Netflix has pushed the vegan "What the Health" flick, and it has been promoted by Facebook, meaning every liberal thinks it's The Truth. Virtually every person in the "documentary" is a vegan, and one is an anti-meat terrorist; not very credible people. The movie is presented as a "search for truth kept from us!", you know the drill. "Food corporations sponsor research! This means we're all lied to!" This despite that schools, media and many institutions have been attacking meat-eating for decades, to make Westerners feel ashamed of themselves. Congrats, enjoy your carb-filled obesity epidemic.
The executive producer Joaquin Phoenix is a vegan and leftist activist. The directors Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn are both vegans and leftist activists, who earlier produced a "documentary" named "Cowspiracy", which demonizes - cows. As the destroyers of the planet. Because gas emissions and grazing, you know.
In this link Robb Wolf takes apart the documentary's blatant lies and distortions. I'll post some excerpts.
https://robbwolf.com/2017/07/03/what-the-health-a-wolfs-eye-review/
Soundbite: “Processed meat is clearly linked to an increase in cancer”. No mention of absolute vs relative risk. “Just as dangerous as smoking cigarettes.” 1:29:22 This all made the circuit a few years ago and was pretty soundly debunked. The takeaway from the “research” was that if one consumes processed meats, everyday, for one’s whole life, the absolute risk for developing say, colon cancer was estimated to be 6%. The background risk for colon cancer is 5%. Now, I talk about the massive limitations of the type of study mentioned here a bit later (not sure we can trust ANY element of these types of studies), but what biassed researchers, and the media do is then look at the change in relative risk. The difference between 5 and 6 percent is clearly 1 percent. But 1 is 20% of 5. So, this gets reported as a “20% increase in cancer risk.”
...............
1:23:54 Kip makes the point that the government blames lack of exercise and “sugary foods.” No source cited, is this really the message? The government has certainly pushed the exercise as medicine idea, in which one should not need to worry AT ALL about the food one consumes, one need only exercise more. https://therussells.crossfit.com/2016/03/24/inside-the-acsms-exercise-is-medicine/ This is a remarkable bit of cherry-picking and or telling a half truth which is a common theme throughout the movie. At a point later, it is stated that a focus on sugar has steered the story away from the real baddies, meat and animal fat. So, while the ACSM colludes to ban CrossFit (if this is news to you, read the aforementioned link) and make it largely illegal to say that diet matters (at all), we just need to exercise more, the real focus (According to Kip) is that the blame should have “always” been on meat and animal fat.
1:23:44 Dr. Neal Barnard PCRM-Vegan, “Diabetes Expert” Diabetes is not caused by high-carb diet…with an exasperated lilt. Caused by accumulation of fat in the blood, like typical meat based diet” Insulin resistance is a build-up of fat, yes…but is that the whole story? And how best to fix this? Time and again low carb diets have proven superior in this regard. Many, many people have unpacked the insulin resistance story in remarkable detail elsewhere, so I’m not going to devote a ton of space to that here. I will mention that the low carb approach has proven to be incredibly powerful in reversing insulin resistance and the related co-morbidities. BUT…despite consistent positive results on low carb approaches like Atkins, there has still been a lot of handwringing about “all that fat and animal products.” The solution? EcoAtkins. This is an attempt to eat low carb, but with largely vegan foods. If this is how someone wants to roll, that’s fine, but when studied against the original Atkins plan it was no better, and in some ways worse with regards to improving various biomarkers. This really IS an inconvenient truth, as the film completely ignores the low carb approach, even when built from “plant based” sources. Let me say that again, in a different way: Low carb diets have consistently proven to reverse insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes better than high-carb, low fat approaches. There IS a “plant base” low carb approach which works well…this gets no airplay.
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Garth’s reply…which spends the opening salvo largely trying to discredit Denise due to “lack of credential” (that’s what we generally call a Straw Man attack) while also playing the game of somehow acknowledging her brilliance?? It’s odd. Really odd. If you notice my interaction with people I have NEVER raised the question of “qualifications.” Does the person know the material, yes or no? In this day where there is easy access to any topic, I am not only un-impressed by the Appeal To Authority, I get immediately suspicious. This is a way of shutting down the heretics without ever addressing their message or content.
...............
1:21:29 Dr. Garth Davis – “Sugar is not great, low in nutrients, but it “does not cause inflammation, can be stored as glycogen.” “The focus on sugar has taken the focus off meat, dairy, eggs, pork, turkey, chicken…” I’m not even sure how to comment on this as the science is not remotely supportive of his dismissal of sugar: Now, that is looking specifically at fructose, but table sugar is 50% fructose.
...............
