Have you seen this film? You absolutely must, that's an order. No seriously you just have to watch this film. It was produced by Joaquin Phoenix. Unlike his film, Earthlings (aka the vegan-maker) he does not focus on animal cruelty. Rather, this is a expose on our own government and how they are keeping us in the dark re our very own health. I consider myself pretty up-to-date on most health trends but this totally blew my mind as I'm sure it will yours too. When the film starts I was pretty much yeah, yeah I know about heart disease, diabetes, cancer. Turns out nope, I knew nothing. I had no idea our very own government is in collusion with big business to keep us sick!
Prepare to be pissed off and prepare to to take your health into your own hands. The good news is with a vegan diet you can reverse just about all disease. I don't beg often but I really am begging you to watch this film. It's currently on Netflix. Here is the trailer...
I saw it this evening. I meant to anyway, but you reminded me. It made me feel so good about our choices (my partner also eats like a vegan). I'm going to e-mail all the people I care about who eat a crappy diet and beg them to watch it.
ReplyDeleteIt always amazes me that people think we're just lucky that, at 59, we take no meds. I tell them it's because of the lifestyle choices we've made, and you'd think they'd get it, but they don't.
Thank you for the reminder.
Cara
Thanks for the tip, Janet. I had not heard about this one and will definitely watch it. I was already eating a vegan diet when I tried to watch Earthlings and couldn't get through even the first five minutes.
ReplyDeleteI also saw it this week and it was really illuminating and scary.
ReplyDeletePS love your blog.
I'm going to check it out. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI've downloaded this ready to watch with my Hubby, we don't have Netflix. I've not managed to watch Earthlings yet, I could barely cope with the trailer :-(
ReplyDeleteWill watch tonight. With UK coming out of Europe... well, there goes all the strict food regulations as Britain will be doing all it can to just survive economically (read more DEREGULATION and hello genetically modified food).
ReplyDeleteHello, Janet!
ReplyDeleteI plan on watching this this evening. Also, please watch Poisoned Fields-Glyphosate, the underrated risk on YouTube and Food Matters on Netflix. Since money is all that matters to corporations, I like what the guy said in Food Matters; "When you make a purchase at the grocery store, you are voting". Please everyone buy Non-GMO Verified and USDA Organic. I dispise the way GMO's were slipped into our foods and beverages without our consent. l used to love a refreshing Coke or Pepsi once in a while. I wish I had known about them when my children were young, I would not had given them any thing with high fructose corn syrup in it or any thing else genetically modified.
Sincerely, Debra from SENC
Thank you Janet for this recommendation. I will watch it on Netflix tonight...although I'm not the one who needs convincing! I have great concerns for my family & grandchildren. I have known for a long time that our government is really just a big business now & is definitely in bed with the pharmaceutical companies. I am 71 & take no prescription meds & will do my best to never need any. I eat a pretty healthy diet...I'm not Vegan, but eat very little meat. Dairy is one of my foods I depend on quite a bit. People need to understand that even acceptable cholesterol & blood pressure numbers changed to a lower number when there was a pill that could be sold to make sure you hit that number. I am very healthy, but do have high cholesterol...but my good number is extremely high. Thankfully I go to a doctor who also embraces healthy alternatives & he doesn't pressure me to take anything. Keep up the good work...people need to be educated & take responsibility for their health. A pill isn't the answer!
ReplyDeleteAnita ~ the cabin on the creek
I'll have to check this out. Thank you for the FYI. This might be a bit off the target but I couldn't help but notice a couple remarks about the need not to take medications do to life style. I just want tos say I'm a 64 year old woman that has ideal number for good cholesterol, what's considered perfect body weight worked out 6 hours a week and did not take any medications. I had a minor heart attack while at the gym. I wasn't not aggressively working out when it happened. I now take two medications. I find it rather self righteous that someone would make the statement they don't tak any medication because they do everything right. I'm very fortunate to be right down the street from the Cleveland Clinic. I asked the chief cardiologist....with everything I've already been doing i don't know what I need to change. His reply was...I don't either. This is a case that you've already been doing what we recommend.... I hate to admit it but when it happened I was kind of embarrassed like I failed a test. Just because someone is 60 years old and never had a problem doesnt mean it can't happen. We can control our choices but we can't change our genes. My father dropped dead at 51. I've already out lived him by 13 years. I guess I have to look at it that way and not that I failed.
