"What the Health" - Refute Doctor's Claims

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https://www.vegan.com/posts/vegan-dietitian-review-what-the-health/

All of these photos are of vegan meals.

A Side of Fresh Carrot, Apple Juice

 I’m not sure exactly why this doctor,

--> Virginia Messina, MPH, RD, chose to so strongly refute the evidence in this film.  When she says that most of the countries that have higher hip fractures also ice-over in the winters, which increases people’s chances of falling and breaking a hip, she discredits herself.  Britain rarely if ever has any ice and most of the US does not ice-over in winter.  Yet the countries in the chart do have higher dairy consumption and higher hip fractures.  And I can sympathize with the idea that doctors are busy at non-profit foundations; however, for these non-profit websites to blatantly sell the idea of the very products that cause cancer to often very ill people looking for help and viable solutions, is extremely unethical, especially, as the film rightly explains, the fact that these foundations receive massive amounts of money from the corporations and medical industries that profit from the very sick, uninformed people who might be searching their websites. 

Raw Cajun Seaweed Cakes

In fact, I recently received a call from a cancer non-profit seeking funding myself.  I asked how much of the money would go to funding research and animal experiments.  The solicitor then hung up on me. How money is used and allocated should be part of the training for callers.  I worked for a non-profit in New Orleans a few years ago, going door-to-door asking for funding from residence for Gulf Coast Restoration Network, a non-profit that helps to not only lobby our state legislatures and Washington but funds scientific investigations, testing water quality and the health of fish and other animals consumed by humans.  We learned where the money goes and how much is used for administrative cost.  They knew that folks would want these questions answered.  In their case, only ten percent of their total funding went to administration cost, which is extremely low in the non-profit world.  I wondered while I watched “What the Health” whether the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Association and Susan B. Komen were just taking money to exist.  I know of people who sought help from some of these organizations and were told that helping people with cancer was not exactly what they funded.  I already knew these organizations were money-making schemes and mostly liars; the film just revealed that truth even more in bright Technicolor.

Totally Raw Veggie Burger

And for the doctor’s claim that a vegan diet cannot yield immediate results, she also discredits herself.  I have known of people myself whose lives and heath were quickly if not immediately transformed by changing to a vegetable based diet.  And the film does not claim that everyone can be cured from changing his diet.  Several doctors acknowledge that up to ten percent of some of these illnesses are actually hereditary.  I know of a vegetarian, mostly vegan who died of a brain tumor.  Coupled with his family history, he also had an early mobile-phone.  There are all kinds of factors that affect our health.  However, for ninety-percent of people, eliminating all processed animal products is one of the best ways to jump-start their health immediately.  The film does not lie in that regard.

Oyster Mushroom Sushi Prep

Nor does it lie about the actual amount of protein the average human being needs to be healthy.  Human mother’s milk, the perfect food for a growing baby, who will double his weight in the first 180 days of life, is only 2 percent.  And since this is the fastest a human being will ever grow, it is the most protein he will ever need in his diet, 2 percent, not forty to fifty percent as in the typical American loaded with protein and fat diet.

Vegan Tostado

I think the film stands as an exposé and a call to all who value their health and the health of the planet, which the film also rightly examines, to take action and become informed citizens and not just to gobble up whatever junk food information that the powers that be, via the FDA or AMA or some giant non-profit tell them to eat.  The film is asking everyone to consider some big economic and political issues that drive our current health crisis and how we are all a part of the problem via the small choices we make on a daily basis.