Forks Over Knives Movie Analysis

In the documentary, The Truth About Food, news presenter Fiona Bruce set out to investigate four different food trials that tested the effects of food in our bodies to see whether changes in diet can make a difference in improving health. The trials consisted of an evolutionary diet to reduce blood pressure and cholesterol levels, high fiber diet to reduce transit time, the consumption of garlic to improve erectile dysfunction, and whether a diet of prebiotic foods versus added probiotics such as yogurt could increase resistance to infections. I found all four stories very fascinating, but I will discuss the evolutionary diet and the ranchers diet.

As a culture and as individuals, we no longer seem to know what we should and should not eat. When the old guides of culture and national cuisine and our mothers’ advice no longer seem to operate, the omnivore’s dilemma returns and you find yourself where we do today—utterly bewildered and conflicted about one of the most basic questions of human life: What should I eat? We’re buffeted by contradictory dietary advice: cut down on fats one decade, cut down on carbs the next. Every day’s newspaper brings news of another ideal diet, wonder-nutrient, or poison in the food chain. Hydrogenated vegetable oils go from being the modern alternatives to butter to a public health threat, just like that. Food marketers bombard us with messages that this or that food is “heart healthy” or is “part of a nutritious meal”. Without a stable culture of food to guide us, the omnivore’s dilemma has returned with a vengeance. We listen to scientists, to government guidelines, to package labels—to anything but our common sense and traditions. The most pleasurable of activities—eating—has become heavy with anxiety. The irony is, the more we worry about what we eat, the less healthy and fatter we seem to become.

a vegetarian for the past four years. Her personal nutrition habits and values can be attributed to her favorable stance towards plant-based diets. The essay’s context is set in the middle of the rising veganism fads popularized by celebrities and mainstream media. As a student, Breslaw’s main audience are her fellow peers, professors and those concerned with lessening their carbon

The Omnivore’s Dilemma, written by Michael Pollan, gives light to the question, “What should we have for dinner?” that he thinks Americans today cannot answer simply due to the fact that there are too many food options. This book serves as an eye-opener to challenge readers to be more aware and accountable of what is consumed daily. In order to understand fully where our food comes from, we must follow it back to the very beginning. Pollan goes on to discuss three different modern food chains in which we get our food: the industrial, the organic, and the hunter-gatherer. By tracing our food back to the beginning, we can understand that most of the nutritional and health problems America is going through today can be found on the farms that make our food and the government that can decide what happens. America deals with many food related illness such as, heart disease, obesity, and type II diabetes. Majority of a human and animals diet consists of being corn-fed leading to a high cause of obesity in the United States these are just some of the many diseases that come with over processed foods and diets we are unaware of. In this study, we will highlight the environmental and health issues and impacts related with modern agriculture and how these systems can be made more sustainable.

Industry is about efficiency; ideally, turning the most profit from the least expense. Therefore, how can we trust an industry to make an ethical choice that will potentially hurt their business model? As exhumed by the articles “Escape The Western Diet” by Michael Pollan and “Don’t Blame The Eater” by David Zinczenko, the health care and food industries are not interested in suggesting we shift our diets towards a what they define as a “healthier”, more natural one, but rather they are set upon developing and distributing a variety of processed, nutritionally-overloaded supplements and cheap foods that conveniently further their return of profit.

In “Escape from the Western Diet” Michael Pollan argues against the scientific theories of nutrition, and discusses the harmful effects, and chronic diseases associated with the Western Diet. Pollan offers an alternate view of a healthier lifestyle to escape the western diet that simply suggests that we “stop eating and thinking that way.” (Pollan 423) He explains that the food industry has changed the wholeness of our food, which causes us to eat unhealthier things such as fast food. He approaches a solution to these contradictory theories and science by focusing on a personal approach to eating that is based on the individual's view of food. Pollan three rules to create a healthier lifestyle are to “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants” (Pollan 426) which suggest to eat “real” food in a new balanced and healthy way that creates a pleasurable approach of eating. I agree with Pollan’s concepts about the western diet and his rules of eating simpler.

Michael Pollan is the author of In Defense of Food. He is a journalist, activist, and currently a professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Pollan argues that nutrition has become overtly complicated and complex and that food is no longer truly food rather it is processed nutrients. He believes that overnutrition is emerging and that people have an unhealthy obsession with eating healthy (Pollan 9). This obsession of healthy eating has led to scientists concocting food like substances. These foods like substances are over processed foods with added nutrients and preservatives that the FDA claims have health benefits, but what is truly healthy is eating fresh fruits and vegetables. His main message is to “eat food, mostly plants” rather than these imitation foods that fill our grocery stores (Pollan 1).

