I have nothing against vegans, but the "Game Changers" movie is biased propaganda promoting a particular narrative. It is not a valid source of scientific facts. They cherry picked a few anecdotes, and even some of the movie subjects consume certain animal products such as eggs.
That documentary is rife with inaccuracies as well. It's a consequence of having a bunch of wealthy Hollywood folks convert to veganism, and then jump on board with pushing a diet as the be-all/end-all.
It's one thing to claim (accurately) that a good, careful vegan diet is healthy for a person and very healthy for the planet. It's a whole different ballgame to claim that a healthy vegan diet is nutritionally superior to any and all diets that include any form of animal products, which is essentially what Game Changers claims.
There was a rather entertaining and informative debate about Game Changers between a bad-ass vegan MMA fighter and another nutritional expert on Joe Rogan's podcast, and one thing they both end up acknowledging is that Game Changers is a propaganda film disguised as a documentary.
There is an advocacy* movie called The Game Changers which highlights several vegan athletes and makes the case that their plant-based diet contributes to their success. https://gamechangersmovie.com/
* I would not consider it a documentary as it has a clear agenda, but I found it interesting nonetheless.
Perhaps you did. The documentary does sound quite compelling. There is no doubt that switching to a vegan diet from a standard processed food diet will see improvements. But those athletes built themselves up as omnivores.
Some examples from athletes in the film:
-Griff Whalen: went vegan 2014 out of the league 2016
-Bryant Jennings: went vegan end of 2013 (17-0 before vegan, 5-2 after vegan)
-Mischa Janiec: went vegan fall of 2015 - no wins 2 years after
-Kendrick Farris: went vegan 2014 -performed poorly in the 2016 Olympics
-Patrik Baboumian went vegan 2011 - 5'-7" and never ever part of the World Strong Men competition.
-Morgan Mitchell went vegan 2014... in 2017 finished 26th place world championships
-James Brett Wilks went vegan 2011, retired from MMA in 2012
- Lewis Hamiliton suffered depressive breakdown on twitter
Typically within 2 years after going vegan, performance goes down. So veganism based on many of the athletes in the film is a sub-optimal diet for athletic performance.
As to your comment about the Amazon, we aren't eating Amazon beef. You're right it's being cleared, to make way for soy and other processed food. When you buy a steak from the butcher it's not coming from the Amazon, it comes from your local butcher, from a grass fed field, using less carbon then your bananas from Panama.
Just as the documentary dramatized things, that rebuttal does the same. Taking small points in the movie, ie, the roman gladiator thing, and hype it up as if the movie made some grandiose claim about gladiators being the pinnacle of achievement.
The main argument that game changers proposes is a rebuttal to a long history of meat eaters and the meat industry claiming you need meat and dairy to be an athlete. That's false, and that's what the movie shows. There's also lots of benefits to eating a vegan diet and it showcases that as well.
The reason there aren't a lot of studies showcasing people who only eat grass fed beef that they killed themselves with cows they love is there simply isn't enough people doing that. Meat consumption leans drastically towards processed meats or bulk beef and chicken output. So naturally that's what these studies are targeting.
I believe you can make most diets healthy when adhering to rules of freshness, nutrient density, and a wide array of nutrients.
Just like how you can have an awful diet as a meat eater, you can have a awful diet as a vegan. It's not hard, just have white pasta with no vegetables and you have a carb dense vegan meal.
We don't need everyone to go vegan, but I think society would be better off if almost everyone (in America at least) believe they needed meat in the meal to feel full. We have an obsession with meat, but not in how it actually arrived to our plate, but in a don't ask don't tell philosophy. The general advice of "eat a lot of everything, mostly plants" is a good one and doesn't exclude meat and dairy, but it probably means to reduce your consumption. If you're someone who gets milk from your local farmer who also raises cows they have named and care for then you're probably fine, otherwise, don't think vegans are just crazy idiots, they may have a point.