1:20:52 Related this paper: Unprocessed red and processed Meats and risk of coronary artery disease and type 2 diabetes—An updated review
From the abstract: “In meta-analyses of prospective cohorts, higher risk of CHD is seen with processed meat consumption (RR per 50 g: 1.42, 95 %CI = 1.07-1.89), but a smaller increase or no risk is seen with unprocessed meat consumption. Differences in sodium content (~400 % higher in processed meat) appear to account for about two-thirds of this risk difference. In similar analyses, both unprocessed red and processed meat consumption are associated with incident diabetes, with higher risk per g of processed (RR per 50 g: 1.51, 95 %CI = 1.25-1.83) versus unprocessed (RR per 100 g: 1.19, 95 % CI = 1.04-1.37) meats.”
Let’s unpack that:
1-Prospective cohort studies were the sole source of information. What the heck is that? From our good friend Wikipedia: “A prospective cohort study is a longitudinal cohort study that follows over time a group of similar individuals (cohorts) who differ with respect to certain factors under study, to determine how these factors affect rates of a certain outcome.“
Here is a short but interesting paper that looks at the limitations of cohort studies, in this case looking at OPIUM USERS and the risk of death. Arguably, opium use and risk of death is a much simpler story to unpack relative to complex dietary interactions…I don’t think anyone would argue that point. Despite this, the study is incredibly shaky due to:
Recall bias. Did people actually report what really happened (opium consumption in this case, meat consumption in the context of the papers being cited by What The Health). Recall bias is such an issue many people have called for the abolishment of this type of stuff entirely. http://www.ejcancer.com/article/S0959-8049(06)00846-X/abstract This due in no small part to the fact one cannot assign causation, just correlation, but correlation with perhaps more noise than signal. What I mean by that is that the data being looked at may be so fraught with error (noise) that any attempt at gain insight (signal) is literally impossible. The main study cited in the film is from a food frequency questionnaire, which again, have been found to be so fraught with error that many are calling for their abandonment.
Now, it might be worth asking, why are these folks relying on a dodgy methodology (A prospective cohort study, built entirely from a food frequency questionnaire). Here is an interesting snippet from the Red meat/processed meat paper: “ Similar to most other lifestyle risk factors (e.g., smoking, physical activity, obesity, consumption of salt, dietary cholesterol, fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains), the effects of meat consumption on cardiometabolic endpoints have not, to our knowledge, been investigated in any RCTs.”
Despite a complete lack of GOLD STANDARD testing (Randomized, Controlled Trials–RCT’s), public policy, bad documentaries and a never ending slew of media pieces are built from studies which are known, from the outset, to be incapable of showing causation. I cannot emphasize this enough, as the film presents this material as “proof” in the same way that a physicist would describe the properties of gravity.
The executive producer Joaquin Phoenix is a vegan and leftist activist. The directors Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn are both vegans and leftist activists, who earlier produced a "documentary" named "Cowspiracy", which demonizes - cows. As the destroyers of the planet. Because gas emissions and grazing, you know.
In this link Robb Wolf takes apart the documentary's blatant lies and distortions. I'll post some excerpts.
https://robbwolf.com/2017/07/03/what-the-health-a-wolfs-eye-review/
Soundbite: “Processed meat is clearly linked to an increase in cancer”. No mention of absolute vs relative risk. “Just as dangerous as smoking cigarettes.” 1:29:22 This all made the circuit a few years ago and was pretty soundly debunked. The takeaway from the “research” was that if one consumes processed meats, everyday, for one’s whole life, the absolute risk for developing say, colon cancer was estimated to be 6%. The background risk for colon cancer is 5%. Now, I talk about the massive limitations of the type of study mentioned here a bit later (not sure we can trust ANY element of these types of studies), but what biassed researchers, and the media do is then look at the change in relative risk. The difference between 5 and 6 percent is clearly 1 percent. But 1 is 20% of 5. So, this gets reported as a “20% increase in cancer risk.”
...............
1:23:54 Kip makes the point that the government blames lack of exercise and “sugary foods.” No source cited, is this really the message? The government has certainly pushed the exercise as medicine idea, in which one should not need to worry AT ALL about the food one consumes, one need only exercise more. https://therussells.crossfit.com/2016/03/24/inside-the-acsms-exercise-is-medicine/ This is a remarkable bit of cherry-picking and or telling a half truth which is a common theme throughout the movie. At a point later, it is stated that a focus on sugar has steered the story away from the real baddies, meat and animal fat. So, while the ACSM colludes to ban CrossFit (if this is news to you, read the aforementioned link) and make it largely illegal to say that diet matters (at all), we just need to exercise more, the real focus (According to Kip) is that the blame should have “always” been on meat and animal fat.
