In Defense of Food: At the Movies with The Cancer Pod

Tina 0:00

Welcome to Episode 18 of The Cancer Pod. In this podcast, we're still at the movies. Today we're reviewing In Defensive Food, a documentary from 2015. I'm Dr. Tina Kaczor, and I'm a vegetarian.

Leah 0:14

And I'm Dr. Lee Sherman, and I'm not.

Tina 0:17

And we're to naturopathic doctors who practice integrative cancer care

Leah 0:21

but we're not your doctors

Tina 0:23

This is for education, entertainment, and informational purposes only.

Leah 0:28

Do not apply any of this information without first speaking to your doctor

Tina 0:32

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast by the hosts and their guests are solely their own.

Leah 0:39

Welcome to The Cancer Pod. Hey, Tina.

Tina 0:59

Hey Leah. We've got a good one today.

Leah 1:01

Yeah, I'm excited to talk about this movie. So I think we should just get to it.

Tina 1:07

Let's talk about it.

Leah 1:08

Okay. So this is the second film that we're watching in our At The Movies pod, where we're talking about health related films that are out there, available for people to watch.

Tina 1:18

Yup.

Leah 1:19

And we're talking today about In Defense of Food.

Tina 1:22

Yes. In Defensive Food, came out a few years ago.

Leah 1:24

Yeah. And it's based on a New York times bestseller.

Tina 1:27

By Michael Pollan.

Leah 1:28

Yeah. And I guess we'll talk about what we liked about the movie, if there was anything we didn't like about the movie, and then we'll kind of sum it up.

Tina 1:35

Yeah. Can I just do a spoiler? I love this movie.

Leah 1:39

I know me too, and you know, after watching that first movie And then watching this movie. oh my gosh." I know, like we just, we're just cutting to the chase.

Tina 1:48

I kind of made fun of the bobblehead idea and the first critique that we did on the other movie with that, I didn't like much at all and how they used lowbrow tactics to make a point. And I was a bobblehead in this movie, but mostly because I've been doing this over 20 years with people and everything that they said in here, I was like, "Yes! Exactly!"

Leah 2:07

I mentioned to you earlier, I think that the message in terms of health, both movies are kind of trying to- Well, the first movie is trying to be the second movie, but the second movie is a hug. It's not a hit over the head, Yeah.

Tina 2:21

Yes. Positivity.

Leah 2:23

Positivity. And the experts that they had were academics,

Tina 2:29

People who actually study this stuff and are willing to change their mind. If the data goes in another direction, they're not people who have built a career based on some ideology.

Leah 2:37

Right. I mean, there was somebody who a professor of food behavior, who knew?

Tina 2:44

I know.

Leah 2:45

I'm so fascinated by so many of the people the author who writes about fat, how she started a diet of omega six fatty acids, you know, just to see like what would happen.

Tina 2:56

Yeah.

Leah 2:57

I mean we're so skipping ahead. So kind of starting at the beginning, the movie is organized. It's nice because it's like a book. It's in chapters, right? So they start with the Western diet and talking about what the issues are with the modern diet, which they don't call it standard American. They call it the Western diet.

Tina 3:18

Which is how it's referred to in most studies.

Leah 3:20

Right.

Tina 3:20

So that is more in keeping, maybe it's cause they want the standard American diet to become what they propose. right? yeah. So maybe we shouldn't solidify the idea of it being a standard American diet. By the time you finished this movie, if you eat the way they guide you to eat, then that should be the new standard.

Leah 3:34

Exactly. That's perfect. So, yeah. So they talk about the correlation between diet and type 2 diabetes, especially in children, right. they focus on Anthony, who's this cute kid who is having health issues and that's kind of where the movie starts off. And they go into the whole thing about the government subsidies of, you know, certain food, the corn and the wheat.

Tina 3:58

And they did a good job explaining the scientific reality of why processed food doesn't go bad because you pulled all the nutrients out. So it doesn't rot or spoil because nothing can live on it.

Leah 4:10

That was a really good point because it's like, why did they start stripping the nutrients that were in bread? Why did they start removing them? Because it was a form of preservation so that you don't have to constantly have fresh bread around. And then they talked about why they started fortifying food because all of those nutrients were being stripped and people were getting sick. And so they, put those nutrients back in which, you know, seems a little absurd.

Tina 4:36

It's absurd and we don't know all the nutrients. I mean, the problem is that's, a lot of hubris as well, like, "oh, we'll, strip it down. And then we'll just add back certain ones." We only know certain ones, even when they were doing it, they hadn't even discovered some nutrients at that time.

Leah 4:48

RIght they were doing it. They're putting back mostly the ones. And I'm not saying fortified food is bad. I'm just saying You're taking something out and then you're putting part of it back in Like, it just it's just to me that just doesn't work in my head.

Tina 4:59

Right, From, from a completely rational perspective it doesn't make sense.

Leah 5:03

Right. And they talked about, other nutrients, like omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in green plants and, a healthful ratio of omega-6, which are also found in plants.

