Forks Over Knives: a Feel-Good, Delicious, “V” word, Movie

Hey fatty – we have a problem. No, not you, all of America. Americans spend trillions on healthcare each year. 2/3 of us are overweight and 50% of us take prescription drugs.  Cases of diabetes are exploding, and heart disease, cancer and stroke are the three leading causes of death in the US.  Can you dream of a health plan that could save you money and actually REVERSE conditions you have?

According to the experts from Forks Over Knives, a plant-based, whole-grain diet can do just that. Interesting enough, the film never uses the word “vegan” throughout its statistics (except by athlete Mac Danzig, a mixed martial artist and Ultimate Fighting star) – the dirty “V” word tends to draw negative connotations.  Instead, the film shows study after study of how countries who eat animal products have more cases of cancer (one year had 14,000 cases of Prostate cancer in the US vs 14 in Japan), diabetes, osteoporosis (remember how the dairy industry convinced us you need cow’s milk for calcium?) and weight gain than countries that have a plant-based, whole-grain diet. Many of these countries didn’t even have western disorders (diabetes, liver cancer, etc) until the meat-heavy, western diet was introduced.  Overall, the lesson to be learned:  Cut the crap, processed foods, corn syrup & more to blissful health.

The film doesn’t just show stat after stat.  Following experts including Dr. T. Colin Campbell, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Lee Fulkerson, Dr. John McDougall, and Dr. Neal Barnard and 3 sick ‘patients’ –  one with breast cancer, one with a 1-yr death sentence thanks to  heart problems, and one with murderously high cholesterol. All 3 switch to the vegan diet and are living stronger than before. One man who took around 14 pills per day (cholesterol, injections, etc) stopped taking all medications after this reversal.  They’re happy, feel energized, and stopped taking medication. (The film forewarns of consulting physicians before diet changes, for those concerned.)

So why is this film in theaters? (in Philly starting tomorrow.) Fork Over Knives producer Brian Wendel read the China Study in 2008 and decided the vegan diet needed more publicity… thus, the movie was born.  Don’t worry, the film hits Philly theaters tomorrow. Check out the trailer here:

Cutting the meat out is SO simple and beneficial to your health – and easy – it’s ridiculous.  Robert Ebert believes it. I believe it. But even if you “can’t” go completely vegan, the film shows endless, mouth-watering animal-less dinners that has me STILL salivating.  It definitely will inspire you to go animal-based free for at least a few days a week.

Plus, the diet the USDA doesn’t want you to know about can feed everyone in the planet if we used all the space for farming animals to farm plants instead. And cut emissions. And save us money. Take that, global crisis.

Posted by Julie

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Julie Hancher is Editor-in-Chief of Green Philly, sharing her expertise of all things sustainable in the city of brotherly love. She enjoys long walks in the park with local beer and greening her travels, cooking & cat, Sir Floofus Drake. View all posts by Julie Hancher