forks over knives

Saw a thought provoking film a couple of nights ago:  Forks over Knives.

About our food and health, and how you are what you eat (surprise!).  What's especially surprising, and enlightening, is the research that the two featured doctors (Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, now in their 70s) conducted and the ideas that have evolved.

 

Lots of compelling statistics, and simple to digest (no pun intended) engaging graphics.  Data is drawn from enormous statistical studies in China, Japan, Norway and the US.  The studies done in Hawaii are oddly familiar (my dad was a participant in one).

The short message is that degenerative diseases (heart disease, diabetes and cancer) can be arrested, controlled and even reversed by a diet of plant based whole foods. 

The featured demons are fast food, processed food, meat, sugars, dairy products.  Scary stats on the amount we ingest.  Through it all, the movie espouses a vegan diet, but stealthily.  Hardly a mention of "veganism".  No mention of animal rights.  And the barest touch on the environmental and social consequences of the typical western diet.  It focuses on health.  Your health.  Our health.  Smart move.

Not all of this is well received.  Opposing perspectives by Connie B. Diekman, MEd, RD, FADA (Director of Nutrition at Washington University, and former president of the American Dietetic Association) and David Klurfeld, Ph.D. (USDA's National Program Leader for Human Nutrition) are given airtime but hardly compelling.  Doesn't help that Connie looks like her nutrition should be examined.
 

A review by Rex Reed in the New York Observer (rex reed ny observer review) is off-putting but his synopsis is really pretty good.  And the corrective comments to his on-line post are hilarious in their brevity.   For all the bitterness in the article and his admission of guilty eating, its funny that Rex was compelled to post a photo of Dr. Esselstyn's hunky son.



So we did our first foray into it last night.  After much discussion, and lots of time on the web searching for recipes, we made buckwheat noodle salad with apple-ume-ginger vinegrette dressing, asparagus bisque, and tofu-rice burgers with honey glaze.  Surprise!  Tasty as all get out.  And the best part:  clean cleanup.  No grease splatters on the stove or plates.  Yay! 

As a first pass, it was a great success.  We have more ideas about presentation and variations. (E.g. soba would have looked better atop the greens.)  It will be a struggle.  We are acknowledged omnivores and only recently cut back on our meat consumption for health concerns.  Frying is frowned upon, and fish is a fave, but that's another problem and another post.



In the meantime.  The movie has opened nationwide.  Look for it.  See the possibilities.  Certainly has its biases and no end of criticisms can be leveled against it, but its value is in revealing possibilities and an alternate path.  Don't need to become a true believer and re-born as a vegan.

Go ahead, see it.