If you had asked me to watch a Vegan Documentary six months ago, I would've have laughed straight in your face. However, for months wise fellow advocators have been saying you have to get out of your comfort zone and see what "anti-livestock ag" campaigns are out there. So this weekend when I probably should've been studying for a Meats test (ironic huh) I decided to sit through one of the most watched documentaries on Netflix: Vegucated, and yes I watched all two hours of it. Many eye rolls and clenched fists later, I decided I had to point out some flaws discretely hidden in this movie.
Like most vegan/activists movies and books it started out cheerful and extremely cheesy. Trying to lure your emotions in a positive way and gain your trust. The star of the film is a self declared vegan who finds three volunteers in New York City, and challenges them to go full out vegan for six weeks. (I would like to point out this vegan wears makeup, has leather seats in her car, and her tires are made of rubber-all products with beef by products in them) Surprisingly the three volunteers lose a combined 18 pounds after the six weeks and also all lower their blood pressure and cholesterol. One volunteer is a college student living with her parents, another a bachelor in his mid twenties, and the final a single mom of two. Seems random right? Ehhhhh not really, but I'll debunk this later on. The initial goal for the volunteers and the head lady is to create healthier lives. As the film goes on we find some ulterior motives.
What the main lady in charge fails to tell these volunteers in the beginning is that she is vegan because she does not like how livestock producers treat their animals. After week three, she brings all three volunteers together and shows them a video with "undercover" footage at various livestock production facilities. She makes numerous stabs using the two words that I absolutely loathe: factory farms (large scale operation folks). However, she does not mention that 98% of farms in the U.S. are family owned. Guess it slipped her mind. She then takes the volunteers to what she considers a "family farm" where they "save" two spent hens and take them to a farm animal sanctuary (yup these things do exist). She uses her friendship and trust she has with these people into guilting them into becoming vegan. She even convinces two of the volunteers to illegally trespass onto a pig confinement and just take a casual look around. The two stumble upon a couple of pig carcasses outside of the facility, and are absolutely disgusted. She doesn't try to soothe their concerns by explaining that the producer has strict rules on how to properly dispose of deceased pig carcasses and it would be a huge biological hazard to keep the carcasses in the facility. She just keeps driving along in her car with rubber tires and leather seats.
The climax of the film is when the vegan starts rambling twisted information on livestock production to these volunteers to scare the meat out of them. If I could debunk all the facts she gave, it would take a whole other blog post, so I'll just stick to the main objective. She then takes a stab at the organic industry (nobody is safe from this lady), and has one of the volunteers contact an organic producer to asks accusatory questions. The volunteers did not pick out these questions themselves. The head vegan lady had them all planned out for them. How convenient. Once the volunteers are good and vegified, she takes them to a vegan conference. Ironically the name tags at this conference were made out of plastic which also has beef by-products in them, just saying. They are pounded into their heads how meat should not be a part of a nutritional diet, and that livestock ag production is killing the environment. Never once did I hear how pig confinements have drastically decreased the carbon footprint that pig production used to leave behind fifty years ago.
At the end of it all, these volunteers did see health improvements from when the experiment started. Was this because they cut meat from their diets? I highly doubt it. Let's start with the college student. I'm a college student and I will admit I am flat ass broke. What is economically better for my situation is foods high in carbs and sugars. I can't afford a lot of meat, and I will admit I have gained a couple pounds this past year. I'll repeat, I can't afford much meat and have GAINED weight. If I had more money and could sacrifice more of my income on fruits and vegetables and meat I would probably be a little healthier. Did she lose weight because she cut meat or because she cut refined sugars? Hmmm. Now the bachelor. It's no secret that most bachelor's can't/ don't like to cook. Therefore they have a tendency to stock up on fatty fast food covered in grease. Becoming a vegan forced him to cut out a lot of grease and refined sugars as well. The vegan lady also had him start a work out program. To me that's cheating on the experiment. Of course he is going to lose weight and feel better when he goes from sitting on his butt playing BlackOps all day to going to the gym with an intensive trainer. My personal favorite was the single mother of two, who openly admitted at the beginning that she only ate fast food and foods high in fat and sugar. Of course she will lose weight when she drastically cuts all the fat and sugar out of her diet. The vegan diet is not the most healthiest diet by any means, but it was healthier than their lifestyles before.
I am not against people becoming vegans because it is their choice, but this lady clearly exploited these people into joining her animal rights campaign. I mean who wouldn't be enticed when someone says they can make their life healthier? She started by starving them-all three of the volunteers admitted at the beginning that the vegan food started to taste better because they were hungrier. She then guilted these people by making them think that if they ate meat they were causing pain and suffering of animals. She carefully picked out three people whom she knew she could manipulate and skew results of to convince viewers that meat-less diets are healthier. I find this kind of funny since the American Heart Association deems lean pork, lean beef, fish, shellfish, and many poultry products as heart healthy and excellent sources of protein, but minor details.
The most important question is did her tactics work? At the "where are they now" portion of the documentary only one volunteer had remained vegan. The other two were quoted as being "mostly vegan" and "mostly vegetarian". I learned a lot from this documentary. First, I learned that Oreos and Teddy Grahams are vegan, which was pretty interesting. I also was able to pick up on how animal activists target their audience. It starts with the "health improvements". They gain your trust and then guilt you into staying vegan with their skewed information. However, this documentary showed that you can kind of scare the meat out of someone, but can't always scare the veggies into them. Now I challenge you. Watch Vegucated or another vegan inspired film, and see if you can pick up on this pattern. I am willing to bet good money that you will. Hopefully I have been able to get you thinking in a way you didn't before. As always, it is someone's choice to be vegan or vegetarian, but I think it's highly unethical to guilt someone into making their choices for them with false information.
