets get attention. Everyone just wants to hear that there’s a quick fix. Stop eating meat and you’ll live forever (okay, I’m being dramatic, but this documentary is dramatic so we’re even). The thing is guys… there hasn’t ever and there isn’t ever going to be a “quick fix.” Eat whole, REAL foods MOST OF THE TIME. Live an active lifestyle. Take time to de-stress. Work on building a healthy, long-term relationship with food through mindfulness.
And most importantly… take information like this with a grain of salt (oooh… pun intended. I’m sorry, guys. Lame joke.). Do your own research. Don’t jump on all the bandwagons. And most importantly…
