Dietitians in every single place launch a collective sigh each time Netflix releases a diet documentary, and with good cause: traditionally, these docs are stuffed with bias, dangerous knowledge, and sensationalism…none of which really helps anybody take change of their well being.
Like I all the time say, misinformation doesn’t empower anybody. Simply the other, really.
After I heard that You Are What You Eat was directed by the identical one that directed The Sport Changers, I knew I wanted to observe and overview it.
Learn my Sport Changers Evaluation right here.
On this You Are What You Eat overview, I check out Netflix’s newest diet documentary.
The doc focuses on the execution of the Stanford Twins Examine. This 8-week examine, which was simply revealed on the finish of 2023, used 22 pairs of twins to find out the cardiometabolic results of a vegan weight loss plan versus an omnivore weight loss plan.
Twins are genetically equivalent, which afforded researchers the uncommon alternative to realize worthwhile perception into how every weight loss plan might impression one twin versus the opposite. Based on Christopher Gardner, diet scientist and one of many examine’s investigators, people reply otherwise to the identical meals, so getting people who find themselves genetically the identical eliminates this confounder.
Twins have the identical genetic make-up, making them the right controls for each other.
Over the course of the 8 weeks, investigators will monitor indicators of cardiovascular well being, metabolic standing, and intestine microbiome through poop and blood samples.
They inform viewers that they’re trying peoples’ organic clock, physique composition, microbiome, and mind. The precise examine, which I speak about within the final a part of this overview, doesn’t point out the microbiome, mind, or organic clock. I’m questioning if these components are upcoming.
You Are What You Eat Netflix Evaluation
In Episode Certainly one of You Are What You Eat, we meet a few of the specialists that have been concerned within the examine, together with 4 units of the examine’s twins.
Within the first 4 weeks, every twin is randomized to both a vegan or omnivore weight loss plan. Every thing they eat is made for them and delivered, so there’s no guesswork, and researchers can management every little thing about every weight loss plan. Each diets have been deemed to be ‘wholesome’ by scientists.
After the primary 4 weeks, the twins stay on their assigned weight loss plan, however are left to cook dinner their very own meals.
The twins even have a coach, who they work out repeatedly with.
It was simple to see the place this documentary was going when Dr. Michael Greger, physician and identified promoter of a vegan weight loss plan, pops up on the display screen. He was additionally in The Sport Changers and What The Well being, each Netflix documentaries whose overarching message was selling a plant-based weight loss plan and mainly scaring folks about consuming animal merchandise.
I’ve talked about Dr. Greger in my writing earlier than, primarily calling him out for twisting information and blowing up claims to swimsuit his agenda.
He rapidly does the identical factor in You Are What You Eat, telling viewers how an excessive amount of dairy will increase danger for Parkinson’s illness and prostate most cancers (with out citations or proof, naturally). He lets us know that ‘the #1 reason for demise within the US is the American Food regimen’ (in keeping with the CDC it’s coronary heart illness, really, however there are lots of components that contribute to this), and what we put in our mouth is extra necessary than the rest.
That is traditional Greger, making claims which are overblown and completely with out nuance.
Dr. Michael Greger
We additionally meet a ‘plant primarily based dairy innovator’ named Miyoko Schinner, who tells us that cheese is ‘biologically addicting,’ which is ridiculous and never factual. She follows up by trotting out the vegan calling card that ‘milk is for child cows, not people.’
She tells us that ‘most populations on this planet didn’t eat meat and dairy, besides in very small quantities if in any respect.’
Once more, we’ve an ‘professional’ who’s clearly biased to in the direction of a vegan weight loss plan. I’ve nothing towards the vegan weight loss plan, after all, however in a documentary, it’s all the time good to signify either side of an argument.
I stored ready for somebody with out a plant-based agenda to be revealed as an professional, however SPOILER: I used to be dissatisfied.
Because the documentary progresses, we study meals deserts and concrete farms.
Right here’s why we don’t all have the identical 24 hours in a day.
Tracye McQuirter, a Public Well being Nutritionist and self-proclaimed ‘vegan activist,’ explains learn how to create a balanced vegan plate. whereas speaking about meals apartheid for African Individuals in city centres.
This can be a actually worthwhile lesson, and it’s correct – meals deserts do exist, particularly in radicalized communities. They’re intimately linked with poor well being outcomes, and we most undoubtedly have to do one thing to enhance entry to wholesome meals in North America.
One other good lesson we get is across the conflicts of curiosity among the many dietary pointers committee, and the way agricultural lobbyists affect the verbiage within the pointers. That is additionally an issue, and the explanation why Well being Canada refused to have meals trade on the desk when creating the most recent meals pointers.
The remainder of You Are What You Eat, sadly, looks as if an advert for a vegan weight loss plan.
We study in regards to the animal agriculture trade. We’re taken inside manufacturing unit farms. We hear how soiled they’re, how the animals are injected with antibiotics, and the way hog feces and urine are sprayed throughout adjoining fields. We see just a little injured hen and contaminated ponds.
Dr. Greger pops in to inform us that extra antibiotics are fed to livestock than are utilized in all of human medication to advertise progress and forestall illness in a traumatic, unhygienic setting. ‘Lifesaving, crucial medication are being squandered simply to make cheaper meat.’
Or, possibly there are much more animals than people, which accounts for these numbers?
Nonetheless, it’s authorized to make use of antibiotics in cattle for progress promotion and illness prevention (right here and right here)
Ought to the common particular person be involved?
