Why I Recommend This

“Good health makes a lot of sense, but it doesn’t make a lot of dollars.”

This insightful documentary examines the link between American diets and the country’s rising use of pharmaceuticals.  It discusses the ethics of an industry that derives more profit through managing the symptoms of illness than it does through finding a cure.  If you’d like to find ‘the problem’, this documentary says, look down at your plate.  There is an inarguable link between what we put into our bodies, and our overall health.  Unfortunately, modern medicine doesn’t do much to examine that link – less than 6% of graduating physicians in the USA receive any formal training in nutrition. In this way, we must rely on ourselves to better our health through our food and to seek out dietary remedies to aleviate our personal ails. I believe we must make the decision to shun quick-fix pills in lieu of a long-term, natural solution – this documentary will show you where to begin.

Why I Recommend This

“You are what you eat.”

What is America made of?  This documentary says: Corn.  When two friends, Curt Ellis and Ian Cheney, start their journey to discover more about the subsidized crop that drives our fast food nation, they have their head examined – literally. Submitting strands of their hair for analysis, they find out something astonishing – corn isotopes accounted for over 50% of their hair.  Turns out you are what you eat. Corn is the most commonly grown crop in America, and the most genetically modified – in fact, most of it is so GMO that it’s not edible in it’s raw form! Discover more about corn and dispel it’s myth in this compelling documentary, discussing the corn subsidies that have wrecked our soil, contaminated our foods and fed agribusiness.

Why I Recommend This

It’s not a requirement to eat animals, so it becomes a moral choice.

This documentary is the one that had the largest impact on me. Vegucated, by filmmaker Marisa Miller Wolfson, is an exploration of the vegan lifestyle, it’s practices, and it’s motivations. Moving and educational, this documentary provokes you to reconsider your diet and the lives of the animals that contribute to it.  Following the story of three skeptical New Yorkers, Vegucated aims exposes the darker sides of animal agriculture and dispel myths about animal farming and the vegan lifestyle. I became a vegan after becoming Vegucated.

Why I Recommend This

“There are 600,000 food items in America.  80% of them have added sugar.”

Fed Up is a compelling documentary about government guidelines and how they’ve impacted sugar consumption amongst American youth, fueling obesity, heart disease and diabetes.  It has been stated that today’s children will be the first generation with a short life expectancy than their parents. This is in large part due to the rise in pediatric illnesses due to poor diet, toxic food additives and lack of nutrition. Myth’s and misleading claims by the food industry have only exacerbated the issue, leading people to believe that a sedentary lifestyle is entirely to blame.  Find fact from fiction in this film the food industry doesn’t want you to see, produced by Katie Couric and Laurie David (producer of An Inconvenient Truth).

Why I Recommend This

Profits over People

If you haven’t seen Food Inc, you’ve certainly heard of it.  This Academy-Award nominated film is a cornerstone of food documentaries, delving into corporate farming and agribusiness to find it’s faults and discrepancies.  With hidden camera footage revealing the terrible conditions of large-scale animal processing plants, this documentary will have you questioning the health and safety of the food you eat and the workers who prepare it, elucidating the business side of food production.  America’s food may come from the earth, but much of it is under corporate control.

Why I Recommend This

“Let thy Food be thy Medicine and thy Medicine be thy Food.”
– Hippocrates

Forks Over Knives is an insightful documentary about the power food has to control disease and illness.  Though the science in this documentary is largely anecdotal, the stories are compelling, following a group of cancer patients, once terminally ill, managing to survive many years onward due to a dietary change.  Dr. Alona Pulde and Dr. Matthew Lederman champion a plant-based, whole food diet, free from processed foods and animal products, which many have called ‘life-saving’.  If you’ve ever sought to leave prescription medications in lieu of natural and dietary solutions, this documentary is one worth watching.  Incredibly convincing, it will have you reconsidering your nutrition, and seeking out ways to improve your diet in pursuit of the long term health benefits – I know I did.

Why I Recommend This

Overfed and Undernourished

As of 2012, 50 million Americans were food insecure, and one in every two children relied on some sort of food assistance.  In a country with so much food production and waste, this is unacceptable.  A Place At The Table reveals the cultural, economic and social implications of food insecurity, and suggests the solution: making healthy, nutritional food as available and affordable as fast foods with empty calories.  How?  Getting rid of the antiquated federal farm subsidies for corn and wheat that have filled our plates, but kept us starved; offering incentives for growing the fruits and vegetables that are in society’s best interest; and making food programs, not simply more available, but more accessible to those who need them.  Basic health should not be something people are forced to afford.