Dietitians in all places launch a collective sigh each time Netflix releases a vitamin documentary, and with good motive: traditionally, these docs are stuffed with bias, dangerous knowledge, and sensationalism…none of which really helps anybody take change of their well being.

Like I at all times say, misinformation doesn’t empower anybody. Simply the other, really.

After I heard that You Are What You Eat was directed by the identical one that directed The Recreation Changers, I knew I wanted to look at and evaluate it.

Learn my Recreation Changers Assessment right here.

On this You Are What You Eat evaluate, I check out Netflix’s newest vitamin documentary.

The doc focuses on the execution of the Stanford Twins Research. This 8-week examine, which was simply revealed on the finish of 2023, used 22 pairs of twins to find out the cardiometabolic results of a vegan eating regimen versus an omnivore eating regimen.

Twins are genetically an identical, which afforded researchers the uncommon alternative to achieve invaluable perception into how every eating regimen could affect one twin versus the opposite. In response to Christopher Gardner, vitamin scientist and one of many examine’s investigators, people reply in a different way to the identical meals, so getting people who find themselves genetically the identical eliminates this confounder.

Twins have the identical genetic make-up, making them the right controls for each other.

Over the course of the 8 weeks, investigators will monitor indicators of cardiovascular well being, metabolic standing, and intestine microbiome through poop and blood samples.

They inform viewers that they’re trying peoples’ organic clock, physique composition, microbiome, and mind. The precise examine, which I speak about within the final a part of this evaluate, doesn’t point out the microbiome, mind, or organic clock. I’m questioning if these elements are upcoming.

You Are What You Eat Netflix Assessment

In Episode One in all You Are What You Eat, we meet among the consultants that had been concerned within the examine, together with 4 units of the examine’s twins. 

Within the first 4 weeks, every twin is randomized to both a vegan or omnivore eating regimen. The whole lot they eat is made for them and delivered, so there’s no guesswork, and researchers can management the whole lot about every eating regimen. Each diets had been deemed to be ‘wholesome’ by scientists.

After the primary 4 weeks, the twins stay on their assigned eating regimen, however are left to prepare dinner their very own meals. 

The twins even have a coach, who they work out commonly with.

It was straightforward to see the place this documentary was going when Dr. Michael Greger, physician and identified promoter of a vegan eating regimen, pops up on the display. He was additionally in The Recreation Changers and What The Well being, each Netflix documentaries whose overarching message was selling a plant-based eating regimen and mainly scaring folks about consuming animal merchandise. 

I’ve talked about Dr. Greger in my writing earlier than, primarily calling him out for twisting information and blowing up claims to go well with his agenda. 

He shortly does the identical factor in You Are What You Eat, telling viewers how an excessive amount of dairy will increase threat for Parkinson’s illness and prostate most cancers (with out citations or proof, naturally). He lets us know that ‘the #1 explanation for demise within the US is the American Weight loss plan’ (based on the CDC it’s coronary heart illness, really, however there are a lot of elements that contribute to this), and what we put in our mouth is extra essential than anything.

That is basic Greger, making claims which might be overblown and completely with out nuance.

Dr. Michael Greger

We additionally meet a ‘plant primarily based dairy innovator’ named Miyoko Schinner, who tells us that cheese is ‘biologically addicting,’ which is ridiculous and never factual. She follows up by trotting out the vegan calling card that ‘milk is for child cows, not people.’

She tells us that ‘most populations on the earth didn’t eat meat and dairy, besides in very small quantities if in any respect.’

Once more, we’ve an ‘professional’ who’s clearly biased to in direction of a vegan eating regimen. I’ve nothing towards the vegan eating regimen, after all, however in a documentary, it’s at all times good to symbolize each side of an argument.

I stored ready for somebody with out a plant-based agenda to be revealed as an professional, however SPOILER: I used to be disillusioned. 

Because the documentary progresses, we find out about meals deserts and concrete farms. 

Right here’s why we don’t all have the identical 24 hours in a day.

Tracye McQuirter, a Public Well being Nutritionist and self-proclaimed ‘vegan activist,’ explains how you can create a balanced vegan plate. whereas speaking about meals apartheid for African People in city centres. 

This can be a actually invaluable lesson, and it’s correct – meals deserts do exist, particularly in radicalized communities. They’re intimately linked with poor well being outcomes, and we most undoubtedly have to do one thing to enhance entry to wholesome meals in North America. 

One other good lesson we get is across the conflicts of curiosity among the many dietary tips committee, and the way agricultural lobbyists affect the verbiage within the tips. That is additionally an issue, and the rationale why Well being Canada refused to have meals business on the desk when creating the most recent meals tips. 

The remainder of You Are What You Eat, sadly, looks as if an advert for a vegan eating regimen.

We study in regards to the animal agriculture business. We’re taken inside manufacturing unit farms. We hear how soiled they’re, how the animals are injected with antibiotics, and the way hog feces and urine are sprayed throughout adjoining fields. We see a little bit injured hen and contaminated ponds. 

Dr. Greger pops in to inform us that extra antibiotics are fed to cattle than are utilized in all of human medication to advertise development and forestall illness in a disturbing, unhygienic atmosphere. ‘Lifesaving, crucial medicine are being squandered simply to make cheaper meat.’ 

Or, perhaps there are much more animals than people, which accounts for these numbers?

Nonetheless, it’s authorized to make use of antibiotics in cattle for development promotion and illness prevention (right here and right here)

Ought to the typical particular person be involved?

