What the Health (2017) dir. Kip Andersen, Keegan Kuhn.
7.3/10
About the misconceptions we have about diet and health. Talks about the carcinogens in meat and dairy and how that influences health problems.
This makes me question the things I’ve naturally come to accept just because it is a popular thought. eg. milk is good for bones. Why would I have thought to reject that when everyone seemed to believe it? It didn’t affect me as much, because I don’t like milk, but it’s what I knew from childhood. What should we be questioning?
This pinpoints the negatives of meat, but I’m wondering what the positives of meat are now. Is meat this bad for people who are malnourished and need more food? And does the negatives outweigh the positives?
I like that he points out what happens when he got into contact with big organizations and their faults. It’s hard to blame the website details on the whole organization, because some people might just be doing their jobs and have no real power or have no need to question things just because they work there. But, I do see the issue with this for something so serious that is being represented. But, there is still the fact that this is a documentary that goes through biased editing and it really points to veganism. He brings in the fact that he read lots of research papers, but there definitely could be research papers that invalidate it to some degree. I don’t think I can make complete assumptions unless I do my own research, although I don’t know if I would. I can see both sides to the story. If there is evidence showing that meat is wrong, shouldn’t it be looked into if it is an organization that is focusing on health? But also, it’s easy to see that one’s views are already correct because it has been backed up by separate evidence. I just think more consideration needs to be taken to account which is what this documentary is trying to do, but you can’t disavow the positives. But, the part about sponsors did hit. Money can’t be raised without reason. This makes me think about how futile some efforts on climate change is. Little things can be done to make an overall wonderful impact, but society has too many things at risk.
It is rather scary to think that I don’t really know what I’m eating. I don’t know where it came from and what it went through and what it’s doing to me. I’m just eating. But, my issue comes from the fact that I don’t care and I just want to eat. But, I can say that considering that I’m currently healthy. A good argument brought up was that there are warnings on tobacco products, but not on this meat. I can see the effectiveness of that, because it may be a loss for them, but ultimately, the tobacco industry is still going strong. Is health not important?
I think it was better to have made this documentary than having not. But, it does attack something big and has reason for lots of criticism and backlash.
Interesting to see Joaquin Phoenix’s role in this.
I like how they mentioned that money is getting put into treatment rather than preventing health problems. Prevention is just as important, if not more! I think the plant based diets are a start to prevention, but isn’t an all curable answer. I love that they put in the parts about nutrition.
