Forks Over Knives, the actual documentary, is based on nutrition, very little philosophy involved.
...
Forks Over Knives instead of just searching for critiques of it, you will see some of the healthiest looking old people you have probably seen anywhere. Just admit that maybe you did it wrong or did it wrong for your body, or that you may be one of the people who happen to need more animal products.
I've seen the documentary. It's a lot of heart felt stories and a lot of opinions and based on very little facts. I even AGREE with the message--eat healthy, incorporate wholesome foods in your diet, etc. But they are clearly eating a vegan diet, and there is a very real reason they avoided labeling it vegan even though it clearly is that. They are clearly claiming ALL animal products are bad, which is what veganism does, despite research showing fish and other products like that are perfectly acceptable choices for healthy lifestyles.
And some, many, of the stuff they're quoting is just wrong. The China Study was completely flawed, just because a study exists doesn't mean it's good. The foundations for the china study were wrong, and the study itself was just a mess.
The critique is not about whether the message is agreed with or not--the author agrees with the message to an extent. But. It lays out some extremely important details being completely, and very conveniently, overlooked for the sake of saying a message they believe in. And if a message is that true and virtuous, the you don't need to skirt around the truth to get it out there to people.
I'm saying, yet again, veganism is fine, but not fine for me, or many people, and it is a very very restricted diet and I'm now wary of anything that restricted without some hard science showing real results that couldn't be had otherwise. The data they're showcasing in the documentary is fatally flawed in several areas, not just one area. That's why it's so long--they're using the data and research based on the data of the documentary to see if the data actually lines up. And it doesn't.
Just because it's a real documentary doesn't mean everything they say is accurate. And that's what the critique aims to do. I can show you a hundred textbooks that say faulty information about history for the sake of making a country of origin look better.
I can understand that some of the naturalists and naturopaths are over the top and really not grounded in anything empirical. But how people can speak, like industrialization has no consequence on human health and the environment, is beyond me. Or that continuing industrialization won't have consequences.
Naturalists actually make natural medicine take a lot of steps backwards with the stuff they pull imo. I can easily see myself not wanting to be associated, as a new researcher, with homeopathic medicine when so much pseudoscience is pumped out of it all the time. You want to gain credentials, because those are super useful for stuff in a completely valid way. It isn't that industrialization lacks consequences.. but the people with good ideas aren't promoting them in the right way, or the people that want good ideas aren't getting them the right way. I mean, look how long it's taking for tiny house movements for example to get mainstream? Now they are, but people lived in small houses for ages before all of this industrialization. No one promoted their lifestyle, everyone conformed to it and didn't push back hard enough. And now Houston is one the very few cities left without restricted building codes for unrestricted land. And even they have housing codes.