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Planeat: eating plant-based diet heals the Earth

July 25, 2012 By

Can you heal the Earth with a plant-based diet? Planeat presents scientific research about the link between human diet and global warming. Shelley Lee Davies and Or Shlomi direct in their feature debut.

Gidon Eshel, geophysicist and Bard College professor, shares his research on how animal-based diets cause higher greenhouse gas emissions.

Planeat is now streaming at the film website, where the DVD is also available.

Ethics of food

“We say that however close you can be to a vegan diet and further from the mean American diet, the better you are for the planet,” Eshel notes about his study.

“It doesn’t have to be all the way to the extreme end of vegan. If you simply cut down from two burgers a week to one, you’ve already made a substantial difference.”

Eating an animal-based diet means encouraging practices like clear-cutting forests for cattle grazing. The average American diet releases 3.5 times more “reactive nitrogen” into the atmosphere than a plant-based diet, Eshel says.

Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton University, urges us not to wait for the government to make changes. We can make a huge difference just in the food we buy.

Heart health highlighted

Caldwell Esselstyn, researcher and clinician at the Cleveland Clinic and author of Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, talks about his 20-year research study. Eating meat, dairy and processed oils injure endothelial cells which line the heart, blood and lymph vessels, he found.

When Esselstyn’s chronically ill patients shifted to a plant-based diet, they stopped and reversed their heart disease. Our food paradigm will be transformed “in the next decade,” he believes.

Ann Esselstyn demonstrates the “hows” of veganism for Esselstyn’s patients as she makes vegan kale sandwiches and waffles. The couple’s son Rip is the author of The Engine 2 Diet.

Studying diet and disease

T. Colin Campbell, professor emeritus of nutritional chemistry at Cornell University, conducted The China Study, the most comprehensive, large nutritional study ever done. Subjects in rural China were studied over 20 years.

Campbell is shown teaching nutritional biochemistry and working on a farm plot. His views about diet changed completely since he grew up on a dairy farm, he says. The China Study shows a direct correlation between eating animal-based foods and the incidence of heart disease, cancer and diabetes.

Campbell acknowledges the great professional risks facing doctors and academic researchers who promote plant-based eating.

Embracing a new food view

Planeat is more quietly persuasive than similar documentaries as it encompasses the big picture: improving our health and the health of the Earth.

A number of vegan chefs talk about their food philosophy. Neal Harden, former executive chef at Pure Food and Wine in New York City, was trained in traditional French cuisine. He now focuses on making “colorful, vibrant” vegetable lasagna, biryani and sushi.

Chefs say their love of food is evolving as they make vegetables the central element on the plate.

Planeat’s website offers pages for recipes and activism.

If you like Planeat, you might enjoy:  Hungry for Change; Food Matters; Forks Over Knives.

 

Planeat  /   2011  /  NR  /  1 hour, 12 min

Cast Overview:  T. Colin Campbell, Caldwell Esselstyn, Gidon Eshel, Neal Harden, Yvonne O’Grady (narrator)

Directors: Shelley Lee Davies, Or Shlomi

Genres:  Documentary, Food, Nutrition, Healing

Filed Under: Awaken, Documentary, Heal, Healing - Traditional, Transformation Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Vegucated: three meat eaters take vegan challenge

June 15, 2012 By

Three meat eaters get Vegucated when they go vegan in this consciousness-raising documentary. The goal is to lose weight, look good and eat healthy. Marisa Miller Wolfson directs.

Animation and vintage film clips add pizzazz. Vegucated is now streaming at Amazon, iTunes and Vudu.

Three meat eaters on a mission

Tesla Lobo, a 22-year-old college student, lives with her parents in Queens, New York. Meat is ever-present at Lobo family dinners and celebrations. Tesla would like to lose weight.

Brian Flegel, a “bacon-loving, bartending bachelor” from California, wants to be an actor. Always on the go, he eats out frequently.

Ellen Mausner is a psychiatrist by day and stand-up comedian by night. A single mom raising her son and daughter, she has little time to cook. Ellen wants her whole family to develop healthy eating habits.

The trio learns that vegan nutrition includes vegetables, fruits, grains, beans, nuts and seeds. Many vegans don’t wear leather, fur, wool or silk.

Week 1: Check-ups

The three receive check-ups from family physician Dr. Joel Fuhrman (Eat to Live). They’ll be getting more nutrients and less calories as they begin eating green vegetables, berries, beans, eggplant, mushrooms and tomatoes.