Like most vegan/activists movies and books it started out cheerful and extremely cheesy. Trying to lure your emotions in a positive way and gain your trust. The star of the film is a self declared vegan who finds three volunteers in New York City, and challenges them to go full out vegan for six weeks. (I would like to point out this vegan wears makeup, has leather seats in her car, and her tires are made of rubber-all products with beef by products in them) Surprisingly the three volunteers lose a combined 18 pounds after the six weeks and also all lower their blood pressure and cholesterol. One volunteer is a college student living with her parents, another a bachelor in his mid twenties, and the final a single mom of two. Seems random right? Ehhhhh not really, but I'll debunk this later on. The initial goal for the volunteers and the head lady is to create healthier lives. As the film goes on we find some ulterior motives.
What the main lady in charge fails to tell these volunteers in the beginning is that she is vegan because she does not like how livestock producers treat their animals. After week three, she brings all three volunteers together and shows them a video with "undercover" footage at various livestock production facilities. She makes numerous stabs using the two words that I absolutely loathe: factory farms (large scale operation folks). However, she does not mention that 98% of farms in the U.S. are family owned. Guess it slipped her mind. She then takes the volunteers to what she considers a "family farm" where they "save" two spent hens and take them to a farm animal sanctuary (yup these things do exist). She uses her friendship and trust she has with these people into guilting them into becoming vegan. She even convinces two of the volunteers to illegally trespass onto a pig confinement and just take a casual look around. The two stumble upon a couple of pig carcasses outside of the facility, and are absolutely disgusted. She doesn't try to soothe their concerns by explaining that the producer has strict rules on how to properly dispose of deceased pig carcasses and it would be a huge biological hazard to keep the carcasses in the facility. She just keeps driving along in her car with rubber tires and leather seats.
The climax of the film is when the vegan starts rambling twisted information on livestock production to these volunteers to scare the meat out of them. If I could debunk all the facts she gave, it would take a whole other blog post, so I'll just stick to the main objective. She then takes a stab at the organic industry (nobody is safe from this lady), and has one of the volunteers contact an organic producer to asks accusatory questions. The volunteers did not pick out these questions themselves. The head vegan lady had them all planned out for them. How convenient. Once the volunteers are good and vegified, she takes them to a vegan conference. Ironically the name tags at this conference were made out of plastic which also has beef by-products in them, just saying. They are pounded into their heads how meat should not be a part of a nutritional diet, and that livestock ag production is killing the environment. Never once did I hear how pig confinements have drastically decreased the carbon footprint that pig production used to leave behind fifty years ago.
At the end of it all, these volunteers did see health improvements from when the experiment started. Was this because they cut meat from their diets? I highly doubt it. Let's start with the college student. I'm a college student and I will admit I am flat ass broke. What is economically better for my situation is foods high in carbs and sugars. I can't afford a lot of meat, and I will admit I have gained a couple pounds this past year. I'll repeat, I can't afford much meat and have GAINED weight. If I had more money and could sacrifice more of my income on fruits and vegetables and meat I would probably be a little healthier. Did she lose weight because she cut meat or because she cut refined sugars? Hmmm. Now the bachelor. It's no secret that most bachelor's can't/ don't like to cook. Therefore they have a tendency to stock up on fatty fast food covered in grease. Becoming a vegan forced him to cut out a lot of grease and refined sugars as well. The vegan lady also had him start a work out program. To me that's cheating on the experiment. Of course he is going to lose weight and feel better when he goes from sitting on his butt playing BlackOps all day to going to the gym with an intensive trainer. My personal favorite was the single mother of two, who openly admitted at the beginning that she only ate fast food and foods high in fat and sugar. Of course she will lose weight when she drastically cuts all the fat and sugar out of her diet. The vegan diet is not the most healthiest diet by any means, but it was healthier than their lifestyles before.
I am not against people becoming vegans because it is their choice, but this lady clearly exploited these people into joining her animal rights campaign. I mean who wouldn't be enticed when someone says they can make their life healthier? She started by starving them-all three of the volunteers admitted at the beginning that the vegan food started to taste better because they were hungrier. She then guilted these people by making them think that if they ate meat they were causing pain and suffering of animals. She carefully picked out three people whom she knew she could manipulate and skew results of to convince viewers that meat-less diets are healthier. I find this kind of funny since the American Heart Association deems lean pork, lean beef, fish, shellfish, and many poultry products as heart healthy and excellent sources of protein, but minor details.
The most important question is did her tactics work? At the "where are they now" portion of the documentary only one volunteer had remained vegan. The other two were quoted as being "mostly vegan" and "mostly vegetarian". I learned a lot from this documentary. First, I learned that Oreos and Teddy Grahams are vegan, which was pretty interesting. I also was able to pick up on how animal activists target their audience. It starts with the "health improvements". They gain your trust and then guilt you into staying vegan with their skewed information. However, this documentary showed that you can kind of scare the meat out of someone, but can't always scare the veggies into them. Now I challenge you. Watch Vegucated or another vegan inspired film, and see if you can pick up on this pattern. I am willing to bet good money that you will. Hopefully I have been able to get you thinking in a way you didn't before. As always, it is someone's choice to be vegan or vegetarian, but I think it's highly unethical to guilt someone into making their choices for them with false information.
The head vegan lady takes a stab at the dairy industry because the calf is taken from the cow at day one. This baby water buffalo doesn't seem to mind. He is guaranteed a safe, dry, warm place to sleep where he won't worry about getting stepped on by Mom. He also gets individualized care and attention, which ensures he gets enough milk and feed.