Documentaries about Food, Nutrition, and Health

Since I’ve pretty much depleted watching the anime series that I’ve always wanted to watch, I found myself exploring things to watch online on netflix. I like to educate myself and have begun watching more documentaries. Last night, while munching on my dinner, I watched a documentary called:

“Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead”
http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/

This  documentary follows the story of this Australian man who was severely overweight and plagued with an autoimmune disease. Enough was enough and he decided to trying something… a 60-day juice only fast. He traveled around America with his juicer and tried to figure out why people are eating unhealthily and are overweight.  Basically he drank a very well balanced juice made up of tons of fruits and veggies and THAT’S IT. It’s amazing to see how much weight he lost, how he practically was able to stop taking all his medicine and was cured, and how overall he had this glow/energy about him. The documentary addresses the idea of macronutrients vs micronutrients and how we’re deprived of the micro side.. which consist of the raw fruits, veggies, and nuts. His story is really inspiring and actually inspired and changed many people’s lives [also mentioned and followed on the film].

And today after going to the Spanish Conversation Group Meetup, I watched this:

Food Matters
http://www.foodmatters.tv/

This documentary was highly educational. At first it comes off as a documentary made by a bunch of hippies but they begin to interview lots of doctors and cite tons of medical journals so it feels much more legitimate as the documentary goes on. The film essentially goes with the whole idea of “We are what we eat.” From that starting point it begins to analyze what we eat, how it affects us, and then explores all the health problems we have today.  Some interesting facts I learned:

• Basic idea of film: Our bodies have the innate ability to heal itself when it is optimal
• Japan has the lowest rate of cancer. This is most likely due to their diet of seafood of sea veggies and their knack for walking. Japanese people who move to the US all of a sudden up their risk of cancer significantly once they adopt the American lifestyle.
• Most of us eat a lot of cooked food. If you eat 51% of cooked food, there is an actual immune response in your body. Overtime this is quite taxing on your immune system. Eating raw fruits, veggies, and nuts are the best. Here’s a link on it: http://www.naturalnews.com/022094.html
• When we fertilize the soil we literally only put 3 main ingredients. However the soil is made up of tons of minerals… When you grow food in mineral deficient soil, the resulting produce is mineral deficient. Thus, they can’t defend as easily against plant diseases, fungi, and insects so we spray insecticide and all these chemicals all over our food.
• Food in supermarkets are generally a week old. By the time we buy them about half of its nutrients have already deteriorated away. When we cook food even MORE goes away.
• We see on the news a lot about how vitamins MIGHT cause deaths or contribute to cancer but when you look at the studies only 10 people MIGHT have died in the past 10 years by taking vitamins [not proven that the vitamins were the cause] but all the health problems associated with a LACK of vitamins results in thousands and thousands of deaths. It’s a chain reaction. Not enough vitamins = body not functioning well = we can get sick easily = go to doctors to get meds= side effects [I think it said around 200k people die alone from side effects]. Take Home Message = TAKE VITAMINS.
• Lots of studies in the past of high doses of Vitamin C to treat various illnesses. 
• In hospitals when you’re sick they give you bread and jello. They should be giving you super foods packed with nutrients to fortify your body to combat whatever. People leave the hospitals more nutrient deficient than when they first arrive.
• We generally treat cancer by chemotherapy which essentially destroys many cells. This further weakens the immune system. Why give them high doses of nutrients and vitamins to combat the disease?
• Be careful with looking at survival rates listed in cancer studies because they count people who live 5 years after the cancer. People die after that 5 year mark….
• Drinking water first thing in morning helps flush out impurities. Your body flushes out most of toxins through your bowels so help it.
• Drug companies have a hand in the salary of inspectors/regulators of drugs and oftentimes own the facilities where the trials are done. Results can obviously be biased. Trials can be done many many times and they only need to cite it was successful 2 times. Drugs = profitable. 
• Universal health care is a great idea. But instead of helping them after they’re sick, educate them so they’re not sick in the first place.
• We should find people who have lived 100 + years and figure out how they’ve done so. OH WAIT. We have already done these studies but we just don’t pay attention to them.
• 2 handfuls of cashews and it’s like  natural prozac
• Eating healthy and paying more for food is worth it in the long run once you take into factor all the medical bills.

Those were a few of the things I thought were really interesting. Take the time to educate yourselves!