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Camille Leiter

HLTH 1020-505

Professor Day

12 November 2019

Nutrition Perspectives

I chose to watch the documentary ​Forks over Knives ​because I wanted to learn more

about how plant-based diets are beneficial to human health. I have heard much controversy

regarding this topic and wanted to get a scientific insight. This documentary was written by Lee

Fulkerson. In the beginning of the documentary, he explains his nutrition background. Like most

Americans, he thought he was generally healthy, but after medical testing, he found out that he

was at high risk for a heart attack. After hearing this news, he decided to take the steps to make

healthier choices in nutrition and found how his old habits were not as healthy as he thought they

were.

Forks over Knives ​was produced in 2011. Although this was eight years ago, I believe

that the themes are still applicable today because choosing a healthy diet will always show

beneficial results. There were many studies shown in the documentary that explained how the

whole-foods, plant-based diet benefits all cases of human health such as weight loss, heart

disease, diabetes, cancer, and many more. Although the opinions expressed in this documentary

were slightly extreme, it is interesting to learn about the benefits of choosing this type of diet and

the experiences of different people after they tried this diet. Whether someone chooses this type

of diet or not, healthy food choices will improve the quality of life.
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In the beginning of the documentary, Lee Fulkerson took a CRP test, which measured the

inflammation of his blood vessels. The results showed that he was at high-risk for a heart attack,

so his doctor put him on a twelve week nutrition program. For this nutrition program, he was

supposed to eat a whole-foods, plant-based diet in order to reduce the risk of heart attack and to

increase his overall health. As the documentary progressed, stories were told about other

people’s experiences with transitioning to a whole-foods, plant-based diet to increase their

health. Each person who was featured in the documentary expressed how dramatically their

health increased after switching to this diet. After thirteen weeks of his nutrition program, Lee

Fulkerson received results from medical testing to show how his health changed. By the end of

the program, he had lost twenty pounds, his blood pressure changed from 142/82 to 112/70, his

resting pulse dropped from ninety-two to sixty, and his cholesterol level dropped from two

hundred and forty-one to one hundred and fifty-four.​ ​Along with his overall cholesterol level

dropping, his LDL level dropped from one hundred and fifty-seven to eighty. His test results

showed that being on the whole-foods, plant-based diet significantly reduced the risk of heart

attack.

The risk for heart disease, cancer, and other diseases has not always been as high as it is

today in the United States and it is all because of the consumption of certain foods. The

documentary stated that in the beginning of the twentieth century, Americans each ate one

hundred and twenty pounds of meat annually. By 2007, Americans each ate no less than two

hundred and twenty-two pounds annually. In 1913, Americans each ate forty pounds of

processed sugar and by 1999, Americans each ate over one hundred and forty-seven pounds of

processed sugar. In 1909, Americans ate two hundred and ninety-four pounds of dairy products
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each and by 2006, that number was raised to six hundred and five pounds. These statistics show

that the consumption of meat, processed sugar, and dairy products have all increased

dramatically since the beginning of the 1900s. The increase in the consumption of these products

also increases the risk for heart disease, cancer, and other diseases. From these statistics, we can

see that overconsumption of these products is unhealthy and supports the opinion in the

documentary that a plant-based diet is beneficial to human health.

The whole-foods, plant-based diet cuts out dairy products and instead encourages

plant-based foods to receive the essential vitamins and minerals that dairy products would

usually provide. In the textbook ​Wardlaw’s Contemporary Nutrition: a Functional Approach, ​it

states that “The typical American diet relies on dairy products to provide several essential

nutrients, including protein, calcium, potassium, and vitamin D” (Wardlaw, p. 406). There are

many reasons that someone may cut dairy products from their diet but in any case, it is important

to make healthy substitutions in order to receive these essential nutrients. The textbook and the

documentary were not controversial to each other regarding this topic but the documentary was

more biased toward cutting dairy products.

In the documentary, it is recommended that animal sources of protein are cut from the

diet. Instead, plant sources of protein are to be consumed. In the textbook it says, “With the

exceptions of soy protein and quinoa seed, plant proteins do not match our need for essential

amino acids as precisely as animal proteins” (Wardlaw, p. 207). The documentary and the

textbook differ in opinions about whether protein sources should come from plants or animals.

With the documentary saying that plant sources of protein are more beneficial than animal

sources and the textbook saying that animal proteins match our needs for essential amino acids
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better than plant proteins, it can be difficult to determine which side to believe. I think that it

depends on the person and their eating choices, although the textbook did mention that soy

protein and quinoa seed do match the need for essential amino acids. In the case of someone

choosing a plant-based diet, they would need to make sure that they incorporate soy protein and

quinoa seed into their diet to make sure that they are receiving the essential amino acids.

In ​Forks over Knives​, a featured doctor named Doug Lisle stated that the main cause for

obesity in America is the consumption of unnaturally dense foods. In the textbook, it said that

along with the cause of obesity being the types and amount of foods consumed, obesity rates

vary by state. Both the documentary and the textbook had similar reasons for the cause of obesity

but the textbook had more information about the topic. The fact that obesity rates vary by state

show that the types of foods consumed in each state are different from each other. Based on the

documentary, states that consume more unnaturally dense foods are more likely to be obese.

Both the documentary and the textbook said that obesity is an epidemic and the rates need to be

reduced by eating a healthier diet.

A new point of view that I learned about after completing this assignment is that there are

many different recommendations and opinions about what a healthy diet should look like. ​Forks

over Knive​s gave me a new perspective about the plant-based diet. Before watching this

documentary, I had heard of people choosing the plant-based diet but I did not know that there

were so many benefits to eating this way. I would be open to trying this diet because I do not eat

much meat anyway because I can only stand to eat small amounts of meat at a time. I would also

want to test the diet to find out if all of the mentioned benefits are true. One of the doctors

featured in the documentary stated that medicine does not compare to what the plant-based diet
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can do. He believes that if every American adopted this method, healthcare costs would drop

seventy to eighty percent. That is a bold statement to make and I think that it is worth trying.
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Works Cited

Fulkerson, Lee.​ Forks over Knives,​ 1 Oct. 2011, Netflix.

https://www.netflix.com/watch/70185045?trackId=13752289&tctx=0,0,94902c0a-47b4-4

c53-bc1b-49304a43b26e-662765472,,.

Wardlaw, Gordon M., et al. ​Wardlaws Contemporary Nutrition: a Functional Approach​.

McGraw-Hill Education, 2018.