The crew of this documentary follow some claims that ALL animal based food is bad for your health. One doctor presented a study that says 20% casein will encourage cancer in rats while 5% casein will make it go back. Then it jumps to the conclusion that ALL and ANY animal based proteins are a source of all evils in human health.Nowhere in the entire movie they will show proof that you need to be at 0% animal protein.When they talk about the low cancer rates in Japan they just skip the information that they are fish and seafood eaters and they just go to a study made in China.This is a terrible vegan PR movie. I'm not against vegan-ism, nor against vegetarianism, I'm just saying they pretend knowing everything while they don't seem to be able to distinguish left from right.My own conclusions after seeing this film is that people need to dial down their animal based diets. Not really not eat that, just do it in moderation, not on a daily basis.

This is a controversial film but its message although superficially persuasive is neither new nor entirely convincing. Although viewed primarily from a US perspective, it is aimed at what might be called the Western diet in its entirety.Is eating red meat and/or processed food and/or sugar really killing us? Or too much of the stuff? Too much of anything will kill you, including too much water in a short period.Back in the 1980s we were being warned about the perils of too much saturated fat, and told we should engage in what is now called "healthy eating". Like most of us plebs I found this thesis persuasive, then I read "Eat Your Heart Out" by James Le Fanu. I went on not only to meet the author but to visit him at his South London home, charming guy, and extremely knowledgeable. In this book he points out that the ideas peddled by the healthy eating brigade are overly simplistic. You eat "too much" saturated fat, and it clogs up your arteries. Well no, the human body doesn't work quite like that.Although it is more than simply a rehash of this dogma, "Forks Over Knives" says more or less the same thing as those Dr Le Fanu shot down in his classic medical monograph. True, it does use a massive body of evidence, including from China, but is it really that simple? As Jacque Fresco pointed out, rabbits get cancer too.We hear one prominent dissenting voice, the high powered nutritionist Connie Diekman, who speaks in favour of animal protein. The most controversial claim made here is that dairy products cause rather than insure against osteoporosis. That and that the FDA is really a farmers' advocacy group. True, there is vested interest here, but as another contributor points out, vested interest comes in many forms.There is no mention of the decades long and ongoing Framingham study, probably because from the dogmatist's point of view its results have been disappointing. Towards the end we see an agenda, this film is as much a political document as a nutrition guide. We are warned of environmental desolation if we continue to eat meat. One contributor speaks of holding a deep respect for animals. Seriously? I have absolutely no "respect" for a bacon slice on my plate, and likewise absolutely no compunction about eating it. The US is slaughtering 10 billion "innocent" animals every year. Wow! And how many of those "innocent" animals would have been bred if we were all eating nothing but vegan burgers?There is though a very good point made about endothelial cells, and could the bottom line be that most people are simply eating too much? Eat a pound of steak and you may still have room for dessert. Eat a pound of lettuce, and you won't. The choice is yours – I've already made mine.Seriously though, the message of this film is worth digesting, but don't expect to live forever or even substantially longer by altering your diet, although it may seem like it. On a slightly metaphysical note, some of us will live for as long as we were intended to, and as long as we have work to do. If that were not the case, I would have been dead decades ago, fried chicken dinner or not.

A couple of years ago it was Food Inc made famous with its slogan "You are what you eat". And now we have "Forks over Knives" reviving the nutrition debate backed by a whole set of scientific data and logical analysis.I am not too overwhelmed by it, but somethings gotta give. I see some truth (and experiencing it too) in their premise although giving up it all might not work for most of us. But we can do it in moderation for starters. So what does the documentary talk about? In a nutshell it borders on years of scientific experiments, years of data collection, and the conclusion that an American physician Caldwell Esselstyn and professor of nutritional biochemistry T. Colin. Campbell have arrived on through years of painstaking research.Face it. Animal protein is not good for your health. The rising incidence of cancer can be directly associated to the growing intake of animal protein, should you choose to believe the documentary. Similarly the intake of egg is detrimental to your immune system and not good for your health. And if you are still surprised here's the killer. Milk, that we consider to be a source of calcium actually leads to bone erosion in your body. Stunned. The documentary points out that the intake of milk actually leads to rise in acidity in your body, and to counter that and maintain the pH balance, your body actually absorbs the calcium of your bones that would form the alkali to stabilize the acidity. This in turn makes your body more deficient of calcium and your bones weak. Aaah! so much for the calcium in that milk.Caldwell and Colin go on to prove that whole food plant based diet is the best source of the nutrients required by your body without any detrimental effect. In fact proteins and nutrients from a plant based diet have the capability to reconstruct your body cells, valves, arteries and make you a new person altogether. Try a rocket salad or a spinach salad for that calcium and feel the difference. If you don't believe that witness the cases of a Type II diabetes patient who was cured without any medicines and that whole food plant based nutritional diet alone.I am no scientist. But after watching the documentary and implementing the diet and cutting down my intake of milk and meat products, I do feel more energetic, responsive and healthy. The lethargy is gone. I can't say about the cholesterol, and blood sugar because they never troubled me before. However I intend to stay like that forever with this new found knowledge and diet plan.Indiekaleidoscope

