The crew of this documentary follow some claims that ALL animal based food is bad for your health. One doctor presented a study that says 20% casein will encourage cancer in rats while 5% casein will make it go back. Then it jumps to the conclusion that ALL and ANY animal based proteins are a source of all evils in human health.Nowhere in the entire movie they will show proof that you need to be at 0% animal protein.When they talk about the low cancer rates in Japan they just skip the information that they are fish and seafood eaters and they just go to a study made in China.This is a terrible vegan PR movie. I'm not against vegan-ism, nor against vegetarianism, I'm just saying they pretend knowing everything while they don't seem to be able to distinguish left from right.My own conclusions after seeing this film is that people need to dial down their animal based diets. Not really not eat that, just do it in moderation, not on a daily basis.

Even if I was a vegetarian, I'd be dismayed by this film, which is a textbook example of propaganda -- think Leni Reifenstahl and "The Triumph of the Will" in Hitler's Germany. Such films have an agenda, and use cinematic techniques to promote that agenda, without balance or integrity or truthfulness. Truth plays a backseat to promoting the political agenda.Here the agenda is .... veganism. And not just general "it's good for you!" veganism nor even the "save the cute widdle animals" veganism -- this is a direct polemic stating that veganism -- and ONLY veganism -- will save your life, enable you to cure a whole range of diseases and live for a very long time, the whole while as a fit, buff triathelete or firefighter.The theories of Dr. Caldwell and Dr. Esselstyn are the most extreme of all eating regimes -- not even vegetarianism is remotely good enough here. This is the Pritikin or Ornish diets, on steroids. ZERO fats, zero meat, zero dairy products -- yup, folks, YOGURT will kill you. Milk, of course, will kill you -- even organic skim milk.What does this leave you to eat? Only vegetables, and more vegetables. Furthermore, they must be steamed or baked, as you cannot of course fry or stir fry, sauté or fricassee because remember -- ZERO fats. Yes, folks -- OLIVE OIL, now it's bad for you. Even Canola oil. No oils or fats whatsoever, in any form. SO this is a diet of steamed vegetables and only steamed vegetables, and nothing else.Needless to say, this very harsh diet is not too appealing to any normal person, nor is it a diet normally eaten by any human society on earth. It lacks a number of nutrients and vitamins, which must be taken by pill form (B-12 etc.). But of course, unpalatable as it is, it leads directly to weight loss -- and the weight loss to remission from obesity, Type II diabetes, coronary artery disease and cholesterol problems.I can almost accept that, though of course 99% of people cannot stick to a diet this horrible. You might as well say you can cure these things if you fast all the time, and live on water, but it does not translate that most folks can do that.But it goes off the rails when the filmmakers state you can CURE METASTATIC BREAST CANCER (and infer, all cancers) by eating vegan foods. Not prevent breast cancer -- not cure a primary tumor -- but cure breast cancer which had spread to the subjects spine, liver and bones. This is untrue, and a hateful, ugly promise to make to suffering cancer victims, which cannot possibly be true. Nor does the movie offer any PROOF, besides one elderly lady's anecdotal story (we do not even know for sure she ever had cancer, for starters) that this is so. Certainly any "proof" would involve thousands of patients with metastatic cancer over many years, and with double blind studies.It is shocking and horrifying that two physicians who call themselves "scientists" would promise such a thing. It proved to me, what I had been thinking silently through the rest of the film -- this is not science, this is RELIGION...the religion of veganism, which incorporates a hatred for all things pleasurable in the world (but especially food), a belief in eternal life (promised to you by eating vegan!) and the necessity to preach at and convert others. As such, it is frightening beyond any other type of diet hucksterism.NO matter what you eat, I assure you -- you are going to die sometime, and you will die of SOMETHING. No diet in the world can save you from metastatic cancer, and I am appalled beyond words at DOCTORS pushing a protocol on patients which involves REFUSING chemo and radiation (proven to help) and instead an unproven diet plan. (Note that cancer victims typically lose a lot of weight and have trouble eating; I can't imagine a worse thing that forcing them to eat tasteless vegan dishes and lose weight on purpose!)On top of this, the film is dry and full of statistics, along with simple-minded attacks on old filmstrips that show "the 7 basic food groups" or whatever, from like 1946. Also I noted that when the filmmaker himself is shown going on his diet, as well as other participants, they are very openly showing bags and boxes from the Whole Foods chain of stores (was it a paid advertisement?).In short, not recommended. This is religion, not science. It is a sad comment on society that we cannot discuss and debate issues about food and diet, without it becoming an attack on other people who eat differently than we do, or on other people's body types or habits.

