The film Food Matters goes into depth about what we put in our bodies that can increase or decrease our health status significantly. Many officials such as nutritionists, naturopaths, doctors, and journalists give their opinion on what being healthy really means. Food Matters was directed by James Colquhoun and Carlo Ledesma. The film starred people who have significant importance in the world of nutrition and health such as Dr. Andrew W. Saul, David Wolfe, and Dr. Ian Brighthope, among others. The director made sure he focused his audience on important matters such as the medical and pharmaceutical drug industry that affects all of us. Food Matters gave a rather thorough depiction of what exactly we’re putting in our bodies. It showed us where the food comes from, how far it travels to get to us, how we eat it, and how certain foods pass the nutritional value that we need. The film is not only informative about what we eat, but also what we have been told that is actually incorrect. This consists of how we are told to handle aches, pains, illnesses, and diseases. Most importantly Food Matters stresses that if you want to be healthy you have to provide your body with the raw, organic, and plant-based nutrients it not only requires but craves.
When the film begins we are introduced or rather reintroduced to Hippocrates belief that the human body has the capacity to heal itself. This may have been somewhat true before we had advancements in medicine and technology, but now we have so many options that secure the safety of our health. In today’s world, we have modern Western medicine and pharmaceutical drug industries that make sure the job gets done rather than depending on our own body stability. The documentary presents rather shocking information regarding the significantly lower nutritional value that our food has by the time it has reached our table. For example, Andrew Saul expresses to the audience that the food we eat, more than likely, travels thousands of miles before we see it at our local grocery stores. In the time that it takes to reach the grocery store, your purchasing, and consume the product, it can lose many vital nutrients. These claims are supported by a 2003 study done by Michigan State University’s Center for Regional Food Systems. Charlotte Gerson, a star in the film, and founder of the Gerson Institute, goes on to highlight the issues regarding the poor quality of the soil in which many of our most nutritionally dense foods are grown. Most fertilizers contain nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, but plants actually require a total of 52 minerals to be present in the soil for exceptional growth, according to Gerson. Gerson’s claims are supported in his book A Cancer Therapy: Results of Fifty Cases. Also, David Wolfe, an active official on raw food and superfoods, exclaims that cooked food triggers an immune system response. This response is better known as “digestive leukocytosis”. It follows a claim that eating a diet composed of less than 51% raw meals will overwork our immune system. These claims are backed by research done by Dr. Paul Kouchakoff in 1930. In essence, the film encourages the viewer to rethink his entire diet and way of consuming food.
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The film now shifts into explaining how Americans have gotten so far off the leading nutritional track. American families usually spend their earnings on things that are not beneficial to their overall well-being. Families can spend their money on nicer houses, cars, and vacations, but health is typically not of the utmost importance. The film’s starring speakers’ expressed that the ‘new American motto’ has become, “Have an ill? Take a pill.”. Drug consumption in today’s world has become more commercialized than ever before. Society is more concerned with what treats diseases than what promotes long-lasting health. Food Matters focuses the blame on our own doctors. Phillip Day and Dr. Ian Brighthope both speak in the film on the idea that the research being presented to the general public about new pharmaceutical drugs and various treatments is being largely funded by the pharmaceutical companies that produce those drugs. This claim is supported by various studies published in 2010 by the Journal of the American Medical Association, which indicated that the pharmaceutical industry-funded about 60% of the funding for biomedical research. It doesn’t stop there, Andrew Saul indicates his own personal experiences that include his studying in hospitals where doctors rarely knew much about anything regarding proper nutrition and vitamin consumption. For the main part, Food Matters wants the audience to know the truth about industries we are getting their products from as well as how society has turned its back on nutrition by leaving the majority of Americans either falsely or not properly educated about proper wellness.
Finally, the film touches base on various ways in which proper nutrition and high-dose vitamin therapy can prevent, arrest, and even reverse pains, chronic diseases, and even cancers. While this is being explained, Food Matters looks down upon pharmaceutical drugs as a way to handle chronic diseases. It also makes the factually-based claim that 106,000 deaths occur every year around the world due to adverse drug reactions each year, which is supported by the Journal of the American Medical Association. Gerson spoke of a personal experience with one of her patients who had been given depressants that had been unsuccessful for her and others. Gerson prescribed her patient a high dosage of niacin, also known as Vitamin B3. The patient’s condition improved drastically, and she finally felt normal. There is very little to no reliable medical research indicating that this is an optimal treatment for depression according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine. One of the biggest focal points of the documentary is that very high doses of intravenous Vitamin C can be used to treat various illnesses ranging all the way from the common cold to cancer, according to Andrew Paul. Paul’s claims are supported by pioneering research done by William J. McCormick, Frederick Robert Klenner, and Linus Pauling. While all of these men’s studies’ results support the claim that Vitamin C has various curative properties, the likely reason that the public is not readily aware of this is likely due to the fact that studies in recent years have been incapable of replicating those results. The stars of Food Matters suggest the inability to replicate positive results is due to the lack of personalized patient doses of Vitamin C and the size of the Vitamin C doses being too small to have powerful effects. While some of these methods are questionable, it is definitely worth taking into account the research that has been done thus far and continuing to research into these alternative methods of treatment.
In essence, Food Matters calls for a revisiting of the very fundamentals of our lifestyle as Americans. It encourages Americans to not only pursue knowledge but apply all gained knowledge to their lives directly and take on the responsibility of their own health rather than relying on professionals to do all the thinking for them. This is an idea that I very strongly agree with and try to bring to others’ attention: you are what you eat. Nutrition labels are on everything we eat, and we have the power and right to know what we are putting into our bodies, which is something that I take advantage of at every opportunity. The ideas from the film concerning processed foods, inorganic foods, and the terrible diets of the typical American citizen are not new to me and are things that I think about quite frequently. However, ideas presented concerning the nutrient depletion in cooked foods, the possibilities of vitamin therapies for conditions such as serious cancer, and the concept that doctors’ opinions and prescriptions may not always be what is right or most healthy are all very new to me. The idea that medicines may be doing more harm than good is quite literally a hard pill to swallow. Upon reaching the end of Food Matters, my first thought was to research more, ask for second opinions, and re-evaluate my lifestyle. I feel as though the more things I learn about nutrition and health, the more often I am presented with contradicting information and research. I can truly say that I enjoyed watching the documentary Food Matters. I guess this falls right in line with one of the Food Matters taglines: “education, not medication.”
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