On a vegan diet, “you can’t be overweight even if you overeat on these foods,” he tells them. The incidence of heart disease and cancer drop to almost zero for vegans, he adds.

Fuhrman introduces them to his patient Julia Spagnoli, who survived three heart attacks. She later lost 80 pounds as a vegan. At Fuhrman’s home, a chef serves the group vegan cream of pea soup and carrot cake.

No whey!

The director, who is a vegan, takes the group food shopping. They are happy to find that cookies and cereals are vegan as long as they contain no whey or other animal products. Soy yogurt and veggie burgers look appealing.

During week two, Wolfson takes Tesla and Ellen to one of New York City’s many vegan restaurants. Ellen is beginning to lose weight. She doesn’t feel tired after eating anymore. Tesla is feeling social pressure from family and friends to eat meat.

Meanwhile, Brian works out with vegan body builder Kenneth Williams, who gets his protein from spirulina, soy, tofu, tempe and seitan.

Living compassion

In the past 50 years, the world’s meat production has increased five-fold. If you want to continue eating meat, stop watching this film at Week 3.

The group watches undercover footage of the practices and conditions at meat and dairy processing plants. The images are horrific.

Tesla, Brian and Ellen are shaken. In tears, Tesla asks how such practices can be legal.  Most states have “common farming” exemptions which allow inhumane practices on animals being used for food and clothing.

Vegan nation: road trip

The group visits a small family egg farm. The chicks and hens don’t fare much better than those at large factory farms, they learn. They are given two “spent hens” which they bring to Ooh-Mah-Nee Farm Animal Sanctuary. Living free in the sunshine, the animals seem very happy.

The three attend Vegetarian Summerfest, where they hear T. Colin Campbell, professor emeritus of nutritional chemistry at Cornell University. Campbell conducted The China Study, considered the most comprehensive nutritional study ever conducted. It shows that eating animal foods is linked to increased cancer and heart disease.

With forests being destroyed for cattle grazing, many believe that it is beneficial for the future of the earth to adopt a plant-based diet.

Vacationing while vegan

Tesla visits relatives in New Orleans. Brian visits his mom and stepdad in New Hampshire. The two face skepticism from relatives about their food choices.

“I wish everybody I knew was vegan,” Tesla says. Ellen takes her kids to London, where they find some excellent vegan restaurants.

Animal advocate Moni Woweries reassures Tesla. Veganism is not a religion, she says, but a way to minimize suffering. “It’s not about being perfect,” Woweries adds. She suggests that Tesla attend a Vegan Meetup in New York City to find support and understanding.

Week 6: Medical results

The trio visits Dr. Fuhrman after six weeks. Tesla loses two pounds. Her blood pressure drops 20 points. Her bad cholesterol drops 26 points. Ellen loses 10 pounds. Her bad cholesterol drops by 20 points. Brian loses five pounds. His blood pressure drops by 30 points.

You can find veganism resources and action alerts at the film’s website.

Vegan legacy

You can make a difference by living consciously as a vegan, according to the film. Some famous vegetarians in history include Susan B. Anthony, Gandhi, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, Cesar Chavez and Gloria Steinem.

Albert Einstein became a vegetarian towards the end of his life. “Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet,” he said.

If you like Vegucated, you might enjoy:  To Your Health; Food Matters; Hungry for Change.

 

Vegucated  /   2010  /  NR  /  1 hour, 16 min

Cast Overview:  Tesla Lobo, Brian Flegel, Ellen Mausner, Marisa Miller Wolfson, Joel Fuhrman, Julia Spagnoli, Kenneth Williams, Jayson Tracy, Cayce Mell, T. Colin Campbell, Stephen Kaufman, Howard Lyman, Milton Mills, Jasmin Singer

Director: Marisa Miller Wolfson

Genres:  Documentary, Health, Nutrition, Vegan

Filed Under: Change of heart, Compassion, Current Affairs, Documentary, Heal, Healing - Traditional, Learn & Grow Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

To Your Health: plant-based eats and healthy fun

June 8, 2012 By

To Your Health explores the health benefits and fun of plant-based eating. Food is the best medicine, according to Julieanna Hever, The Plant-Based Dietician: “I want the world to know that you can be healthy and it’s so easy.”

