Forks over Knives is a 2011 American advocacy film and documentary that promotes a low-fat, whole-food, plant-based diet to avoid or prevent several chronic diseases. The documentary also focuses on the distribution of the US healthcare budget and other global issues of the nation. However, the film’s actual value lies in how it affects the attentive viewer, helping to become aware of the problems around and within themselves. For me, Forks over Knives has become essential to my understanding of proper and healthy eating.
After watching the movie, I learned how many nutritional problems are embedded in America’s value system. Many serious diseases, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke, are problems that derive from Americans’ eating habits. A growing number of researchers argue that eliminating or significantly reducing refined, processed, and animal products can prevent and even reverse some of our worst diseases. This notion influenced my opinion on the diet because now I know which foods I should exclude from my average diet.
I also learned that cholesterol and the protein foods it is associated with are unhealthy. For example, protein was considered a vital nutrient, as it was claimed that animals would die without protein, so protein foods were treated as a life force. Protein was also almost synonymous with animal products such as meat, and most scientists believed that the world needed much more of this substance.
The biggest influence on my understanding of nutrition has been my exposure to the consequences of an unhealthy diet of animal products. This led me to change my diet because I learned that a fatty substance in the bloodstream called cholesterol accumulates in the coronary arteries over time. At the same time, cholesterol restricts blood flow to the heart, sometimes leading to a fatal outcome. This can eventually cause several problems, from severe chest pain called angina to heart attacks.
Today, many Americans need heart bypass surgery every year to prevent the deadly effects of cholesterol. This information made me think about the dangers of such food and start developing an individual healthy diet because the consequences of unhealthy nutrition are challenging to cure, not to mention the high cost of treatment. In doing so, Forks over Knives taught me a lot about food and helped me understand the importance of a rational approach to my diet and health.