Forks Over Knives

This is a must see documentary! After hearing about this film from so many people I finally got a chance to sit down and watch it this weekend. Wow! It really drives home how unhealthy the American diet is by giving some starling statistics on where our national health stands in comparison with other nations, and perhaps most alarmingly, how drastically it has changed over a few short generations. The common thread seems to be the over abundance of animal products in our daily diet and meat in particular.

 My only pet peeve about this film is its scare tactic vegan slant that becomes annoyingly obvious towards the final half hour. I take that all with a grain of salt- its a shame that they had to go and mar an otherwise great film, however the overall message is still important and worth watching.

 I will say that I was afraid to eat anything for a day or so after watching the movie but I came to this conclusion regarding my personal feelings on vegetarian/ veganism: I am a firm believer in biology and believe that down to the core, we are the "human animal". I think much of our behavior can be traced back to "cave days" and cannot help but notice that we all have K9 teeth which in my opinion are there for a reason. Yes, we can subsist on an animal free diet, however, our own body is designed from the outward appearance of it to eat meat. Do I think the typical American diet has too much red meat-- yes. Going back to my "cave man" analogy, I'm sure there were periods when the hunt didn't turn out as well as everyone hoped and there was no wooly mammoth to bring back to the cave that month. ;)  My hunt to the grocery store is always successful on the other hand which is not what nature intended either. Everything in moderation and the truth is, eating meat with every meal is not moderation.  But I do not think the answer is to cut meat out entirely.

This back and forth argument in my mind regarding our meat eating habits solidified my view on where meat fits into my own families diet. It will always be there but maybe in a lesser role. Not every meal needs to incorporate an animal protein. Going vegetarian for a few meals a week is more reasonable and probably closer to what our body is designed for.

Watch the documentary yourself- see what conclusions you come to. It will make you think about food differently no matter what-- which is a great thing!