The Forks Over Knives documentary is a film that discusses how low-fat, whole-food, plant-based diet is a way to avoid/reserve chronic diseases. The film starts off by discussing how Americans are in a major crisis. Basically 2/3 of individuals are overweight in America, diabetes cases are increasing drastically, 1/2 of Americans take some sort of prescription drugs, major medical operations have become so normal that health care costs are increasing rapidly and heart disease, cancer, and stroke are the country’s three leading causes of death, even though we spend millions and millions to help conquer these conditions. After giving information on why Americans need to change, it is shown that the way this can be controlled is by getting rid of animal based and processed food in our diet. Although this is the main point throughout the film, it also discusses the journey of a scientist. Dr. Campbell is a nutritional scientist who made a discovery when visiting the Philippines and saw that the wealthy people consumed lots of animal based foods, and then were much more likely to get liver cancer. Another study was done in China, which got Campbell to conclude that chronic diseases can be cured/prevented by simply altering your diet. The documentary then shows one individual who was going to need to get heart surgery. Basically when this patient went to the doctors the doctor told him to totally change his diet to a whole-foods, plant based diet. In a few months when the patient came back, his cholesterol level decreased, his blood pressure decreased drastically, and he had lost about 30 pounds. Just from him altering his diet, he already is on the road to a healthy successful lifestyle, when a few months ago he thought he was going to need heart surgery. Food really is a powerful thing. Another researcher in the documentary shows what he cooks himself on a daily basis that is whole-foods and plant based. I feel like that would be the hardest part of adopting that kind of diet is knowing what to cook each night and being creative so you do not get sick of eating the same thing every night. Also, costs of these kinds of food can be pricey, so finding healthy affordable food for this diet might be tricky.  The message this documentary gives is that Americans need to wake up and start eating foods that bless their body, not harm it. The scientist’s agenda is to get people to stop being on so many medications, stop getting so many surgeries, and just alter your diet to eating whole foods and plants. This film is not bias, it is very informational as to why one should adopt this diet. As americans we tend to think wow changing to a vegetarian or vegan diet would be terrible, but then again isn’t getting open heart surgery or dying from a chronic disease terrible too? We have the easiest solution to preventing these awful diseases, and its as simple as eating healthy.

Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1567233/