ReplyDeleteI find this comment very key. There are things in life which are very hard to compute. I wonder if we'll ever know what's in our DNA, our air, our water, the earth; just WHAT exactly makes some of us sicker than others. Much of it seems to be a mystery that can't be solved.
DeleteI've known of a disagreeable, gloomy, angry guy who did/does everything wrong over many years...drug abuse, heavy smoker, alcoholism...and he's now in his 70s after 50 years of living in such a harmful way, yet it seems to take little toll on his physical health. My brother, a happier and younger guy, had stopped smoking, enjoyed an occasional margarita and had gained a little weight (not a lot); was a regular hiker for exercise, out hiking in the back-country just two days before he died...instantly, suddenly, completely-unexpectedly, of a fatal heart attack at only age 34 (nothing congenital, and both of our parents lived well into their 80s).
I know of a woman who ate very clean, grew her own veggies, practiced yoga; was a calm and happy, contented person with church on Sunday and lots of good family; slender weight (healthy 'thin'), didn't drink alcohol or smoke or do drugs...no history of cancer in the family, yet she died of it (cervix) at age 42. Same with my always-slim/tall friend, Gwen, who fell victim to cancer at age 49 (colon). Similar scenario with the lovely model-esque daughter of a friend of mine, who died of the disease at age 26 (ovarian) just as she was starting out her young adulthood after college; so talented (was an architect), so much to yet offer the world. We all have these stories; it's an epidemic. Although I also have no history of it in my family, I got cancer four years ago (senior-aged) but didn't have the healthy profiles of these other stricken women. Although I did have some risk factors beyond my control, it was hard for me to accept that my unhealthful lifestyle (sedentary; weight gain; too much run-amok stress; risk factors I actually COULD have controlled) contributed to my diagnosis, and I've tried to remedy it ever since...but it's an uphill battle (weight loss alone is not easy after menopause for some women).
The takeaway? If I had a granddaughter in her teens, for instance; what would I be telling her, to get off on the right foot? We seem to have enough against us, any of us, so we have to do every single thing we can to ward off disease. Strengthen the immune system. Mindfulness, a choice for joy, exercise, the right foods; a life well balanced. It's just a repeat of what we all know what to do, what we've read about for years, especially since the anti-smoking campaigns decades ago, and the greater awareness (as time goes by) of foods that make us sick. Implementing the better choices should be a no-brainer but we're human; we WILL err. Just have to try to stay committed to your own personal plan, keep plugging away at it, don't give up, if you go off course then get back on it fast, make overall health your greatest focus...because the alternative is pretty clear...
Hi Janet, just finished watching it.Amazing doco. thanks so much for recommending it. I will never eat meat again. Victoria x
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for spreading the word about 'WHAT THE HEALTH,' Janet!
ReplyDeleteI recently hosted a theatrical screening of WHAT THE HEALTH. Those I spoke with afterward said it is life changing.
In addition to Netflix, WHAT THE HEALTH can be viewed on DVD and streaming via the WTH web site:
http://www.whatthehealthfilm.com/
There is a WTH cookbook and companion book, as well.
WTH is the 2nd in the documentary series by filmmakers Keegan Kuhn and Kip Andersen. The 1st is 'COWSPIRACY: The Sustainability Secret,' which is every bit as good and, for those concerned about the environment, every bit as life changing.
COWSPIRACY can be view via http://www.cowspiracy.com/ and Netflix.
According to a recent report, 6 percent of the U.S. population now identifies as vegan, compared to 1 percent in 2014
http://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/six-percent-of-americans-identify-as-vegan/
People are waking up to the disastrous effects of the animal agricultural industry.
Thank you for this recommendation Janet. It was reassuring to hear doctors who promote a plant based diet with better logic than they use for medications! Now, I better get that garden started that I'm always talking about...
ReplyDeleteHope all is well with you and your sweet family.
Melanie
I Have heard this..................will WATCH!
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU!
XX
Thank you Janet! I've just watched it on Youttube. Sobering to say the least. We need to question all these 'soft' marketing initiatives.
