A Must-See Movie: Eating You Alive

With a title like Eating You Alive, you might think that this film is a horror flick — perhaps something akin to Jaws.  But no, it’s a full-length documentary that provides critically-important information about the root causes of chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.  Indeed, the only horror revealed in the film is that people are needlessly suffering from debilitating diseases.  And this film explains how we can use whole-food, plant-based nutrition to beat these diseases and improve our health.  So instead of eating ourselves to *death*, we can eat ourselves to LIFE!  It’s a story that’s captivating, inspiring, and hopeful.

Are We Doomed to be Disease Ridden?

These days it seems as though a large percentage of people feel doomed to succumb to a chronic disease that will rob them of their vitality.  Many people will tell you that “heart disease runs in my family, so I figure I’ll be getting it someday.”  And as they develop symptoms that reveal the onset of disease, they may reluctantly (or perhaps eagerly) pop the pills that are prescribed for these chronic diseases.  But those medications generally do nothing to treat the cause of their disease, and the patient’s health does not improve.  So it seems that people are using more and more medications, yet getting sicker and sicker.  Maybe we need less medi-cation and more edu-cation.  And I’m here to say that this film is a great place to start.

A Nationwide Rollout

On April 5, Eating You Alive was shown in 570 selected movie theaters all across the U.S.  I’d learned about the one-day, nationwide event through a post on Facebook.  So on the appointed evening, my husband and I joined about 30 other people for the Eating You Alive screening at a theater within a multiplex in Tysons, Virginia.  I found it quite ironic that we had to walk directly past the fat-and-sugar-laden snack bar in order to find our seats.  When do you suppose we’ll be able to buy fresh fruit at the cinema snack bars?

A Compelling Movie

Eating You Alive artfully weaves together scientific research about nutrition with first-person accounts of people afflicted by chronic diseases.  The healthcare experts featured in the movie include an impressive set of doctors:  Dr. Dean Ornish, Dr. Neal Barnard, Dr. John McDougall, Dr. Joel Fuhrman, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Dr. Michael Greger and Dr. T. Colin Campbell.  The medical information provided in the film by these health professionals is strategically interspersed with riveting stories from patients who had been diagnosed with serious, chronic diseases.  Some of these patients had been told by their physicians that they were going to die, but they changed to plant-based diets and lived to tell the story.

The Movie’s Main Points

While we couldn’t jot down notes in the darkened theater, my husband and I made the following list of the movie’s main points later that evening:

• Doctors are trained to treat disease with pills, not to promote health.  They are not routinely trained in nutrition.
• A growing body of research shows that chronic diseases are caused by bad food choices and can be reversed by good food choices.
• Our government subsidizes animal agriculture rather than promoting good nutrition and whole-food, plant-based diets.
• Powerful evidence for plant-based diets has been published in The Lancet, a peer-reviewed medical journal.   But advertisers aggressively promote meat and dairy to the general public, thereby causing confusion about what we should eat.  (Perhaps you remember the “Got Milk?” advertising campaign that featured celebs with milk mustaches  — or the snappy TV ads proclaiming “Beef: It’s What’s for Dinner!”)
• The same government department that subsidizes animal agriculture is telling us what to eat.  It’s the proverbial fox guarding the hen house.
• Processed foods on grocery store shelves — and the usual restaurant entrees — are often high in salt, oils, and sugar.  Restaurants and food processing companies feed us this kind of food not to make us healthy, but to keep us coming back.
• The hardest part of adopting a new diet is making the decision to do it.

The Power of Stories

We all love to hear stories, and the first-person accounts in Eating You Alive are bound to tug on your heart.  I expect the chances are good that one or more of the patients in the film has been affected by a disease that you, or someone close to you, has had.  In my case, I identified strongly with the woman who talked about her breast cancer.  The reason:  I have been treated for that disease, along with my mom, my aunt, and my maternal grandmother.  You can’t get much closer than that.

Could I Have Avoided Breast Cancer at 40?

Early onset heart disease and various forms of cancer are common in my family.  Sadly, my parents were like poster children for unhealthy lifestyles.  They both smoked cigarettes, didn’t establish a regular exercise routine,  ate far too much unhealthy food — and died before reaching their golden years.  Even in high school, I could see the error of their ways and decided not to follow their example.  The health classes that I took were very clear about the role of lifestyle in disease progression.   The textbooks made it clear that a sedentary lifestyle and tobacco use were poor choices.  So, in case there were truly some hereditary inclination toward chronic diseases in my family, I always felt that it was my responsibility to stack the deck in my favor by adopting healthy habits.  Beginning in my early 20’s, I worked hard to eat right, exercise regularly, and stay slender.  I became a vegetarian — turned away from meats and refined foods, and I began loading my plate with whole grains, legumes, fruit and veggies.  I felt great and lost weight.  But I hung onto dairy and eggs — and when I was 40 I was diagnosed with an early stage of breast cancer when a radiologist noticed microcalcifications on my mammogram.  Thankfully, my disease was discovered before it had spread, and I had no lump in my breast or elsewhere.  My lymph nodes were clear of disease, so there was no need for adjuvant therapies like chemo or radiation.  But my docs recommended a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction, which required seven surgeries over the course of a year.  That was a rough 12 months.

Now, with evidence presented about the link between dairy foods and cancer in books like The China Study, I wonder if I could have avoided that whole experience if I had eliminated dairy foods from my diet when I stopped eating meat.  Adding to the body of evidence is a new Harvard study that recently called attention to the suspected role of cow’s milk, cheese, and other dairy products in hormone-dependent cancers — including breast cancer.  If only I had known this information sooner!  In any case, I am one of the lucky ones, because I’m already 21 years past treatment for cancer, and that experience is quite dim in my rearview mirror.  But I have two adult daughters (and a very cute 18-mo-old granddaughter), and I want them to live long and prosper — so I regularly ask them to at least reduce, if not eliminate, the dairy foods in their diets.  And with numerous alternative milks now present on store shelves, it’s never been easier.

My Own Happy Ending

Even though I didn’t drop dairy soon enough to potentially avoid breast cancer, making the change to a vegan diet two years ago might have warded off another serious disease.  Here’s the story.  About three years ago, before I eliminated dairy and eggs from my diet, I went to the doctor for a routine colonoscopy.  During that procedure, the gastroenterologist found two polyps, which he removed.  Of greater concern were two lesions that he found, and he expressed concern that I might be developing Crohn’s disease.  Crohn’s disease is a chronic inflammatory condition of the gastrointestinal tract and is definitely a condition to be avoided.  Due to his concern about the lesions, the doctor recommended repeating the colonoscopy in three years.  About a year after that test, I dropped the dairy and eggs from my diet — and began to wonder if the change would affect my next colonoscopy.  Sure enough, I recently returned to the doctor for that procedure and had a completely clean result.  No polyps! No lesions!  And no need to repeat the test for ten years!  Now that’s a happy ending.

Watch the Trailer Now

I hope I’ve managed to whet your appetite for this great documentary.  You can watch the trailer now, and the full-length film will be available on Blu-Ray, DVD, and digital download very soon.  It’s truly a must-see movie.