What the Health
Kip Anderson and Keegan Kun directed documentary What the Health on Netflix is an interesting watch. Reason? The duo has tried to explore links between diet and various lifestyle diseases. Though, I have my reserved opinions regarding the documentary, as not every food culture is same in the world, but the documentary What the Health highlighted a few riveting notions related to diet and chronic diseases that can be discussed further.
Without hitting the food sirens as shown in the documentary, I will try to put the most compelling notions about the film.
Exploring the Food landscape of western world esp. USA
As per American Physiological Society journal article ajprenal.00068.2011- The Western-style diet is characterized by its highly processed and refined foods and high contents of sugars, salt, and fat and protein from red meat. It has been recognized as the major contributor to metabolic disturbances and the development of obesity-related diseases including type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. Also, the Western-style diet has been associated with an increased incidence of chronic kidney disease (CKD).
An established variety of Western dishes are fried, baked, roasted, or broiled. Raw veggies are popular for salads, without any kind of prep or cooking. Cold drinks and foods such as yogurt and cheese are also notable variances in dietary cuisine. Comparatively, Eastern dishes are predominantly steamed, stewed, sautéed, boiled, or stir-fried and filled with cooked veggies. Raw veggies are rarely consumed but rather fried or stewed with species or oils, as warm/hot dishes are the commonality instead of cold foods and drinks.
Food is such a personal journey linked to cultural ties, spiritual beliefs, habits and obviously availability. Our diet is directly responsible for our vitality and both physical and mental health so it isn’t surprising that there is much debate as to what exactly a healthy diet is; the stakes are serious, as is the issue. In Eastern cultures, such as China, food is often seen as a way of expressing hospitality, respect, gratitude, friendship, and family ties. Eating is usually a communal activity, where people share dishes from a common table. In Western cultures, such as the United States, food is often seen as a way of gratifying personal needs, preferences, and tastes. Eating is usually an individual activity.
For many, nutrition science isn’t definitive- as it can tell us about links between certain foods and diseases but not that eating one food causes a particular disease to arise. As compared to medicine where the randomized controlled trial is considered the gold standard for evidence. Researchers will take test subjects and randomly assign them to one of two groups. While one group gets a treatment the other gets a placebo. So, if there’s a difference in the outcomes, it’s fair to say that the treatment was the cause. On the other hand, nutrition researchers must rely on observational studies for long period of time.
According to the WHO (World Health Organization) website, definition of processed meat is as follows-
Processed meat refers to meat that has been transformed through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, or other processes to enhance flavour or improve preservation. Most processed meats contain pork or beef, but processed meats may also contain other red meats, poultry, offal, or meat by-products such as blood.
An international advisory committee that met in 2014 recommended red meat and processed meat as high priorities for evaluation by the IARC Monographs Programme. This recommendation was based on epidemiological studies suggesting that small increases in the risk of several cancers may be associated with high consumption of red meat or processed meat. Although these risks are small, they could be important for public health because many people worldwide eat meat and meat consumption is increasing in low- and middle-income countries.
Red meat was classified as GROUP 2A carcinogen to human based on limited evidence from epidemiological studies showing positive associations between eating red meat and developing colorectal cancer as well as strong mechanistic evidence.
According to the Netflix documentary, ADA (American Diabetes Association) website contains food recipes loaded with meat and dairy products under healthy and budget-friendly dietary recipes for diabetics. Drug companies and the food industry sponsor American health associations and benefit from promoting unhealthy diets.
In the Netflix Documentary What the Health claims were-
- Diabetes is not caused by high sugar and carbohydrates but by buildup of bad fat in the blood from eating red and processed meat and resulting chronic inflammation.
- The WHO classifies processed meats as a Group 1 carcinogen (same as asbestos, cigarettes, and plutonium) and red meats as a Group 2A carcinogen.
- Eating meat/fish/dairy leads to consumption of dioxins, mercury, hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, all of which are harmful.
- We don’t need cow’s milk to thrive. Rather there are links of milk and osteoporosis.
- Dairy increases prostate cancer risk by 34% and for women who have had breast cancer, chance of death by 49%.
- Infants should not have cow’s milk. Rather mothers’ milk has best nutrition,
- Eating 1 egg a day is equivalent to smoking 5 cigarettes a day.
- Animal products (GMO genetically modified) are damaging to pregnant women and can cause reproductive abnormalities, developmental problems, and hormonal issues.
- Animal farm waste, insecticides, pesticides are dumped into water bodies that kills fish and even pass on to humans through their meat and make them toxic.
- Meat production hurts animals and the environment.
- Drug companies and the food industry sponsor American health associations and benefit from promoting unhealthy diets.
- All proteins originate from plants and can be obtained from plant sources. There is no need to harm animals.
- Diet alone can prevent cancer, diabetes, and heart disease despite genetic dispositions to these illnesses.
With messages like “drinking milk causes cancer as they are mere hormonal shakes” or “eating eggs is as bad as 5 smoking cigarettes,” this film demonize particular foods and praise a particular diet. In a nutshell, it’s mainly plant-based, nutrient-dense and unprocessed whole-foods that will save humanity. The documentary almost exclusively focuses on processed as there is plenty of evidence out there that processed meats are harmful for health in larger quantities. Food portions and moderation part is skipped to talk about. There is no discussion about other lifestyle factors that also contribute to health and may confound links to disease, such as exercise, a balanced diet, sleep, etc.
Just like putting the wrong fuel in your car, wrong diet can be a health hazard. There’s no doubt that food and beverage companies in any part of the world have distorted nutrition science and health researches and we consumers will never exactly know the food secrets in their products till some food pandemics arise.
(Disclaimer- The opinions expressed in the blog is of author based on the available data)
In the words of Dr. Michael Greger, “Even if you’ve been dealt a bad genetic deck, you can still reshuffle it with diet.” when you eat a plant-based diet you are doing something positive for your health, regardless of your family history. Plants are powerful healers!