I’m undecided, as a result of we had been solely introduced with one aspect of the argument. The common particular person will most likely take that unchallenged aspect as truth, which is problematic. I’d have appreciated to listen to from an unbiased farmer and scientist about this, and about, effectively, all the documentary. 

We hear a hen farmer who clearly hates what he does, speak about how disgusting the odor and filth of the hen barn is. That birds are bred to have such massive breasts, that their organs and skeletal system can’t sustain. The birds scratch one another, leaving wounds which might be infested with micro organism. 

We see an environmental activist lawyer speaking about antibiotics in meat, and Pat Brown, the Founding father of Not possible Meals, who tells us that  ‘each time you eat a steak, a little bit puff of smoke goes up within the Amazon. That smoke is the ‘second hand smoke out of your burger.’

George Monbiot, an creator, journalist and environmental activist tells us how the meat business is mainly killing the planet. ‘the agricultural business is likely one of the best sources of greenhouse gases on earth.’ 

We’re proven a graphic that states that greenhouse gases from the agricultural sector are 31%, versus 14% for the transportation sector.

I assumed these quantity regarded a bit bizarre, so I went in search of the stats. 

Seems, the EPA has some completely different numbers:

Shifting from the horrible risks of meat to what’s terrible about farmed fish, we’re launched to extra activists, one being Don Staniford, who campaigns towards salmon farms. He tells us that ‘if folks realized the total horrors of salmon farming they’d keep away from it just like the proverbial plague.’

Hyperbole appears to be considered one of You Are What You Eat’s nice strengths. 

We see Don telling the twins how corporations dye their fish purple to cover the truth that it’s farmed. He says that this synthetic coloration has been ‘linked to human well being issues,’ though we don’t get any particulars about which issues.

He talks about how farmed salmon is much fattier than pizza and bacon. And, lest you consider that farmed salmon comprises wholesome fat, he provides us the rubbish take of ‘these aren’t good oils, they’re omega 6s.’ 

Please Don, cease speaking. The twins choose up on his worry mongering, calling the farmed salmon ‘diseased meals’ and throwing it into the precise rubbish.

Are seed oils dangerous? Learn my submit right here.

We’ve gone from speaking about meals deserts and entry to nourishing meals, to throwing a superbly good piece of fish into the rubbish. Disgusting.

Alexandra Morton, Biologist and activist, tells us that tons of waste is ‘pouring out of those farms’ and reveals us disturbing pictures of diseased fish. She claims that greater than 98% of the samples fish she purchased in supermarkets and sushi eating places had been contaminated with a salmon blood virus, though she admits that there’s no analysis on how these pathogens affect people.

I’m not going to say that these points the activists are speaking about are false, however with none counterbalance, all of it comes off as folks pushing an agenda. As somebody with crucial considering expertise, this makes me very suspicious of their information.

As a little bit sidebar, Eric Adams, the Mayor of New York, talks about how eating regimen reversed his diabetes with Complete Meals Plant Primarily based eating regimen. He tells us that his endocrinologist didn’t find out about eating regimen and diabetes in medical faculty, so he took issues into his personal fingers.

I discover the ‘medical doctors don’t know in regards to the worth of eating regimen’ tactic to be a extremely disappointing, lazy approach to flip folks towards typical medication and proposals. 

What did the Stanford Twins examine discover?

After the entire effort, did the Twins examine end result favor a vegan eating regimen?

It did, in some methods. 

As you may see within the graphic under, the vegan twins had a larger discount in LDL-C, the ‘dangerous’ ldl cholesterol. However, their HDL or ‘good’ ldl cholesterol additionally went down greater than the omnivores,’ and the vegans’ triglycerides ended up far larger than the omnivores’.

Actually, the one metrics that had been vital between the 2 teams had been LDL-C, insulin, and weight, though each teams misplaced weight. 

It’s essential to notice that the examine was quick and small, and the themes had been predominantly ladies. The second week was not managed, so theoretically, every group might have strayed from their diets in weeks 5-8, confounding the outcomes. We additionally haven’t any longer-term follow-up.

Within the examine conclusions, did admit that the vegan eating regimen fed to the twins was restrictive, and that “clinicians ought to enable sufferers to make knowledgeable selections that help them to decide on which dietary method is most fitted for them.

At a inhabitants stage, wider adoption of a culturally acceptable dietary sample that’s larger in plant meals and decrease in animal meals can promote well being and environmental advantages.”

As a dietitian, my suggestions gained’t change due to this documentary. Eat as many crops as you may. Purchase what you may afford. Watch out for worry mongering ‘consultants’ who clearly have an agenda. Know that Netflix vitamin documentaries are low-bar and deceptive.

You Are What You Eat evaluate, briefly:

You Are What You Eat is a basic Netflix vitamin documentary, flawed from the start with clearly biased ‘consultants’ and activists going unchallenged all through the movie. 

Whereas I do help a plant-forward eating regimen, I feel it’s insulting and weak to not give a balanced perspective. Why not give viewers ALL of the knowledge earlier than permitting them to make their very own determination? Isn’t that what a documentary must be about?

The one a part of You Are What you Eat that I assumed was easy, was the messaging round meals fairness. Till all sides are represented and all information are certified by a mixture of consultants, You Are What You Eat is sensationalized vegan propaganda at its very most interesting. 

Let’s do away with these vitamin and eating regimen developments in 2024. Learn right here.