In 2011, American filmmaker, Marisa Miller Wolfson, made a 76-minute documentary titled, ‘Vegucated.’ Wolfson, a practicing vegan, cites her research on foods and especially animal-based foods as her rationale for opting to go vegan. Notably, upon going vegan, she became healthier, lost weight, and even felt happier because she was no longer contributing to the inhuman treatment of animals. In her quest to become a vegan, Wolfson made the film after moving to New York City. Her concurrent idea in the film is the effects of animal diets versus the effects of vegan diets. Evidently, through its participants, the film illustrates that avoidance of animal products results to weight loss and

Throughout the film, there are two main focuses. These are ‘a Western diet is unhealthy’ and ‘a whole-foods, plant-based diet is the solution.’ Understanding the contextual meaning is critical to dissecting the rhetorical devices because otherwise the intent of the documentary’s creators would be hidden. Dividing instances of ethos, logos, and pathos into the two focuses allows for a clear explanation of each. Through separation, one can focus on purpose and effectiveness.

3.A. The main points I learned about this video was that the American population is suffering from a bad food diet, a sedentary lifestyle, and very fixated on treating health problems with medical drugs. I learned that people thrive on a plant diet and do not have to eat animal products in order to be healthy. I also learned that the proper food diet and physical exercise regimen can reverse many bad health conditions including multiple sclerosis and prevent many detrimental health problems like cardiovascular disease and obesity.

With education benefits increasing for many individuals, more focus has been placed for nutrition. Decades before, nutrition was never much focus on and many did not care about what they consumed. But, currently today nutrition has become a huge issue that concerns everyone. Nutrition has become an important aspect in all individuals’ life and they should not ignore it as it can cause illnesses that may occurred to the lack of attention on nutrition. In the movie, “Fork over Knives” focus on whether or not illnesses can be reversed or reduced by striving away from animal-based foods and processed foods to more plant-based foods. However, the documentary is contradicting the ideas that we think is healthy s actually not healthy. For example, we all hear that milk is good for you and your bones. However, the movie states that dairy products are not healthy as we think they are to us.

Review Comparison “Forks Over Knives” Movie Reviews. Whether you are a devoted vegetarian or a fervent meat lover, what you feed your body matters. Consequently, I choose to do a review comparison of the movie “Forks Over Knives” by Lee Fulkerson. This movie is about the impact of our western diet on our bodies, and how most of our health problems could be prevented by changing the way we approach nutrition.

In 1992, as the medical evidence supporting this lifestyle skyrocketed, the American Dietetic Association officially endorsed vegetarianism, thus solidifying a prominent argument for the credibility of the vegetarian diet. From the 1990s to present day, the amount of practitioners has markedly increased, and appears to be continually growing at a steady rate. According to a 2008 study conducted by the Harris Interactive Service Bureau on behalf of Vegetarian Times magazine, roughly 3.2 percent of U.S. adults, or 7.3 million people, follow a vegetarian-based diet. In addition, 22.8 million Americans maintain to follow a vegetarian inclined diet, while 11.9 million are “definitely interested” in becoming a vegetarian in the future (“Vegetarianism”). While no concrete evidence of a current rise yet exists, researchers speculate that, because of new environmental and health concerns, more people are, and will be, turning to vegetarianism to assist these issues (Rohrer).

False advertisements, euphemisms, and lack of nutritional education conclusively has yielded a downward spiral in health. As a society, we have been misinformed about what foods are nutritious and mislead in the process of trying to find out the truth. Our minds have been brainwashed by the meat, dairy, and egg industries who have fooled us into believing animal- protein and animal-products are healthy and necessary to sustain a balanced diet and lifestyle. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. The direct correlation of the consumption of meat and dairy with health epidemics such as heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and cancer is evident and unavoidable. Contrary to popular belief, humans are not natural born carnivores, but rather herbivores. Therefore, the best and most efficient way of having a healthy mind, body, and spirit is by switching to a plant-based vegan diet.

The human body needs energy from the nutrients. Additionally, people are all different and what works for one person may not work for the others, so that each has unique eating habits. Different types of nutrition are the omnivorous diet and plant-based diets, such as vegetarianism and its varieties. Inherently, humans are omnivores, their bodies function healthily with eating both animal and plant-based products. Even so, physicians recommend healthier lifestyles based on herbal products, against animal originated and processed foods to prevent ‘‘the spread of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases’’ (Tuso 1). Vegan diet is healthy and environmentally friendly, but in the long term, it can cause environmental damage and health problems in multiple body parts, such as bones, cardiovascular and nerve systems because of the lack of nutrients.