Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution (TED Talks)-
The famous chef Jamie Oliver gave a TED Talk about the importance of healthy, local food rather than the processed food eaten in America. His discussion was interesting and informative. He demonstrated the amount of sugar in chocolate milk by bringing an entire wheelbarrow filled with sugar. He also showed videos of him going to American schools and teaching them what vegetables are. I thought that it was sad they did not even know the names of vegetables but it is ridiculous to act like all American children do not know what a cucumber is. My five year old brother knows the names of vegetables such as eggplant, zucchini and pumpkin. Overall, Jamie's presentation was informative, concise, and provocative. He gave a call to action for us to save children from obesity. Jamie Oliver calls on people's emotions and intellect. His presentation was not too long, only around 7 minutes so that we were not bored. Forks over Knives-
This movie was about the health benefits of becoming vegan. This movie was clearly biased because it only presented the facts for one side of the story. While the movie states that dairy and meat products cause cancer and other health complications, humans have been eating meat and dairy for thousands of years. Recent complications are due to eating too much meat, dairy, and eggs. Humans are naturally omnivores. Meat gives us complete proteins and milk gives us calcium. If small doses of these products were so harmful the humans would not have evolved to eat them. Also, the movie does not address fish at all! Fish is full of Omega 3 and Fatty Acids that are essential to our health. Vegans do not eat animal products but the example they used was that Japan being more healthy than America. Japan has a very fish based diet so clearly they are not vegans. While they stated the American government does not support the view of meat and dairy causing cancer because it would mess up their farming system, why do countries such as Japan support this?
Super-Size Me-This documentary was about a man who decided to eat only McDonald's for 30 days straight and the health complications that ensued. It was a provocative look at the dangers of fast food. Personally, I do not know anyone who eats fast food every day, let alone for every meal. While this movie may apply to many people I thought that it did not really resonate with the students here at ISB. None of us would be insane enough to eat only fast food and most of the time we were just shocked at the fact he decided to mess up his health for a documentary.