Hever’s energy and enthusiasm is compelling as she interviews whole food, plant-based nutrition icons. She also visits a farmer’s market, meets with restaurant owners, and tours a farm animal sanctuary.

To Your Health is now available at their website. Jesse Pomeroy directs.

Walking her talk

Fascinated by food, Hever (The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition) tried every diet until she began “eating close to nature.”

Many of the doctors interviewed, including Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn Jr. (Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease), have helped patients stop and reverse heart disease, cancer, diabetes, lupus and other diseases by adopting plant-based nutrition.

The protein myth

How do vegetarians get enough protein? The human body requires about 2.5% of its calories from protein, according to Dr. Pam Popper, Naturopath and founder of The Wellness Forum. “The average person in the U.S. consumes 18% of their calories from protein.”

“Americans have been taking in too much protein,” says Dr. Joel Furman (Eat to Live). Studies demonstrate that animal protein promotes heart disease and cancer, he says. Plant-based eating gives our bodies the right amount of protein.

The protein in plant food is enough, says Dr. T. Colin Campbell, author of The China Study and hailed as the father of modern nutrition. Plant proteins yield “maybe thousands of antioxidants” and other nutrients.

Strawberries contain 700 nutrients, and broccoli contains 900 nutrients, says Fuhrman. “In other words we need what nature put in real food.” “Nature’s had a few million years to fashion who we are,” Campbell notes.

Corporate food sets agenda

“The information that people get about nutrition is influenced by economic forces that run this country,” Fuhrman says. For example, The American Dietetic Association receives funding from the dairy industry.

“The food pyramid that was supplied by the meat and dairy industry free to schools. . . . It looks like it’s fact, but it’s fantasy,” says Mike Anderson, director of Eating and author of The RAVE Diet and Lifestyle. “The misinformation out there is just, just huge,” he adds.

The calcium-veg connection

Milk is the “worst thing” for our bones, Hever tells an audience. Why? Dairy is high in protein and sodium, and has an acidotic effect on the body. These properties actually leach calcium out of bones, she says.

Popper explains that with high acid-load foods, “the skeleton dissolves itself to neutralize the acidity.” She notes that “the more milk you drink the more fractures you get, the more calcium you leach.”

Dr. John McDougall (The McDougall Program) comments, “No one can say that a starch-based diet with fruits and vegetables is deficient in protein or amino acids or calcium.”

Hever lists the best plant sources of calcium: leafy green vegetables like kale and cabbage; broccoli; unhulled sesame seeds; tofu (when set in calcium), and blackstrap molasses.

 

Supplements: pro and con

Thirty years of research proves that nutrient supplements provide only short-term benefits, says Campbell. “They don’t work,” he concludes. Pricey supplements are often unnecessary, Hever suggests.

A supplement is “an isolated, concentrated nutrient” that will create imbalances, says McDougall. Some supplements can increase the risk of heart disease, cancer and death, he adds.

Hever confirms with several experts that vegetarians do need to take Vitamins D and B12. McDougall admits that Vitamin C, iron and iodine can benefit patients when needed.

Food addictions: the “pleasure trap”

Food manufacturers add chemicals to food to make us crave more and more, says Dr. Alan Goldhamer (The Health Promoting Cookbook). Oil, sugar and salt enhance our perception of pleasure. “People literally become trapped by pleasure when they artificially stimulate dopamine in the brain rather than naturally stimulate it,” he says. “The result is we become fat, sick and miserable.”

“We’re a society that is over-fed yet under-nourished,” says vegan Ironman Brendan Brazier, author of The Thrive Diet. “It’s because the food we eat has very few nutrients in it.”

If sugar and caffeine were discovered today, they would be classified as controlled substances because they are so addictive, according to Chef AJ, author of Unprocessed.

 

Food industry spoils

Some $14 billion in direct subsidies, and more indirect subsidies, go to the U.S. meat and dairy industries every year. This has made us “a nation of sickly, obese and diseased people,” Anderson declares.

“When you’re buying butter and cheese and milk, our tax dollar has been spent to make those products less expensive compared to fruits and vegetables,” he says.

“So that makes a pound of hamburger much cheaper than a pound of raspberries, and that’s nuts because hamburger’s one of the most resource-intensive foods on the planet. It’s very expensive to make,” Anderson notes.

“What you have in the food industry is the closest thing to socialism in this country because they are interfering,” he adds.

Four new food groups emerge

Educating ourselves is important, say plant-based nutrition proponents. It’s time to embrace four new food groups – vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes – says Dr. Neal Barnard of the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine.

