The result, of course, is that people have to overeat, just to be satisfied. Manufactured foods are now so concentrated with fats and sugars that they produce a state of hypernormal pleasure not unlike the effect of recreational drugs, and without even filling our stomachs to the point that we feel satiated. Now that food is not scarce in industrialized countries, however, technology allows food manufacturers to exploit our drive to consume fatty, sweet foods, which for so long were rare in our diets. And foods rich in calories, of course, were essential to our species’ survival when food was scarce. It’s an easy-to-follow, intuitive argument about how processed food takes advantage of our ancient, innate drive to consume fatty and sweet foods because, in nature, these qualities are signals of high caloric density. My favorite part of the documentary, actually, is the explanation for why whole foods (ideally plants, but not necessarily) are so vastly better for us than processed foods.
By virtually ignoring the animal-friendly aspect and even avoiding the word “vegan” almost entirely, FOK positions itself as a documentary about health, and simply proposes the plant-based, whole foods diet as the road to a long, active life. Very few people, I suspect, will be so moved by the film that they are compelled to empty their freezers and go vegan the very next day.Īnd yet that’s also the biggest thing it’s got going for it, the thing that really could allow Forks Over Knives to have the impact that so many vegans hope it will. What Forks Over Knives lacks is the shock factor that its predecessors like Food, Inc. So to be able to get a condensed synopsis in an hour and a half, along with real-life case studies of people who have dramatically improved their health after just a few weeks on a plant-based diet, is something that’s invaluable for the spread of this message which could do so much to change our country’s health. I can only imagine that people who aren’t already vegetarian or vegan will find less motivation than I had to read it. Despite plenty of recommendations from friends, The China Study is something that’s still on my list to read “when I get a chance,” taking a back seat to quicker reads that I’ve been meaning to get to. Among the evidence are several damning studies of the cancer-causing effects of casein, the protein which makes up 80% of the protein in cow’s milk.Ī good portion of the film is devoted to a boiled-down version of the results of the large-scale statistical study conducted in China that is the subject of Campbell’s best-known work, The China Study.Īnd that’s a good thing, because when I excitedly picked up the book at the DC VegFest last year, I put it down after leafing through it and realizing just how dense it was.
That evidence, and the theory which it supports, is the main subject of Forks Over Knives.
Colin Campbell, Cornell University professor and author of The China Study, presents evidence in favor of a plant-based diet for health.Įsselstyn and Campbell both grew up on farms believing that animal protein was essential to our well-being, but have since changed their beliefs in the face of mounting data pointing in one direction - that a whole foods, plant-based diet could be the answer to our country’s obesity epidemic and health crisis. That’s one of many, many points raised by Dr. If the argument against a plant-based diet is that it’s extreme, then what do you call 500,000 people each year having their chest opened up on an operating table, and having a vein from their leg sewn onto their heart? The knife, here, is medicine and surgery. Instead, it’s an image that evokes far more emotion - it’s a scalpel. Only, it isn’t a knife like you’d use to eat.
At the bottom of the page, there’s the knife. In the upper left of the page, there’s fork with a tomato on it. I figured “Forks Over Knives” was simply a reference to vegetarians’ choice not to kill animals for food.īut an image on the film’s webpage leaves no doubt as to what the title really means.
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