Even if I was a vegetarian, I'd be dismayed by this film, which is a textbook example of propaganda -- think Leni Reifenstahl and "The Triumph of the Will" in Hitler's Germany. Such films have an agenda, and use cinematic techniques to promote that agenda, without balance or integrity or truthfulness. Truth plays a backseat to promoting the political agenda.Here the agenda is .... veganism. And not just general "it's good for you!" veganism nor even the "save the cute widdle animals" veganism -- this is a direct polemic stating that veganism -- and ONLY veganism -- will save your life, enable you to cure a whole range of diseases and live for a very long time, the whole while as a fit, buff triathelete or firefighter.The theories of Dr. Caldwell and Dr. Esselstyn are the most extreme of all eating regimes -- not even vegetarianism is remotely good enough here. This is the Pritikin or Ornish diets, on steroids. ZERO fats, zero meat, zero dairy products -- yup, folks, YOGURT will kill you. Milk, of course, will kill you -- even organic skim milk.What does this leave you to eat? Only vegetables, and more vegetables. Furthermore, they must be steamed or baked, as you cannot of course fry or stir fry, sauté or fricassee because remember -- ZERO fats. Yes, folks -- OLIVE OIL, now it's bad for you. Even Canola oil. No oils or fats whatsoever, in any form. SO this is a diet of steamed vegetables and only steamed vegetables, and nothing else.Needless to say, this very harsh diet is not too appealing to any normal person, nor is it a diet normally eaten by any human society on earth. It lacks a number of nutrients and vitamins, which must be taken by pill form (B-12 etc.). But of course, unpalatable as it is, it leads directly to weight loss -- and the weight loss to remission from obesity, Type II diabetes, coronary artery disease and cholesterol problems.I can almost accept that, though of course 99% of people cannot stick to a diet this horrible. You might as well say you can cure these things if you fast all the time, and live on water, but it does not translate that most folks can do that.But it goes off the rails when the filmmakers state you can CURE METASTATIC BREAST CANCER (and infer, all cancers) by eating vegan foods. Not prevent breast cancer -- not cure a primary tumor -- but cure breast cancer which had spread to the subjects spine, liver and bones. This is untrue, and a hateful, ugly promise to make to suffering cancer victims, which cannot possibly be true. Nor does the movie offer any PROOF, besides one elderly lady's anecdotal story (we do not even know for sure she ever had cancer, for starters) that this is so. Certainly any "proof" would involve thousands of patients with metastatic cancer over many years, and with double blind studies.It is shocking and horrifying that two physicians who call themselves "scientists" would promise such a thing. It proved to me, what I had been thinking silently through the rest of the film -- this is not science, this is RELIGION...the religion of veganism, which incorporates a hatred for all things pleasurable in the world (but especially food), a belief in eternal life (promised to you by eating vegan!) and the necessity to preach at and convert others. As such, it is frightening beyond any other type of diet hucksterism.NO matter what you eat, I assure you -- you are going to die sometime, and you will die of SOMETHING. No diet in the world can save you from metastatic cancer, and I am appalled beyond words at DOCTORS pushing a protocol on patients which involves REFUSING chemo and radiation (proven to help) and instead an unproven diet plan. (Note that cancer victims typically lose a lot of weight and have trouble eating; I can't imagine a worse thing that forcing them to eat tasteless vegan dishes and lose weight on purpose!)On top of this, the film is dry and full of statistics, along with simple-minded attacks on old filmstrips that show "the 7 basic food groups" or whatever, from like 1946. Also I noted that when the filmmaker himself is shown going on his diet, as well as other participants, they are very openly showing bags and boxes from the Whole Foods chain of stores (was it a paid advertisement?).In short, not recommended. This is religion, not science. It is a sad comment on society that we cannot discuss and debate issues about food and diet, without it becoming an attack on other people who eat differently than we do, or on other people's body types or habits.