This film is better than most documentaries of its kind, because it inadvertently touches the nature of healthy diet in modern society: who defines healthy recipes?
The concept of "healthy eating" puzzled me for a while. In modern society, most things are becoming faster and more foolish. You can ask Siri to call for you without remembering the number, or you can use one finger to take photos without having to adjust the focus. However, eating this kind of thing that is so simple that everyone knows has become more and more complicated. When I read some books or browse the website, I can see the pyramid-like nutrition ratio table. Apart from a professional animal breeder, who would make such a complicated form? Sometimes I wonder if nutritionists are raising us as animals?
When something is too complicated, I will instinctively report doubts about it. And this movie (the second half) gave me a good explanation: this complexity is the result of large companies lobbying the government in order to favor their products. Each cell in the table is a source of profit for a large company. Because everyone wants to plug in, it will become more and more complicated,
The US government is becoming all-encompassing. Even the small life decisions such as what to eat and how to eat have been taken over by the government, still in the name of the health of young people! Take a look at this chain:
Corporate propaganda-government lobbying-formulating dietary health standards-rationing in schools in accordance with the standards-subsidizing participating companies. According to this logic, the profit of large companies is not because their products win consumers, but because they participate in the government's mandatory rationing, and therefore won financial subsidies. One thing not mentioned in the film is that this behavior will continue to squeeze other food companies. Because the government subsidizes and controls sales, more farmers will participate in dairy cow breeding or the manufacture of dairy products, and the damage to the environment by this industry will continue to increase.
The solution is to cancel the government’s lunch rations for schools. The school does not need finances to pay for the lunch, the related expenses should be shared among the tuition, or it is up to the parents to decide whether they want to eat lunch at the school. The source of lunch for each school should be determined by the school board and listen to the opinions of students and parents. The storage fee for the so-called official food health standards can be discussed, but it is better to abolish it. Scientists and academic institutions can publish relevant dietary health guidelines, and they may also be affected by corporate lobbying. However, it is obviously much more difficult to buy all scholars in a unified way than to buy individual government officials.
Watching the meal of the 15-year-old girl in the video is simply the appetite of an adult. There is no pressure from office workers in American adolescents. The main factor for Type II diabetes is obviously not social class, but the country’s undifferentiated livestock breeding model.
As for the scientific principle, the second half is obviously stronger than the first half. Many preliminary conjectures were put forward in the first half, which could not convince me. I also took some notes and wanted to write an article to refute. Until the huge statistical study of cancer in China, I no longer doubted most of the scientific facts in the film. Only a small part is still doubtful, but the flaws are not concealed.
This documentary is rare among similar documentaries. Because it does not radically ask people to go vegan like other films. Nor has it resorted to the evil method of taxing meat and sugar. Although environmental protection is mentioned, it is obviously not the focus. The common problem with this type of documentary is to demonize human beings' normal meat demand, link it to global warming, and finally resort to various supervisions to solve the problem.
What the Americans call eating meat is not the same concept as the Chinese. The most Chinese people are cooking mutton skewers and drinking beer. The Americans and Germans have bigger meat than average Asians. In their diet, meat should indeed be reduced.
Finally, I would like to remind you that diet is only part of our lifestyle. Want to reduce the incidence of cancer can not only rely on diet. Quitting alcohol, exercising, and going to bed and getting up early are equally important. But in reality, many people cannot do it. It is not a matter of perseverance, but a matter of career. This is also the reason why I don't often watch this type of documentary: the good appeals of scientists and doctors are often reduced to ineffective correct nonsense in practice. How many sales and doctors do not drink alcohol?
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