[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7ijukNzlUg&rel=0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3]
Forks over Knives is on its way to a theater near you. The creators claim that a meat based diet will kill you and a plant based diet will save your life.
Here we go again.
OK. We all know that eating carrots is better than eating Cheetos. We all know that chomping on fruit is better than chomping on Froot Loops.
But does broccoli pack more of a nutritional punch than grass-fed beef? Do leeks contain more vitamins and minerals than lamb? Is there any scientific evidence whatsoever to support the idea that a non-processed food, animal-based diet is unhealthy or that a plant-based diet is healthier than a meat-based diet for human beings? I can tell you from extensive reading on the subject and from being a once-upon-a-time, low fat, no fat, grain-eating dude that the idea is absolutely false. There isn't a shred of evidence to support the claim.
Now, am I going to support my statement with peer reviewed, scientific evidence? Well, I could but I don't actually have to. The burden of proof lies upon the claimant and the Forks over Knives claim is:
...most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting our present menu of animal-based and processed foods.
The idea that processed foods contribute to or cause western diseases I'm fine with (but still - is there any good science to prove this?). But animal-based foods? To this I say to them "prove it." And try as they might, they won't be able to because there isn't any research to support the claim.
But what you all must remember - please try to remember when watching the trailer and eventually the film itself - is that expert opinion does not fact make. Not even if it's a doctor. The film makers must present peer-reviewed scientific research to support their contentions, not epidemiological surveys, observational studies or anecdotal, opinion-based opinions.
Not only this, lumping animal-based foods together with processed foods is disingenuous and smacks of serious agenda-ness. Are we really supposed to believe that eating a fresh water trout is the same as eating a Nabisco Triscuit?
Question - if not fish, what should dolphins eat? If not herbivores, what should lions eat? And what should frogs eat? Snakes? Spiders? Should we toss little kernels of corn into their little webs to save their little lives?
What these veggie-folks don't see is that by adopting a plant based diet you, by default, reject a fake-food diet and this alone - the rejection of processed foods - is enough to reverse most western diseases. It's not the intake of the plant matter that does the trick. It's the cessation of the intake of garbage foods that enhances health. Capeesh? (For some people, I feel as if I need to say this fourteen different ways to let this really sink in.)
The vegetarian psyche is fraught with pseudo-science and all too often, unnecessary violence as Lierre Keith knows all too well. Her book The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability
Forewarned is forearmed.
You're welcome. Your thoughts?