“I think dieticians and physicians are on the verge of changing,” says McDougall. “Otherwise they’re going to become extinct.”

“There’s nothing in medicine, not even close, that has the same power to make people well as does nutrition,” Campbell emphasizes.

If you like To Your Health, you might enjoy:   Forks Over Knives.

 

To Your Health  /   2011  /  NR  /  49 min

Cast Overview:  Julieanna Hever, T. Colin Campbell, Joel Fuhrman, John McDougall, Pam Popper, Neil Barnard, Caldwell Esselstyn, Mike Anderson, Brendan Brazier, Chef AJ, Kevin Boylan

Director: Jesse Pomeroy

Genres:  Documentary, Health, Nutrition, Vegan

Filed Under: Awaken, Documentary, Heal, Healing - Traditional Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hungry for Change: love, vegetables boost healthy weight loss

March 27, 2012 By

Love yourself and your vegetables to lose weight, according to Hungry for Change. James Colquhoun and Laurentine ten Bosch direct this bold sequel to Food Matters.

Hungry for Change is now streaming and you can watch the first 20 minutes for free at their website.

Secrets of radiant health

“If we had a rampant epidemic of self-love then our health care costs would go down dramatically,” says Dr. Christiane Northrup, New York Times bestselling author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom.

Forget diets. Forget the protein – fat – carbohydrate balancing act. Love and plant nutrition send your body the right signals for safe, effective weight loss.

The nutritionists-turned-filmmakers interview medical doctors, nutritionists and authors who have reversed cancer, obesity and more. Exciting insights about genuine nourishment are shared.

Why diets don’t work

One-third of all women and one-fourth of all men in the U.S. are on a diet. Yet 68% of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, says the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Some 95% of dieters not only regain weight, but add additional pounds, according to a UCLA study. Why?

The body is trying to protect you from what it perceives as “famine,” according to author and weight loss authority Jon Gabriel. Gabriel dieted constantly yet kept gaining weight. He once weighed over 400 pounds.

Finally he began to eat nutrient-rich vegetables and whole foods. He stopped depriving himself. He lost 220 pounds over two and a half years. “The whole dieting paradigm is flawed,” Gabriel notes. “We’re violating our body’s basic survival laws over and over again.” He created the Gabriel Method, a diet-free weight loss system.

“Keep the focus always on adding,” Gabriel advises. “The best strategy we’ve got is, add in the good stuff,” says nutritionist and raw foods expert David Wolfe. “Inevitably, you’re going to feel so much better eating the good stuff that the choice for the bad stuff is no longer valid.”

Make peace with your body

“If you’re not getting the specific nutrients your body needs in a way that they can digest and assimilate, then you’re starving on a nutritional basis,” Gabriel explains.

Most people are “chronically starved of nutrients, so they keep eating and eating and eating, but the foods that they keep eating don’t have enough of these nutrients,” says Daniel Vitalis, wild foods and natural medicine expert.

Eating natural foods is vital, says Gabriel. “As long as you’re taking in more toxins than you’re eliminating, your body’s not going to let you burn fat, because burning the fat will just put more toxins into your body.”

“The body only wants to heal,” says Jason Vale, author of 7 lbs in 7 Days Super Juice Diet. “Only the body can detoxify itself provided there’s no toxicity coming in,” he emphasizes.

Food additives engineered for addiction

Processed foods have been engineered with chemicals that give you a temporary boost but leave you craving more, experts say. “If you addict a customer, you have a customer for life,” says Gabriel.

Monosodium glutamate (MSG) and free glutamates are used to enhance flavor in 80% of all processed foods. They only make us want to eat more, Gabriel notes. “MSG excites the brain, and due to that excitation your body activates the fat programs and gets fatter. Everybody knows this! Scientists know this, everybody knows this and nobody is saying anything.”

Sugar lurks in many processed foods, from crackers to sushi. “Sugar is a drug just like alcohol,” says Northrup. Addicts soon need more sugar to achieve the same high.

Mike Adams, health journalist and editor of NaturalNews.com, cautions that “eating high fructose corn syrup, in my view, is a lot like snorting cocaine. It is the highly refined, isolated, chemically manipulated inversion of something that’s found in corn.”