I’m unsure, as a result of we have been solely offered with one aspect of the argument. The typical particular person will most likely take that unchallenged aspect as truth, which is problematic. I might have appreciated to listen to from an unbiased farmer and scientist about this, and about, properly, your entire documentary.
We hear a hen farmer who clearly hates what he does, speak about how disgusting the scent and filth of the hen barn is. That birds are bred to have such massive breasts, that their organs and skeletal system can’t sustain. The birds scratch one another, leaving wounds which are infested with micro organism.
We see an environmental activist lawyer speaking about antibiotics in meat, and Pat Brown, the Founding father of Unattainable Meals, who tells us that ‘each time you eat a steak, just a little puff of smoke goes up within the Amazon. That smoke is the ‘second hand smoke out of your burger.’
George Monbiot, an writer, journalist and environmental activist tells us how the meat trade is mainly killing the planet. ‘the agricultural trade is likely one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gases on earth.’
We’re proven a graphic that states that greenhouse gases from the agricultural sector are 31%, versus 14% for the transportation sector.
I assumed these quantity appeared a bit bizarre, so I went in search of the stats.
Seems, the EPA has some completely different numbers:
Shifting from the horrible risks of meat to what’s terrible about farmed fish, we’re launched to extra activists, one being Don Staniford, who campaigns towards salmon farms. He tells us that ‘if folks realized the complete horrors of salmon farming they’d keep away from it just like the proverbial plague.’
Hyperbole appears to be one in all You Are What You Eat’s nice strengths.
We see Don telling the twins how firms dye their fish crimson to cover the truth that it’s farmed. He says that this synthetic coloration has been ‘linked to human well being issues,’ though we don’t get any particulars about which issues.
He talks about how farmed salmon is way fattier than pizza and bacon. And, lest you imagine that farmed salmon comprises wholesome fat, he provides us the rubbish take of ‘these aren’t good oils, they’re omega 6s.’
Please Don, cease speaking. The twins choose up on his worry mongering, calling the farmed salmon ‘diseased meals’ and throwing it into the precise rubbish.
Are seed oils dangerous? Learn my publish right here.
We’ve gone from speaking about meals deserts and entry to nourishing meals, to throwing a superbly good piece of fish into the rubbish. Disgusting.
Alexandra Morton, Biologist and activist, tells us that tons of waste is ‘pouring out of those farms’ and reveals us disturbing photographs of diseased fish. She claims that greater than 98% of the samples fish she purchased in supermarkets and sushi eating places have been contaminated with a salmon blood virus, though she admits that there’s no analysis on how these pathogens impression people.
I’m not going to say that these points the activists are speaking about are false, however with none counterbalance, all of it comes off as folks pushing an agenda. As somebody with crucial pondering expertise, this makes me very suspicious of their information.
As just a little sidebar, Eric Adams, the Mayor of New York, talks about how weight loss plan reversed his diabetes with Complete Meals Plant Primarily based weight loss plan. He tells us that his endocrinologist didn’t study weight loss plan and diabetes in medical faculty, so he took issues into his personal arms.
I discover the ‘medical doctors don’t know in regards to the worth of weight loss plan’ tactic to be a extremely disappointing, lazy option to flip folks towards typical medication and proposals.
What did the Stanford Twins examine discover?
After the entire effort, did the Twins examine end result favor a vegan weight loss plan?
It did, in some methods.
As you possibly can see within the graphic under, the vegan twins had a better discount in LDL-C, the ‘dangerous’ ldl cholesterol. However, their HDL or ‘good’ ldl cholesterol additionally went down greater than the omnivores,’ and the vegans’ triglycerides ended up far greater than the omnivores’.
In truth, the one metrics that have been vital between the 2 teams have been LDL-C, insulin, and weight, though each teams misplaced weight.
It’s necessary to notice that the examine was quick and small, and the topics have been predominantly ladies. The second week was not managed, so theoretically, every group might have strayed from their diets in weeks 5-8, confounding the outcomes. We additionally don’t have any longer-term follow-up.
Within the examine conclusions, did admit that the vegan weight loss plan fed to the twins was restrictive, and that “clinicians ought to permit sufferers to make knowledgeable selections that assist them to decide on which dietary method is most fitted for them.
At a inhabitants degree, wider adoption of a culturally acceptable dietary sample that’s greater in plant meals and decrease in animal meals can promote well being and environmental advantages.”
As a dietitian, my suggestions received’t change due to this documentary. Eat as many vegetation as you possibly can. Purchase what you possibly can afford. Watch out for worry mongering ‘specialists’ who clearly have an agenda. Know that Netflix diet documentaries are low-bar and deceptive.
You Are What You Eat overview, in brief:
You Are What You Eat is a traditional Netflix diet documentary, flawed from the start with clearly biased ‘specialists’ and activists going unchallenged all through the movie.
Whereas I do assist a plant-forward weight loss plan, I feel it’s insulting and weak to not give a balanced perspective. Why not give viewers ALL of the data earlier than permitting them to make their very own resolution? Isn’t that what a documentary needs to be about?
The one a part of You Are What you Eat that I assumed was simple, was the messaging round meals fairness. Till all sides are represented and all information are certified by a mixture of specialists, You Are What You Eat is sensationalized vegan propaganda at its very most interesting.
Let’s do away with these diet and weight loss plan traits in 2024. Learn right here.
