A Must See: Forks Over Knives

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.

Please, help my friends...

Inspired by the Oscar-winning feature documentary THE COVE, stars from film, TV and music band together to help save Japan's dolphins. Please sign the petition and help us get the word out, http://www.takepart.com/thecove

Becoming the "Less Impact Fam(ily)"

I am a fan of self-improvement.  I love to learn and experiment and explore.  I read a lot, I try new things, I refuse to stagnate.  One of my relaxation treats is to watch documentaries.  Lately they have been on food (Food, Inc., Future of Food, King Corn, Earthlings), social and cultural issues and environmentalism.  These have always been some of my favorite topics so it was great to watch No Impact Man which combines all of these topics.

What is so neat about watching this movie is that I had read the No Impact Man blog during the time he was embarking on this "experiment".  If you aren't familiar with the blog or the movie, Colin embarked on a year-long trial with his wife and child to see how little they could impact the earth.  This means they tried to only eat locally, cut out trash, stopped using chemical cleaners, phased out electricty and got around using their own two feet, bicycles or scooter.

The documentary had an inspirational influence on me.  We do our best here to lighten our load on the environment. We're vegan for starters, which does create a huge reduction but we also try to be good about the recycling, reusable bags, making stuff from scratch a lot and only one of us commutes to work.  We have a high efficiency washer & dryer and only do about 6 loads a month.  We haven't used a dishwasher in 10 years. So all that isn't bad to start.  But after watching the documentary, we're inspired to try and push ourselves to do a bit more.

So, what are we going to put into place?  Well...

 - Eliminate eating out, especially take out, unless we're going out for a social occassion with friends or family

 - Reduce/Eliminate food packaging by buying in bulk, making stuff on our own (granola for cereal, bread, tomato sauce, almond milk, veggie/bean burgers, etc.) and freezing or storing it in reusable containers. Bring our own reusable bags for shopping and bulk and produce buying.

 - Remove our names from all catalogs and ask our banks and bills to go paperless.

 - Stop buying commercial cleansers and make ours from natural options including borax, castile soap, baking soda and vinegar

 - Use up all of our current stock of food items and personal care items before buying more

 - Stop using paper towels (except for pet messes) and swiffer cloths. Instead use sponges and cloth towels, cloth napkins and broom, dust pan and steam mop

 - Cut down our overall consuption (HUGE issue!)

 - Borrow or barter before buying

 - Attempt to reuse/refill packaging before recycling

 - Sell or donate items that are just taking up physical and mental space.  If they are not getting actively used they need to go.

 - Low energy evenings.  This means turing out the lights and turning off the TV/games at dusk.  We will relax, read, etc.  We don't need or want so much sensory input all the time.

 - Hold out on turning on the AC or heaters.  It's cool in the house now with the windows open, the fans on and the attic fan on.  It was above 80 degrees today and we still felt okay in the house.  Our goal is to see how long we can go into May before it gets too warm inside.

 - Create and maintain our garden.  Keep composting but do more such as using our bean soaking water to water the plants.

 - Buy most of our produce from the farmer's market.  We pretty much do this any ways but we want to be better about eating seasonally.

 - Install a clothes line to dry some of our laundry

 - Work on house projects we have the stuff for but have been putting off.

The Pacific Trash Vortex

It seems like a lot but I don't think it will be that difficult.  These are all things we like and want to do but we just have not sat down and decided to to do them.  We have a few things we need to put into place, like the clothing line and some window fans, but these are all doable. 

We'll keep you informed with what's working and what isn't.  What are something you would like to do or suggest to us?

Documentary Review: King Corn

On the weekends I like to watch documentaries. There are so many great ones (and some crummy ones) out there and I like to learn. So I'm going to start incorporating some to share with you.

Today I watched King Corn, and per the trailer summary it is about:

King Corn tells the story of two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation. As the film unfolds, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America's most-productive, most-ubiquitous grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they learn raises questions about how we eat—and how we farm.

Some snippets I took away from this:

- Rancher says- no grass, cheap feed, confinement lots means cows are "market weight" & killed in 5 months vs years.

- Rancher: America wants and demands cheap food.

- Professor: ground beef isn't really meat. It's fat disguised as meat.

- Predominantly the food/corn grown is to feed... Cattle. Which actually is fatal to them.

- HFCS, obviously, was created and is so prevalent because the government pays farmers to grow an excess of corn. This started in the 1970s.

- Our agricultural yield "improvements" have degraded the nutritional aspect. Basically we're growing acres of sweetener not food

- 1 in 8 New Yorkers have diabetes (many undiagnosed) much if this contributed to soda consumption

- 1 soda a day doubles your risk of developing diabetes.

- "We subsidize the Happy Meals but we don't subsidize the healthy foods"

The more I learn about the food supply and government subsidies, the more appalled I am.

Learn more:

King Corn site - http://www.kingcorn.net/

King Corn YouTube Channel

More free documentaries - http://www.freedocumentaries.org/

A Disconnect

As we have made the switch from a better than average, but still somewhat typical American diet, we've made an effort to educate ourselves on the food we eat. Growing up I ate a lot of meat, eggs and dairy like most people. But in general, I felt I ate better than most. I never drank coffee, I stopped drinking soda before high school and couldn't even stomach ground beef. We never eat fast food (a decision further solidified by Super Size Me) and shopped a lot at our local farmer's market.

Then Napoleon was hurt and our eyes, mind and heart were opened. It takes a lot to realize that you've been marketed to all and told this story all your life. That information was withheld from you and that you were so disconnected from the food you put into your body that you don't even make the connection that the veal you've opposed all your life is directly a result of the cow's milk you were so afraid to not have for your cereal.

I think I'm a pretty savvy person when it comes to marketing stories. I mean, darn it!, I work in advertising. I create these stories and positioning everyday. That's why, as we've learned more and more I'm even more appalled. If, as someone in the industry, I couldn't see through these deceptions, how easy can it be for other people?

That's why it's so important that people see these documentaries. Food Inc. is about where you food is coming from. There is some information about factory farms (the probable ground zero for the latest swine flu outbreak - a Smithfield factory farm in Mexico) and huge seed/chemical companies. While The Future of Food focuses more on Monsanto and how there are only a small handful of corporations controlling our food sources and distribution. The latter scared the heck out of me!

Food Inc. just played at a local film festival and will probably have a limited theater distribution. I had some friends who saw it and said it was very very impactful and eye-opening. I missed it but hope to see it via Netflix soon

The Future of Food is available on Hulu right now. I watched this the other night and was surprised and scared at the implications. There could come a time very very soon when the US is banned from exporting our corn and wheat completely. That is a major issue when our economy is in such a precarious state. And what these companies are doing is so risky and, frankly, unethical. You will be amazed at how little you knew about what was going on. I know I was.

I think that all of this information about food and what we eat and where it comes from should be taught in schools. I feel like I've been told nothing but propaganda my whole life. I am just now coming out of the dark and into the light.