It seems like everyone has been talking about this recent documentary called What the Health. There’s a good amount of controversy surrounding it and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. In a nutshell, it brings to light how the meat and dairy industries are in collusion with the government and big business to control how people eat, even though it’s making people chronically ill and devastating the environment. This is not news to me, so I was definitely interested to see what this plant-based documentary had to say on the topic.

It appears that many of the people that have issues with What the Health do so because of the way the statistics in the film are presented, the comparison that the effects of meat are just as harmful as smoking cigarettes, “gotcha” journalism tactics, the claim that sugar isn’t the cause of diabetes, and the fact that tons of people just plain don’t like vegans because of stereotypes or otherwise. What’s interesting is that most of the negative criticism surrounding the film never touches on the bigger picture. Critics don’t refute or discuss the cruelty to animals presented in the film, the devastation to the environment, or how powerful the government is in influencing what we eat. Instead, people nitpick about the smaller controversies in the film. For me, the bigger picture is way more important to discuss. Although I do have a couple of questions surrounding information presented in the film, I feel open minded about the message of the documentary and I hope it causes other people to open their minds to new possibilities as well.

Here’s some interesting information from What the Health, why I think it matters, and how our food choices affect the planet.

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