Dietitians in every single place launch a collective sigh each time Netflix releases a diet documentary, and with good purpose: traditionally, these docs are stuffed with bias, dangerous information, and sensationalism…none of which really helps anybody take change of their well being.
Like I at all times say, misinformation doesn’t empower anybody. Simply the other, really.
Once I heard that You Are What You Eat was directed by the identical one who directed The Sport Changers, I knew I wanted to look at and evaluate it.
Learn my Sport Changers Assessment right here.
On this You Are What You Eat evaluate, I check out Netflix’s newest diet documentary.
The doc focuses on the execution of the Stanford Twins Research. This 8-week examine, which was simply printed 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 similar, which afforded researchers the uncommon alternative to achieve invaluable perception into how every weight loss plan could affect one twin versus the opposite. In accordance with Christopher Gardner, diet scientist and one of many examine’s investigators, people reply in a different way 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 proper 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 wanting peoples’ organic clock, physique composition, microbiome, and mind. The precise examine, which I discuss within the final a part of this evaluate, doesn’t point out the microbiome, mind, or organic clock. I’m questioning if these elements are upcoming.
You Are What You Eat Netflix Assessment
In Episode Considered one of You Are What You Eat, we meet a number of the consultants that had 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. All the pieces they eat is made for them and delivered, so there’s no guesswork, and researchers can management all the pieces about every weight loss plan. Each diets had 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 recurrently 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 principally scaring individuals about consuming animal merchandise.
I’ve talked about Dr. Greger in my writing earlier than, primarily calling him out for twisting details and blowing up claims to go well with 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 loss of life within the US is the American Food plan’ (based on the CDC it’s coronary heart illness, really, however there are numerous elements that contribute to this), and what we put in our mouth is extra vital than anything.
That is basic Greger, making claims which can be overblown and completely with out nuance.
Dr. Michael Greger
We additionally meet a ‘plant based mostly 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 the earth didn’t eat meat and dairy, besides in very small quantities if in any respect.’
Once more, now we have an ‘skilled’ who’s clearly biased to in the direction of a vegan weight loss plan. I’ve nothing towards the vegan weight loss plan, in fact, however in a documentary, it’s at all times good to characterize each side of an argument.
I stored ready for somebody with out a plant-based agenda to be revealed as an skilled, however SPOILER: I used to be upset.
Because the documentary progresses, we find out about 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 the right way to create a balanced vegan plate. whereas speaking about meals apartheid for African Individuals in city centres.
This can be a actually invaluable 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 tips committee, and the way agricultural lobbyists affect the verbiage within the tips. That is additionally an issue, and the explanation why Well being Canada refused to have meals trade on the desk when growing the newest meals tips.
The remainder of You Are What You Eat, sadly, looks as if an advert for a vegan weight loss plan.
We be taught in regards to the animal agriculture trade. We’re taken inside manufacturing facility 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 a bit 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 development and stop illness in a tense, unhygienic setting. ‘Lifesaving, important medicine 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 development promotion and illness prevention (right here and right here)
Ought to the common individual be involved?
I’m undecided, as a result of we had been solely offered with one aspect of the argument. The typical individual will most likely take that unchallenged aspect as reality, which is problematic. I might have favored to listen to from an unbiased farmer and scientist about this, and about, properly, the whole documentary.
We hear a hen farmer who clearly hates what he does, discuss how disgusting the odor and filth of the hen barn is. That birds are bred to have such giant breasts, that their organs and skeletal system can’t sustain. The birds scratch one another, leaving wounds which can be 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, a bit 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 principally killing the planet. ‘the agricultural trade is among the best 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 seemed a bit bizarre, so I went on the lookout for the stats.
Seems, the EPA has some totally different numbers:
Transferring 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 individuals realized the complete horrors of salmon farming they’d keep away from it just like the proverbial plague.’
Hyperbole appears to be certainly one of You Are What You Eat’s nice strengths.
We see Don telling the twins how corporations dye their fish crimson to cover the truth that it’s farmed. He says that this synthetic shade 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 incorporates wholesome fat, he offers 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 exhibits us disturbing photographs of diseased fish. She claims that greater than 98% of the samples fish she purchased in supermarkets and sushi eating places had been contaminated with a salmon blood virus, though she admits that there’s no analysis on how these pathogens affect 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 individuals pushing an agenda. As somebody with important pondering expertise, this makes me very suspicious of their details.
As a bit sidebar, Eric Adams, the Mayor of New York, talks about how weight loss plan reversed his diabetes with Entire Meals Plant Primarily based weight loss plan. He tells us that his endocrinologist didn’t find out about weight loss plan and diabetes in medical college, so he took issues into his personal arms.
I discover the ‘docs don’t know in regards to the worth of weight loss plan’ tactic to be a very disappointing, lazy solution to flip individuals towards typical medication and proposals.
What did the Stanford Twins examine discover?
After all the effort, did the Twins examine consequence 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 larger than the omnivores’.
In actual fact, the one metrics that had been important between the 2 teams had been LDL-C, insulin, and weight, though each teams misplaced weight.
It’s vital to notice that the examine was quick and small, and the topics had 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 haven’t 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 enable sufferers to make knowledgeable decisions that assist them to decide on which dietary strategy is most fitted for them.
At a inhabitants degree, wider adoption of a culturally acceptable dietary sample that’s larger in plant meals and decrease in animal meals can promote well being and environmental advantages.”
As a dietitian, my suggestions gained’t change due to this documentary. Eat as many crops as you possibly can. Purchase what you possibly can afford. Watch out for worry mongering ‘consultants’ who clearly have an agenda. Know that Netflix diet documentaries are low-bar and deceptive.
You Are What You Eat evaluate, briefly:
You Are What You Eat is a basic Netflix diet documentary, flawed from the start with clearly biased ‘consultants’ 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 choice? Isn’t that what a documentary ought to be about?
The one a part of You Are What you Eat that I assumed was easy, was the messaging round meals fairness. Till all sides are represented and all details are certified by a mixture of consultants, You Are What You Eat is sensationalized vegan propaganda at its very best.
Let’s eliminate these diet and weight loss plan tendencies in 2024. Learn right here.