1:23:44 Dr. Neal Barnard PCRM-Vegan, “Diabetes Expert” Diabetes is not caused by high-carb diet…with an exasperated lilt. Caused by accumulation of fat in the blood, like typical meat based diet” Insulin resistance is a build-up of fat, yes…but is that the whole story? And how best to fix this? Time and again low carb diets have proven superior in this regard. Many, many people have unpacked the insulin resistance story in remarkable detail elsewhere, so I’m not going to devote a ton of space to that here. I will mention that the low carb approach has proven to be incredibly powerful in reversing insulin resistance and the related co-morbidities. BUT…despite consistent positive results on low carb approaches like Atkins, there has still been a lot of handwringing about “all that fat and animal products.” The solution? EcoAtkins. This is an attempt to eat low carb, but with largely vegan foods. If this is how someone wants to roll, that’s fine, but when studied against the original Atkins plan it was no better, and in some ways worse with regards to improving various biomarkers. This really IS an inconvenient truth, as the film completely ignores the low carb approach, even when built from “plant based” sources. Let me say that again, in a different way: Low carb diets have consistently proven to reverse insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes better than high-carb, low fat approaches. There IS a “plant base” low carb approach which works well…this gets no airplay.
...............
Garth’s reply…which spends the opening salvo largely trying to discredit Denise due to “lack of credential” (that’s what we generally call a Straw Man attack) while also playing the game of somehow acknowledging her brilliance?? It’s odd. Really odd. If you notice my interaction with people I have NEVER raised the question of “qualifications.” Does the person know the material, yes or no? In this day where there is easy access to any topic, I am not only un-impressed by the Appeal To Authority, I get immediately suspicious. This is a way of shutting down the heretics without ever addressing their message or content.
...............
1:21:29 Dr. Garth Davis – “Sugar is not great, low in nutrients, but it “does not cause inflammation, can be stored as glycogen.” “The focus on sugar has taken the focus off meat, dairy, eggs, pork, turkey, chicken…” I’m not even sure how to comment on this as the science is not remotely supportive of his dismissal of sugar: Now, that is looking specifically at fructose, but table sugar is 50% fructose.
...............
1:20:52 Related this paper: Unprocessed red and processed Meats and risk of coronary artery disease and type 2 diabetes—An updated review
From the abstract: “In meta-analyses of prospective cohorts, higher risk of CHD is seen with processed meat consumption (RR per 50 g: 1.42, 95 %CI = 1.07-1.89), but a smaller increase or no risk is seen with unprocessed meat consumption. Differences in sodium content (~400 % higher in processed meat) appear to account for about two-thirds of this risk difference. In similar analyses, both unprocessed red and processed meat consumption are associated with incident diabetes, with higher risk per g of processed (RR per 50 g: 1.51, 95 %CI = 1.25-1.83) versus unprocessed (RR per 100 g: 1.19, 95 % CI = 1.04-1.37) meats.”
Let’s unpack that:
1-Prospective cohort studies were the sole source of information. What the heck is that? From our good friend Wikipedia: “A prospective cohort study is a longitudinal cohort study that follows over time a group of similar individuals (cohorts) who differ with respect to certain factors under study, to determine how these factors affect rates of a certain outcome.“
Here is a short but interesting paper that looks at the limitations of cohort studies, in this case looking at OPIUM USERS and the risk of death. Arguably, opium use and risk of death is a much simpler story to unpack relative to complex dietary interactions…I don’t think anyone would argue that point. Despite this, the study is incredibly shaky due to:
Recall bias. Did people actually report what really happened (opium consumption in this case, meat consumption in the context of the papers being cited by What The Health). Recall bias is such an issue many people have called for the abolishment of this type of stuff entirely. http://www.ejcancer.com/article/S0959-8049(06)00846-X/abstract This due in no small part to the fact one cannot assign causation, just correlation, but correlation with perhaps more noise than signal. What I mean by that is that the data being looked at may be so fraught with error (noise) that any attempt at gain insight (signal) is literally impossible. The main study cited in the film is from a food frequency questionnaire, which again, have been found to be so fraught with error that many are calling for their abandonment.
Now, it might be worth asking, why are these folks relying on a dodgy methodology (A prospective cohort study, built entirely from a food frequency questionnaire). Here is an interesting snippet from the Red meat/processed meat paper: “ Similar to most other lifestyle risk factors (e.g., smoking, physical activity, obesity, consumption of salt, dietary cholesterol, fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains), the effects of meat consumption on cardiometabolic endpoints have not, to our knowledge, been investigated in any RCTs.”
Despite a complete lack of GOLD STANDARD testing (Randomized, Controlled Trials–RCT’s), public policy, bad documentaries and a never ending slew of media pieces are built from studies which are known, from the outset, to be incapable of showing causation. I cannot emphasize this enough, as the film presents this material as “proof” in the same way that a physicist would describe the properties of gravity.