Think before you eat, drink

Too many calories, not enough nutrients and not enough exercise pose a triple threat, says Adams. These factors “create an obesity epidemic, they create a low energy epidemic, they create a fog in cognition,” says Wolfe.

Diet colas are especially dangerous, warns Northrup. The combination of caffeine and aspartame create excitotoxins that kill brain cells after a buzz of excitement. Research studies also suggest that artificial sweeteners contribute to weight gain, says the Yale Journal of Biology.

Beware of “fat free” foods

Vale cautions, “Fat free normally means it’s loaded with sugar.” “It is not fat that makes you fat,” Northrup insists. “It’s sugar that makes you fat” because the body converts sugar into fat.

Harmful chemicals found in our foods are lipophilic, or fat loving. They are stored away in fat cells to protect us.

Exercise without cleansing and detoxifying is dangerous, warns Dr. Alejandro Junger, New York Times bestselling author of Clean. It leaves behind fat-soluble toxins which will harm the body.

Foods that detoxify the body

Vitalis suggests a diet rich in green vegetables. “You don’t have to do very much. Just eat gentle foods, be out in nature, and the body will cleanse itself.” Gelatinous foods like chia seeds, aloe vera and seaweeds will bind and absorb toxins as they move through the digestive system. They help cleanse the liver as they remove fat-soluble toxins.

Adams notes that parsley is excellent for cleansing the blood. Cilantro binds with heavy metals in the body and removes them.

Dr. Joseph Mercola, New York Times bestselling author and osteopathic physician, drinks a quart of vegetable juice a day, the equivalent of 6 to 8 servings of vegetables. “Most people are not getting enough,” he notes. Good vegetables help us obtain “the full range of phytonutrients and antioxidants and everything that you need to stay healthy.”

Dramatic results

Evita Ramparte, a health journalist diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2000, began drinking raw vegetable juices. Four months later she was cancer free. Joe Cross, director of Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, says that when he adopted juicing and a plant-based diet, he began to turn his life around within two weeks.

Kris Carr, director of Crazy Sexy Cancer, was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in 2003 at age 31. Today she is a “cancer thriver” and best-selling author espousing a raw foods diet.

“Step one was just going back and understanding, ‘How do I take care of myself?’” she says. “That comes back to what you eat, what you drink and what you think.”

Loving self and others essential

Frank Ferrante, the star of May I Be Frank?, says that “love for myself and love for other people” was the most crucial factor in his weight loss.

Mindful eating, with reverence for self and nature, is key. Adams asks, “Where does my food come from? What went into the food? What is my intention for the food?” (5 out of 5 stars)

If you like Hungry for Change, you might enjoy:  Food Matters; Forks Over Knives; May I Be Frank.

 

Hungry for Change  /   2012  /  NR  /  1 hour, 29 min

Cast Overview:  Christiane Northrup, Jon Gabriel, David Wolfe, Daniel Vitalis, Jason Vale, Mike Adams, Alejandro Junger, Joseph Mercola, Evita Ramparte, Joe Cross, Kris Carr, Frank Ferrante,

Directors: James Colquhoun and Laurentine ten Bosch

Genres:  Documentary, Health, Nutrition

Filed Under: Awaken, Current Affairs, Documentary, Heal, Healing - Traditional, Nature and Science, Top Films, True Stories Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Food Matters: go vegetarian and raw to get healthy, empowered

March 16, 2012 By

Vegetarian and raw foods promote healthier, empowered people, according to Food Matters. James Colquhoun and Laurentine ten Bosch direct this documentary that challenges “a pill for every ill.”

Good nutrition is relatively cheap, simple, safe and effective, the film says. Plant-based nutrition and vitamins, along with modern medicine and health-savvy government policy, can help. Food Matters is now available on DVD or via Netflix.

An epidemic of “What would happen if everybody ate lots and lots of fresh, organic food that’s minimally processed?” asks Andrew Saul, the therapeutic nutritional specialist. “I think we’d have an epidemic of health!”

Better health would lead to less reliance on pharmaceutical drugs and expensive surgery. “One of the few free choices a person has is what they will or will not eat,” says Saul.

The film’s website features juice, superfood and raw recipes, along with updates on nutrition.

Nutritional science meets clinical medicine

“Optimum nutrition is the medicine of tomorrow,” said Linus Pauling, who won two Nobel Prizes. Nutritional pioneer Max Gerson “showed that vitamins and especially large quantities of fresh vegetable juices and organic foods would help to reverse cancer. Gerson had about a 50% cure rate with terminally ill patients. That’s extremely high,” Saul adds.