ReplyDeleteMeant to add that I'm moving from vegetarian to vegan thanks to this doccie. I have just booked an onboard meal for a flight next week and have changed it from lacto veg to vegan. X
ReplyDeleteJanet, thank you so very, very much for this post! A plant based diet is so important, and changes our health as illustrated in this excellent film! Will be encouraging family and friends to watch What The Health! Louise
ReplyDeleteJust watched. Just tipped the cow's milk down the sink. That's it - OVER.
ReplyDeleteHi again!
ReplyDeleteThànks for your recommendation on this film. This really hit home. My baby sister was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of 21. At around 42 years old, she had open heart surgery. Her husband is 55 years old and just had hip replacement. The other one needs replacing too. I have contacted almost everyone that I know and asked them to watch this. I also live in the area on the film where all those factory hog farms are mentioned (there are 5 within a 2 1/2 mile radious of our home and a poultry farm is right beside one of them). There is a creek right beside one ogf them. A high school is located beside one also in our county. Money is more important than the health and environment in our area. If you complain about the horrific odors, you are the bad guy and attacking the farmer. Southeastern NC could be a paradise, it is the perfect location on the Eastern Seaboard, except for this. Smithfield is owned by China.
I watched it as soon as it was released. Yeah I even paid to watch, I was so eager to see it after seeing Cowspiracy (made by the same filmmakers, and equally as important to watch, if you care about the environment).
ReplyDeleteVery interesting. When I went low fat, high carbs, on doctor's advice in the 80s, I gained 160 pounds. Two years ago, I put fat back into my diet (extra virgin olive oil), kept lots of fruit and veggies, and started eating small portions of meat again. I lost 100 pounds. What I think is that many Americans eat high fat, high protein, high carbs, high sodium, high sugar, large portions. You need 5-7 servings of fruit and veggies per day. So start with that. Stop cutting out gluten unless you know that it's a problem. It is interesting the comments on mad cow disease. In Canada 1 case was enough to shut down the whole industry. In the States, there were 4 cases and that didn't shut things down at all. In the States, you need to clean up the pollution. Veggies aren't going to be very safe if there is air-borne dioxin and other pollutants landing on the food. If 45 can't believe in climate change, maybe he could believe in cleaning up the industrial pollution. Then you could even have safe food.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Ellie's friend, about the importance of healthful fats in the diet, and that high carb, low fat isn't for everyone.
DeleteWe use LOTS of coconut oil in our food, cook high-heat with avocado oil, eat avocados, and use olive oil for cold dishes. We do not restrict our fat intake, and maintain a good weight. I also don't agree with the statements hat sugar isn't a problem.
I follow a vegan blogger who hd health problems and added more protein and fats into her diet (among other measures) and recovered –she did it as a vegan.
I think that not everyone is cut out for the same exact diet. Depending where our ancestors came from, I think that influences what optimal ingredients would be. But, as I said before, I'm happy we've followed a vegan diet for so long (I've been a vegetarian since 15), because I do think it's what's kept us off medications, and healthy. I've also only bought organic ingredients for the past 30 years, and I'm sure that helps.
Thank you so much for this reminder to watch this film. Watched it! Going vegan! Absolutely dismayed how we treat animals!!!
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely love your blog!
Marilyn
Been trying to learn about it since you've brought it to light; I knew nothing. There's even a book as companion to the film. They also have an interesting, rather exhaustive, fact-filled website. Thanx for the heads-up!
ReplyDeleteThe fast-food generation has become/is doomed...can't continue...I know, because I became a victim...they should have cooking classes in the schools again, so that kids can learn about cooking well at home; learn to cook and eat in, not out...slow food and not fast food...how to shop for healthy food and prep it...learning about good health from an early age should be as important as any other subject like language, history, math, etc. But it can't all be on the shoulders of schools; has to come from the parents, too.
I've noticed that a elementary school near me seems to be incorporating Recess with exercise, doing it to music the little ones can relate to, which I took as a very positive sign. It's one thing, and bad enough/sad enough/painful enough, to be an obese adult...but to see fat children huffing and puffing, winded to the point to where they can't keep up with their friends...just tragic. I see it often when I'm out and about in my town, which happens to be one with a bad economy (unemployment and ensuing poverty) and we don't even have a farmers' market. Obesity is a disease for toddlers/kids/teens which, to me, is no different than having to be burdened with asthma, which I had in youth, or juvenile arthritis and all of the rest that can prevent physical activity of jumping, playing, running and doing 'normal' kid things. It's just so important to start everything out right when adult life has so many new challenges...and blessed/blissful childhood is so fleeting, gone in a nanosecond, never to be repeated...
