Last weekend we had the amazing opportunity to go to a screening of the documentary "Forks Over Knives" and to hear Dr. Campbell speak in person.
This movie is tremendous.
It focuses on the very real and clinically proven health benefits of eating a plant-based diet. The movie came out of the work of Dr. T. Colin Campbell, a nutritional scientist from Cornell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, a top surgeon and head of the Breast Cancer Task Force at the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic.
What is amazing about this movie - and what elicited gasps throughout from the audience - is the factual proof and connections between eating animal-based food and the major health implications they cause.
We are not talking anecdotal results, but rather proven by huge research studies, under the care of the most respected and top ranking doctors and scientists, that issues like cancer, heart disease and diabetes can be stopped and EVEN REVERSED just by switching to a plant-based diet.
This is not a movie that is showing you images of animal conditions or factory farming, although there is a bit of that, but rather it focuses on people and their evolving health and lifestyle.
For many, if not most people, in this country this is a huge concern. Their health and the health of their children are at risk from the way they are eating now. There is a lot of crappy but cheap and available food shoved at you every second of every day no matter where you go. This movie shows the connections to how this is hurting us.
Dr. Campbell spoke and answered questions after the movie. This man is in his 80s and still runs and is 110% there mentally.
He spoke to how the issue is NOT the way factory farming is done that creates the issues, because their studies were done with grass-fed animals (factory farming conditions just makes it even worse). That you can essentially "turn-on" and "turn-off" cancer production by eliminating meat, eggs, and especially dairy. That we could reduce our country's health costs by 75%-80% just by making this change.
While we switched to a vegan lifestyle for animal compassion reasons, health and environmental concerns - and benefits - were also in our minds. There is heart disease and cancer in our family backgrounds. I don't want to eat myself into a heart attack at 50-something, you know?
It was interesting to see how influenced people were by the movie. You could really tell that they were impacted by the message. I hope they were inspired to go home and really think about making a change in their lives, for their lives.
Their are screenings currently being held around the country. You can go to the site to see if there is one in your area or how to have a showing in your area. The movie is coming out in March 2011. I've very excited and hopeful to see a wave of people taking control of their health and wanting to make this positive change.