It was made by a guy who trains soldiers in deadly unarmed combat. He got injured and read that a vegan diet could speed up recovery. Instead of trying to convince with ethical concerns, it gave me plenty of sound logical reasons to eat vegan.
The reason for me to eat organic meat was B12, but 39% of the people eating meat still have a B12 deficiency.
80% of farmland is used for animal husbandry, the size of Africa!
We can feed way more than seven billion, if we farm more efficient.
And when the strongest man in the world got there being vegan, i can skip animal products too.
> Being an athletic vegan is borderline impossible in my opinion.
There are a great number of vegan athletes that disagree. E.g. Patrik Baboumian, one of the strongest people alive, is vegan. America's best Olympic weight lifter (maybe not currently but has been), Kendrick Ferris, is vegan. Keep an eye out for the release of the moving "The Game Changers" [1] for more.
Sorry let me amend my statement, I am against a diet that promotes malnutrition which is caused by influencers that don't know about nutrition. Deaths are commonly attributed to vegans from this propaganda, and they are common not a trend of influencers but a trend in general. https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/crime/ve...
Anyone who promotes this unhealthy propaganda should be treated with suspicion. The mockumentary propaganda was shot in the style of a documentary funded by vegan companies. So surprised by what we saw though fake science.
That's kinda circular isn't it? "Since they made a movie it has to be fake"?
Come on my friend, at least try. And without even thinking about my nutrition I am a healthy vegan since 9 years, not taking supplements and eating cheap localish food.
Has it been debunked? As far as my reading has shown me in the past and now, it seems to be fairly accurate, with some criticisms levelled at its conclusion that veganism is the right solution.
Replace "vegan" with "stop cruelty". It's not a diet. It's a mindset not wanting to cause unnecessary suffering.
Why would you want to continue funding a cruel and biosphere destroying industry (factory farming) if you don't need their products to survive. In our society eating animal flesh is mostly to experience culinary pleasures. If you look at it from a logical perspective, it doesn't make sense, all that waste and inefficiencies in that system - tech folks should appreciate that.
Veganism doesn't mean you're automatically on a healthy diet. You can be vegan on Pringles and Coke.
Game Changers just shows you can thrive at an athletic level on a plant based diet.
We humans gave up other horrific practices from the past - so the future is vegan (reduced cruelty), but we don't have to wait - we can start now.
I tend to avoid the word "propaganda" where I think the term "one-sided" would qualitatively suffice, but those YouTube videos are fairly close to the definition of propaganda. The series is essentially one of the common hate-driven cherry-picking machines the internet is constructed out of. This is coming from me, a non-vegan who thinks that adequate nutrition is much more difficult for vegans, and therefore by the very laws of statistics, if that assumption is true, then vegans are in fact on average less well-nourished compared to people with adequate access to food and no dietary restrictions.
The site is not the official site of those who made the documentary by the looks of it. The official site is http://earthlings.com/. So discounting the film because someone promoting it advocates veganism is probably misguided.
At for environmental impact, a meat diet is generally more environmentally expensive than a vegetable diet. Animals either directly eat vegetables or indirectly (eating other animals that eat other animals that eat vegetables, etc.). Through the life of the animal it's burning the calories from the vegetables. Eat the vegetable calories directly and you're not eating them through an animal conduit that consumed much of them while existing.
You don't need to tell me you're vegan, yours is indistinguishable from someone who likes the propaganda.
Merit why it and other fake diet documentaries like super size me are legitimate. They are all grifters and propaganda, from the full carnivore to the full vegetables, most of them are vegan and vegans are commonly known to die of malnutrition.
Unfortunately, a lot of vegan media fails this test. Being heavily driven by idealogy rather than science causes pretty much any group to "choose" the science that suits them, ie. my one-time vegan fling that refused to acknowledge that obligate carnivores exist in the animal kingdom.
I suspect it's because they've shoehorned a vegan slant to it, which is unnecessary for and to some extent counterproductive to improving diet overall.
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