I watched last night and was horrified .I haven't eaten meat in years (I don't like the smell or texture)
ReplyDeleteNow I'm looking to going vegan .
thank you for the information.I'm going to study this and work out how I am going to do it. Liz
Interesting comment, Cara. Just to clarify my comment on cleaning up pollution: not meant to imply the U.S. has pollution but Canada has none. Canada does have pollution. It is really disturbing to see the pollution from mining in Colorado. When I watched the program, it became obvious that there isn't much left to eat after everything bad mentioned in the program. It's great that you followed an organic and vegan diet. I am on very few meds (2) but I haven't always remained vegan. Buying organic is better than not, but the contamination from airborne pollution drifting and from polluted irrigation on the organic produce is frightening. I totally agree that not everyone is cut out for the same exact diet.
ReplyDeleteHi dear, yes I have so been meaning to watch it, I have it saved in my favorites and have tried to make the time.
ReplyDeleteI can tell you I have driven my family crazy for a great number of years with what they felt was my philosophy on government and our health, and why they hold back on health issues that can be abolished. Back in the 50's 60's jet planes fling over head and chemical-trailing was part of government experimenting with viruses that would be released to keep us sick, or to expose us to such chemicals to heighten our immune system as they claim.
This research is not sealed and written sciencetific papers take claim to such dealings.
I feel frightened and apauled with humanity and the lack of it in government. It's all about the almighty dollar.
There is no excuse for not being able to feed our body's and breath air that's not deadly, we need to adopt city neighborhood plots for school class gardening, so our youth sees the benifits of eating raw and healthy. I so get it, and want to live on my own farm, and raise bees so our pollination growth is for the better, without the bees great benifits of healing honey will be lost, and our food growth will die off.
I'm in your camp Janet,
I am going to watch it in the next day or two, and I know I will be once again on the war path as I was when I saw how much of our seed supply is contaminated with poisons to keep down the ragweed growth in our farming fields.
You know our great grandparents who farmed had no problem with a bit of weed growth, they were organic farms before they ever knew what organic was.
Talk soon.
Xx
Dore
I had just recently read...I guess I was 'the last to know'...that experts feel we've lost so much of our monarch butterfly population because of big-corporation farming spraying the milkweed from growing in the fields, which is the butterflies' food source. They've orchestrated it to where the food crop can resist the spraying. And I ask how? What are we eating?
DeleteVicky we have a serious bee issue as well in their reproduction, our planet will be in a major threatened state if we put a stop to all the crazy technologymand get back to some basics again.
DeleteWhat the health program is great! A reall wake up call.
Xx
Dore
Thanks to Janet, I've bought the book; it's supposed to arrive this week.
DeleteI've put in California lilac (native sage) for the bees and they're swarming all over its dark purple flower, thankfully. It has grown really large, as high as the top of my house windows so far; I may let it grow to the roof-line. I notice the bees are also attracted to my basil after it's flowered, so I'm growing more basil now just for them. But I almost never see butterflies now, even though we also planted a large meadow-wildflower patch (from seed) this year, which is multi-colorful/multi-variety and lovely but yes, darn, still no butterflies; which is sad, because I remember a lot of butterflies at this very house when I was a little girl, decades ago (it's my childhood home). Occasionally, like hardly ever, I'll see a small white butterfly, fluttering about solo, but no other types now. And, curiously, as my property backs up to about four acres of somewhat undisturbed and heavily-foliaged, unchanged-in-years (devoid of humans!) private land, we've lost the squirrels. I think I've seen ONE squirrel in the past year and he was very skinny whereas, when I was a kid, and even, oh, 20 years ago, this exactly-the-same acreage had many squirrels running across the telephone wires, cables and tree branches all year long. We used to love to watch them gather goodies for Fall/Winter...and they'd play 'chase' with each other; comical. I miss their morning chatter. I put out three large birdbaths and keep them filled with water at the base of the hillside for both wild birds and squirrels; I constantly replenish them with clear water but, although, I realize it COULD be drought that got to the squirrels, can't help but wonder about other factors...and environmental risk.