This is one of the best films that I've seen on the subject of health and nutrition. Most of my friends who have seen it say they wish they had known what they learned from the film years ago. The scientific data is clearly communicated in a way that is understandable by the general public. Let's face it, most of us do not have a degree in human nutrition and are not capable of naming amino acids, or describing the function of endothelial cells. Most people learned all they know of nutrition from the USDA food pyramid and/or their parents, which leaves them nutritionally illiterate. The consequences on our health are dramatic, and fortunately preventable.For those who want to dig into all the studies and scientific details there are plenty of resources from the contributing guests (Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, by Dr Esselstyn, The China Study, by T Colin Campbell, The Starch Solution by Dr McDougall, and plenty more). After seeing the film and understanding the "why" behind the recommendations, the companion recipe books provide the "how" for evolving our diet.I see that often detractors forget several key elements of the information presented. These studies have been performed by many researchers and doctors, not just one they want to pick on. They have been done over decades and on massive numbers of people. The conclusions are used today to reverse heart disease, diabetes type 2, erectile dysfunction, some cancers, and more. Non-scientists with no health or nutrition degree or peer reviewed articles published in leading scientific journals are *not* in a position to contradict the world's leading experts, but that sure doesn't stop them from thinking they can. Those who prove what they say is true with their actions are who the population needs to listen to; not those who deny what is clearly proved by doctors and the patients they heal on a daily basis. Deniers of the conclusions of Forks Over Knives are like people arguing that the Earth is flat despite the crushing evidence to the contrary.

This may be a spoiler for some, so I'm playing it safe and saying this is a spoiler. The producers obviously entered the production of this movie to promote, at best, a vegetarian philosophy, and possibly at the worse, an animal rights agenda because the science data does not support the message of the movie, which is eating meat is bad, Bad, BAD! The most damning evidence is when one of the activist doctor stars of the movie shows how he raised and lowered the protein of meat in lab rats. In his test, he had the mice at 5% protein, then raised it to 20% animal protein. When it was at 5% there were no tumors, but when he raised it to 20%, there were tumors, then the tumors decreased when he lowered it to 5% again. He repeated this process over a series of months. Remember, the message of the movie is that eating ANY meat is bad, Bad, BAD, A DEATH SENTENCE according to this movie. So, if they were fed 5% and they were fine and EVEN GOT BETTER from after eating 20% protein, the conclusion, then, is that 5% animal protein IS GOOD FOR YOU, not that ANY MEAT AT ALL is bad, Bad, BAD!! like they kept on pushing in the movie. This brings up another flaw of the movie. The producers of this movie are obviously horrendous researchers. Again, the movie used 5% and 20% protein tests on rats. If they wanted to prove that NO animal protein is good, then they would have had a control group that had NO animal protein, but there was NO SUCH TEST to compare between the 5% and the 20%. SO HOW CAN THEY SAY THAT ANY MEAT PROTEIN IS BAD FOR YOU or that NO ANIMAL PROTEIN (MEAT) IS BETTER THAN 5% meat protein in your diet?!?!?! The movie PRESENTS NO SUCH EVIDENCE!! So, it is a LIE that ANY meat is bad for you because 5% protein in your diet CURES TUMORS AND MAKES YOU HEALTHY according to the scientific evidence in the movie. DON'T LET THIS MOVIE SCAM YOU LIKE SO MANY REVIEWERS HERE HAVE BEEN!!!If they were truly scientists, that would be the conclusion, that 5% animal protein and up to a certain percentage (which was never researched) is GOOD FOR YOU and would have taken it one step further and researched to find out the EXACT POINT in between 5% and 20% when it gets to be unhealthy, and to promote that max percentage that it is good for you. But obviously, they were not out to discover the truth through science, but were out to promote a political agenda. That can be the only conclusion. Don't be taken in by this windbag of a movie goes on and on and on, not refuting the claims of the critics, such as meat has critical enzymes we need, but IGNORE THAT and return to the mantra, based on flawed leaps of illogic, bereft of serious critical thinking, that meat, not just meat, but ANY MEAT, ANY Animal based product, is bad, Bad, BAD!!! That is why this is nothing more than propaganda to put up the straw man that ALL MEAT IS BAD BAD BAD!!!