The Gerson Therapy “activates the body’s extraordinary ability to heal itself through an organic, vegetarian diet, raw juices, coffee enemas and natural supplements,” according to the Gerson Institute’s website. Graphic before-and-after images of Gerson Therapy patients are shown.

True healing

“The health system is a disease-care system,” says Ian Brighthope, M.D., who pioneered Australia’s first post-graduate medical course in nutrition. U.S. medical schools offer students little or no training in nutrition.

Charlotte Gerson recalls her father’s words: “It’s the doctor’s duty to activate and re-activate the body’s own healing mechanism. Then the patient’s healed. It doesn’t matter what you call the disease.”

“You nourish the body and then the body fixes it,” according to Saul. “Vitamins enable the body to heal itself.”

Good nutrition defined

Superfoods have an “extraordinary quality” of vitamins, minerals, co-factors, enzymes and chemicals that can prolong life, says raw food authority David Wolfe.

What are some of these foods? Raw honey. Wheatgrass. Spirulina. Echinacea. Cacao. Coconut. Noni. Bee pollen. Kombu. Kelp. The list goes on.

New ways, new basics

With cancer, heart disease, stroke and dementia rates rising, says investigative journalist Phillip Day, “clearly the old ways aren’t working and we need a fresh paradigm and we need to go back to basics.”

Medicine has made tremendous advances in critical care, infant mortality and the like, Day adds, yet it fails to prevent disease.

Transforming food habits

“Good health makes a lot of sense, but it doesn’t make a lot of dollars,” Saul quips. Widespread good health would require transforming our economy.

“The drug industry is a half trillion dollar a year world-wide conglomerate,” he explains. “Almost $3 billion just in North America. This is really, really big business.”

Health-hungry consumers rule

“If we change our food choices, we change agriculture,” Wolfe says. Transforming corn-wheat-soy diets into superfood, organic and raw food diets would create demand for the new foods.

“When we choose organic, raw, plant-based foods we take our power back and we decide that we are going to have quality,” Wolfe says.

A diet of just 51% raw foods, Wolfe says, would prevent leucocytosis, an immune system response to cooked foods.

Losing nutrition

Conventional fertilizers don’t replace the 52 minerals in healthy soil, Gerson points out. “When the soil is deficient, the plants are also deficient and weakened. They lose their defenses,” leading to pesticide use.

“If we eat just commercial vegetarian food, we get deficient, toxic food,” Gerson concludes.

When food is shipped thousands of miles regardless of season, it loses nutrients. The nutritional value of week-old supermarket produce drops to 40% “if you’re lucky,” says holistic dentist Victor Zeines.

The cancer business  

The American Medical Association admits that less than 30% survive using chemotherapy – surgery – radiation. “More than 70% of them die. That is just not acceptable,” says Dan Rogers, M.D.

“Let’s face it, if cancer disappeared tomorrow, millions of people would have to retrain,” says Day. “This is a $200 billion a year industry.”

Health centers licensed by the Gerson Institute are located in Mexico and Hungary. It is illegal in most countries to treat cancer patients with nutritional therapy. “The legal treatments in these countries are surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy,” Food Matters tells us.

Healthcare debate

“There’s a lot of debate over how we should finance and change, provide healthcare to everyone in the United States,” Saul says. “Is the solution to simply give them access to a system that doesn’t work very well? Or would it be a good idea to teach them how to be healthy?”

“I think they need education, not medication,” he concludes.

Taking responsibility

Take responsibility for your own health, Saul urges. “Why not be healthy and happy? You change your life, you do some exercise, you eat right, you feel better.”

Pay attention to how you feel after eating, Wolfe recommends. “I feel very strongly that the best doctor in the world, the best nutritionist in the world, is you.” (5 out of 5 stars)

If you like Food Matters, you might enjoy:  May I Be Frank; Dirt! The Movie; The Beautiful Truth; Hungry for Change.

 

Food Matters  /   2008  /  NR  /  1 hour, 20 min

Cast Overview:  Andrew Saul, Ian Brighthope, Charlotte Gerson, David Wolfe, Phillip Day, Victor Zeines, Dan Rogers

Directors: James Colquhoun and Laurentine ten Bosch

Genres:  Documentary, Health, Nutrition

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Documentary, Heal, Healing - Traditional, Transformation Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,