So, I have to add, I live in what is still a county with massive agricultural land which is some larger family farming, few/handful of remaining small family farms left...but mostly big-company farms who took over when many of the early pioneering families from 100 years ago or more had descendants who wouldn't or just couldn't keep up the farms; they sold out. We're in a protected 'green belt', so the land can't be developed and instead only farmed; so, farming continues, but mostly now in row crops and not orchards, and it's big-company/corporation farming. I often wonder what's in the water runoff when you see it pouring out of pipes in a large field of row crops into a irrigation ditch. And to cover up the smell of manure for planting/fertilizing, I'm sure because people complained as the area gave way to more urbanization, for years now they've been mixing something in with it to take down the odors but it smells chemical-like, not organic, and I find it more objectionable than the manure. And I also ponder if why my husband developed such a serious sinus condition since we moved back to this area of SoCalif (I'm from here; he's not [he grew up in the Midwest]), which has now resulted in a damaged esophagus for him from the continual 'drip', after never having had a sinus condition before in his life, could it have anything to do with our ag environment which also, includes...yes...agricultural spraying, on the ground and by air. Even though, except for lettuces, I'm growing most all of my own veggies at home this summer (cukes, tomatoes, squash, eggplant, herbs, bell pepper, green beans), I'm still using that municipal water and it's also, of course, all the same air.
DeleteI remember my grandma sitting at her back porch, rocking away in her big 'ol wooden rocking chair, apron spread across her lap with a big mixing bowl of just-picked pole beans from her garden, teaching little-me how to snap a bean and then steam them in a pot atop the kitchen stove for dinner. I'm glad all those 60 or 70 years ago...and all the years of her good life...she didn't have to worry about what was safe to eat (she just fretted about the meal being the best-tasting thing she could possibly make for her family!). Sure, her apricot tree had bugs and ants and nibble marks sometimes on the fruit, organic with no spraying, but it didn't seem to affect the delicious taste of her apricot jam. I think a lot of us...my generation?...got too conditioned to 'perfect'-looking produce in the stores and demanding we have it year'round when it's better to follow the seasons and work with naturally-grown food but, you know, it's a complicated subject for sure, and I'm no expert.
Janet - a BIG thank you for recommending the film WHAT THE HEALTH. John and I watched it this afternoon and we are normally skeptics about a lot of things but this film convinced us to go vegan. We call ourselves vegetarians but have been eating yogurt, cheese, eggs and fish for years, but now NO MORE.
ReplyDeleteThe interviews with the CEOs of the Cancer, Heart and Diabetes organizations blew my mind. We are in our late 70s, both cancer-survivors, and now in very good condition and we want to continue to be so into our 80s (and 90s, hopefully). I am forwarding the film site info to many friends and family. I can't begin to thank you enough! XOXO Jan-Leanne
OMG Janet! Watching it in my spare time (in bits & pieces). But wow - just wow! Thank you so much for sharing.
ReplyDeleteAND, just have to add, since then I have only consumed ONE meat meal! Still cooking meat for the husband, but I think it's over for me now.
DeleteJanet, THANK YOU SO MUCH for recommending this film! I just watched Earthlings the other day as well, and there is no going back for me now! Both films explain so much about why humans are getting sicker - and it's all because of what we ingest. We don't think about what we put in our mouths - we are not taught this at all. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your fabulous recommendation!
DeleteOh my God!!! I oscillate between being disgusted and being terrified and utterly furious for being so gullible. How can these people sleep at night when they are responsible for a silent genocide? Thank you for sharing this!
ReplyDeleteSuch an important documentary!
ReplyDeleteI love your vegan recipes Janet. Have any new ones you can share?
We aren't going vegan, but eating a more plant based diet for health. A little fish and venison--but eliminating pork and beef - unless it's grass fed which I usually can't afford! We would like to eat more fish, but I will NOT eat fish that has been processed in China! I used to drink soy milk, but have read that soy has toxic properties and it blocks thyroid hormone, so I switched to unsweetened almond milk which I really like on my oats with fruit and coconut sugar.
ReplyDeleteI think it is important to stay objective.
ReplyDeleteRespectfully, this link
https://www.dietdoctor.com/health-review-robb-wolf?utm_source=Diet+Doctor+Newsletter&utm_campaign=50a05b23a5-Test&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_41db911777-50a05b23a5-466785657
Thanks for the heads up to watch this. Watched Forks Over Knives and thought I was convinced, but this was a real tipping point for me.
ReplyDelete