Dietitians in every single place launch a collective sigh each time Netflix releases a diet documentary, and with good motive: traditionally, these docs are filled with bias, dangerous information, 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 alternative, 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 Assessment 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 research, which was simply printed on the finish of 2023, used 22 pairs of twins to find out the cardiometabolic results of a vegan weight-reduction plan versus an omnivore weight-reduction plan.
Twins are genetically equivalent, which afforded researchers the uncommon alternative to realize beneficial perception into how every weight-reduction plan might affect one twin versus the opposite. In line with Christopher Gardner, diet scientist and one of many research’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 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 research, 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 elements are upcoming.
You Are What You Eat Netflix Assessment
In Episode One among You Are What You Eat, we meet among the specialists that had been concerned within the research, together with 4 units of the research’s twins.
Within the first 4 weeks, every twin is randomized to both a vegan or omnivore weight-reduction plan. All the pieces they eat is made for them and delivered, so there’s no guesswork, and researchers can management all the things about every weight-reduction plan. Each diets had been deemed to be ‘wholesome’ by scientists.
After the primary 4 weeks, the twins stay on their assigned weight-reduction plan, however are left to cook dinner their very own meals.
The twins even have a coach, who they work out often with.
It was simple to see the place this documentary was going when Dr. Michael Greger, physician and identified promoter of a vegan weight-reduction plan, pops up on the display. He was additionally in The Sport Changers and What The Well being, each Netflix documentaries whose overarching message was selling a plant-based weight-reduction plan and mainly scaring individuals 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 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 threat 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 Weight-reduction plan’ (in response to the CDC it’s coronary heart illness, really, however there are various 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 ‘knowledgeable’ who’s clearly biased to in direction of a vegan weight-reduction plan. I’ve nothing towards the vegan weight-reduction plan, after all, however in a documentary, it’s all the time good to signify each side of an argument.
I stored ready for somebody with out a plant-based agenda to be revealed as an knowledgeable, however SPOILER: I used to be dissatisfied.
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 way to create a balanced vegan plate. whereas speaking about meals apartheid for African Individuals in city centres.
This can be a actually beneficial 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 like an advert for a vegan weight-reduction plan.
We be taught 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 slightly injured hen and contaminated ponds.
Dr. Greger pops in to inform us that extra antibiotics are fed to cattle than are utilized in all of human drugs to advertise development and forestall illness in a irritating, unhygienic surroundings. ‘Lifesaving, important 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 development promotion and illness prevention (right here and right here)
Ought to the common individual be involved?
I’m unsure, as a result of we had been solely introduced with one aspect of the argument. The common individual will in all probability take that unchallenged aspect as reality, which is problematic. I might have preferred to listen to from an unbiased farmer and scientist about this, and about, nicely, all the 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 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 Not possible Meals, who tells us that ‘each time you eat a steak, slightly puff of smoke goes up within the Amazon. That smoke is the ‘second hand smoke out of your burger.’
George Monbiot, an creator, journalist and environmental activist tells us how the meat trade is mainly 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 believed these quantity appeared a bit bizarre, so I went searching for 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 individuals realized the complete horrors of salmon farming they’d keep away from it just like the proverbial plague.’
Hyperbole appears to be one in every of You Are What You Eat’s nice strengths.
We see Don telling the twins how firms dye their fish pink to cover the truth that it’s farmed. He says that this synthetic colour 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 much fattier than pizza and bacon. And, lest you consider that farmed salmon accommodates 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 wonderfully 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 pictures 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 abilities, this makes me very suspicious of their information.
As slightly sidebar, Eric Adams, the Mayor of New York, talks about how weight-reduction plan reversed his diabetes with Entire Meals Plant Based mostly weight-reduction plan. He tells us that his endocrinologist didn’t find out about weight-reduction plan and diabetes in medical college, so he took issues into his personal fingers.
I discover the ‘docs don’t know in regards to the worth of weight-reduction plan’ tactic to be a very disappointing, lazy solution to flip individuals towards typical drugs and suggestions.
What did the Stanford Twins research discover?
After all the effort, did the Twins research end result favor a vegan weight-reduction plan?
It did, in some methods.
As you may see within the graphic beneath, the vegan twins had a higher 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 truth, the one metrics that had been vital between the 2 teams had been LDL-C, insulin, and weight, though each teams misplaced weight.
It’s vital to notice that the research was quick and small, and the themes had been predominantly ladies. The second week was not managed, so theoretically, every group may have strayed from their diets in weeks 5-8, confounding the outcomes. We additionally haven’t any longer-term follow-up.
As a dietitian, my suggestions gained’t change due to this documentary. Eat as many crops as you may. Purchase what you may 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, briefly:
You Are What You Eat is a basic 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-reduction plan, I believe 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 determination? Isn’t that what a documentary needs to be about?
The one a part of You Are What you Eat that I believed 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 best.
Let’s do away with these diet and weight-reduction plan tendencies in 2024. Learn right here.
