Forks Over Knives - 2011
Directed by: Lee Fulkerson
Produced by: John Corry and Written by: Lee Fulkerson
Starring: Caldwell Esselstyn Jr.and T. Colin Campbell
http://www.forksoverknives.com/
At some point you just have to start writing and hope that something passable comes out. Ugh, Forks Over Knives. A documentary I watched over a month ago, and have yet to write a review for because I just didn't want to!
It's not for lack of trying I assure you, I have stared blankly at the screen on numerous occasions, but alas, nothing. Why didn't I just let it go and move on to something else? Yeah maybe that would have been a good idea, but I'm a stubborn procrastinator with a side of guilt. Thats why! So here's the poop.
Forks Over Knives is a documentary based on the findings that a low fat, whole food, plant based diet can cure most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us. So things like cancer, heart disease etc, can all be avoided if you stop eating meat, dairy, and fat. I honestly do not know if the facts in this documentary check out, the internet is a confusing place filled with conflicting opinions and graphs, and is a major reason I didn't want to attempt to review the film in the first place. The fact is I don't know whats true, whats exaggerated and what's fact. But I know this, It made sense to me. It made sense that if you eat less meat and dairy that it will aide digestion, make you feel better, more open to exercise, that it would help your body concentrate less on breaking down your food and more on helping you fight disease and protecting you from future ones. Now whether thats a cold or cancer can be debated...
They also never refer to this diet as being vegan, in fact I think they may have said the word "vegan" once or nonce, I'm not sure, which I found very confusing as it seemed what they were talking about was vegan, no meat no diary, no animal products of any kind, but the fact of the matter is that french fries are vegan, fruit loops are vegan, OREOS's are vegan! And therefore according to Forks Over Knives just being vegan is not enough. I think we all know that we shouldn't eat junk food, vegan or not, and I don't think that this documentary is going to convince you to give up everything and adapt this diet completely. The film itself is just not that good. Its got a repetitive style, it uses real peoples journeys towards health to pull at your heartstrings and it has a large amount of questionable gong noises whenever discussing China. But it did have some power, the Adrock's are making an effort to switch to whole grain pasta and breads whenever possible, having brown rice instead of white and have banned red meat from the house. Because you got to start somewhere! Even if its just writing one run on sentence that becomes a film review...
This film does do one thing great, it inspires instead of guilts you into wanting to change, it makes you want to be a better you and that's worth a something. I would recommend watching this film, it was a source of debate and discussion in our house for several weeks, and encouraged us all to make more of an effort to take responsibility for our health. In the future I would like to check out The China Study, the book that a lot of this film's finding are based on, and the accompanying Cookbook, in an effort to incorporate more of their low fat, whole food, plant based nibbles into our lives. Stay posted for those!
Be seeing you!
Julia
You can follow Bad Hunter on everything there is to follow, links for the Facebook and Twitter sites are up along with a Pinterest page full of Vegetarian and Vegan Recipes. There is also a Google + page and always feel free to send an email to: [email protected]
If you enjoyed this post, I’d be very grateful if you’d help it spread by emailing it to a friend, or sharing it on Twitter or Facebook.
Thank you!
It's not for lack of trying I assure you, I have stared blankly at the screen on numerous occasions, but alas, nothing. Why didn't I just let it go and move on to something else? Yeah maybe that would have been a good idea, but I'm a stubborn procrastinator with a side of guilt. Thats why! So here's the poop.
Forks Over Knives is a documentary based on the findings that a low fat, whole food, plant based diet can cure most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us. So things like cancer, heart disease etc, can all be avoided if you stop eating meat, dairy, and fat. I honestly do not know if the facts in this documentary check out, the internet is a confusing place filled with conflicting opinions and graphs, and is a major reason I didn't want to attempt to review the film in the first place. The fact is I don't know whats true, whats exaggerated and what's fact. But I know this, It made sense to me. It made sense that if you eat less meat and dairy that it will aide digestion, make you feel better, more open to exercise, that it would help your body concentrate less on breaking down your food and more on helping you fight disease and protecting you from future ones. Now whether thats a cold or cancer can be debated...
They also never refer to this diet as being vegan, in fact I think they may have said the word "vegan" once or nonce, I'm not sure, which I found very confusing as it seemed what they were talking about was vegan, no meat no diary, no animal products of any kind, but the fact of the matter is that french fries are vegan, fruit loops are vegan, OREOS's are vegan! And therefore according to Forks Over Knives just being vegan is not enough. I think we all know that we shouldn't eat junk food, vegan or not, and I don't think that this documentary is going to convince you to give up everything and adapt this diet completely. The film itself is just not that good. Its got a repetitive style, it uses real peoples journeys towards health to pull at your heartstrings and it has a large amount of questionable gong noises whenever discussing China. But it did have some power, the Adrock's are making an effort to switch to whole grain pasta and breads whenever possible, having brown rice instead of white and have banned red meat from the house. Because you got to start somewhere! Even if its just writing one run on sentence that becomes a film review...
This film does do one thing great, it inspires instead of guilts you into wanting to change, it makes you want to be a better you and that's worth a something. I would recommend watching this film, it was a source of debate and discussion in our house for several weeks, and encouraged us all to make more of an effort to take responsibility for our health. In the future I would like to check out The China Study, the book that a lot of this film's finding are based on, and the accompanying Cookbook, in an effort to incorporate more of their low fat, whole food, plant based nibbles into our lives. Stay posted for those!
Be seeing you!
Julia
You can follow Bad Hunter on everything there is to follow, links for the Facebook and Twitter sites are up along with a Pinterest page full of Vegetarian and Vegan Recipes. There is also a Google + page and always feel free to send an email to: [email protected]
If you enjoyed this post, I’d be very grateful if you’d help it spread by emailing it to a friend, or sharing it on Twitter or Facebook.
Thank you!