Tina 5:15

You want to know something interesting, a little factoid? There's higher level of omega-3 fatty acids in plants that are grown in cooler weather and colder weather. Just like cold water fish have higher omega-3's. So your kale, you know, you can keep growing kale all year round in certain parts of the country. Winter kale will have a little bit more omega-3 than your summer kale.

Leah 5:36

So with the omega-3 fatty acid, that's found in green plants, is that bioavailable to everybody?

Tina 5:43

That's a good point. So omega-3 fatty acids, if you are genetically from a heritage that ate a lot of fish, it's possible that you don't convert that last step

Leah 5:55

Is that the connection? It's the it's the fish connection?

Tina 5:58

Yeah. So, you know, like someone of Japanese descent, for example, there was a lot of fish traditionally, throughout the millennia eaten cause it's an island. Um, So they're less likely to convert omega-3 fatty acids in the plant d down to the DHA. That is needed. Then someone who is landlocked and has been vegetarian.

Leah 6:16

So that, so that is interesting, it's good to know that many people can get omega-3 fatty acids from, from plants.

Tina 6:24

Yeah. And again, if you, if you're from a heritage that has a lot of fish consumption, your enzyme to convert it is less likely to be active or it'll be inefficient. So just keep that in mind.

Leah 6:34

Just try to find sources that try to find all sources.

Tina 6:37

Yeah. If you happen to be vegan and you are of a heritage that ate a lot of fish, you can get DHA from algae. So you can go to where the fish got it.

Leah 6:46

Just go straight to the source.

Tina 6:48

Go straight to the source.

Leah 7:00

Oh, and they do talk about the influence of sugar on the liver, the fructose in the liver damage.

Tina 7:09

Yes, it gets packaged up as a triglyceride deposited in the liver. And that is how you get a fatty liver. So it's sugar that causes a fatty liver.

Leah 7:16

It's

Tina 7:18

They don't talk about that specifically, but it's, you know, that's part of the whole picture of diabetes and blood sugar abnormalities, a fatty liver.

Leah 7:24

Right. And they, and they did talk about other foods, that convert in your body to this this sugar, and the effects of those foods in general, on like lower income neighborhoods and how those foods are marketed to them. You know, if you go into a store In certain neighborhoods and there's just all this junk food and how it's all it's marketed towards certain populations.

Tina 7:47

Yeah. again, they they wrap that up into a hopeful message which I appreciated. They didn't just present the problem they said, and they didn't even present the problem, they presented the hopeful story.

Leah 7:55

I loved that. I loved how they're making those pizzas and, you know, they're, they're like putting the, all these different vegetables And the one kid is lik, I'm putting pickles on here"

Tina 8:05

Yeah,

Leah 8:06

I think it'll be good or something like it was so cute and I'm like pickles would be good on pizza. Cause we put kimchi when we make pizza. So that's pickle. I mean like why not? I'm going to make a pizza with pickles.

Tina 8:18

That's awesome. No, I liked that approach in this, in this entire movie, which was. They would tell you the problem, but by giving you the solution to the problem and the problem at the same time, instead of kind of taking a cheap shot and saying, you know, this is a tragedy, you know, like doing the dumped on dong,

Leah 8:35

And it is a tragedy, but there, but then they presented the solutions and the solutions were wonderful. I mean, absolutely fabulous. Like the teacher. where he. Saw like opportunities to put in community gardens and stuff. yeah. I mean, there, were so many like examples of the great stuff that they were doing.

Tina 8:52

And the, in the take home message of the whole thing is, ultimately that you need to change the culture, That our problems are deep seated, and it's not just. Going and buying organic. It's a much more pervasive and systemic problem.

Leah 9:04

and they actually, because of the, the experts who were contributing to the movie, you know, like so the, the second part was the, lessons from nature. Right. And they, they did, they looked back at cultures that are very similar to what the more westernized cultures were originally and they looked at what they were eating. They looked at the hunter gatherers. And showing the, the lower rates of the diseases that are so prevalent in the Western world.

Tina 9:30

Right.

Leah 9:31

And, you know, they're, they're eating meat And sometimes they don't eat meat. If meats available, they eat meat, they eat a lot of meat.

Tina 9:38

right.

Leah 9:39

And then, then, then, they don't for awhile, but it's, you know, that they were eating. a root,

Tina 9:44

yeah. They're digging up a tuber.

Leah 9:45

A tuber? Right. And eating that. So I dunno. I just, I, I thought all of that was really interesting cause they were talking to I think they were talking to anthropologists. I mean, just everybody they were talking to just provided so much education.

Tina 9:59

Genuine expertise. I would call it genuine expertise was, was used. Uh, that same group, the Hadza in Tanzania. Um, they circle back to them at the end of the whole thing. Right. And talk about how the, that hunter gatherer native diet, it may be the closest thing. We'll have to knowing what our diets looked like before we introduced large agriculture and processed food. so they're studying their biome, their microbiome to say, you know, what does that diet do? But that's the way later in the show. But anyways, it's a, I like how they came back to them. You know, they did that with several of those storylines.

Leah 10:33

And, and speaking, speaking of microbiome And, probiotics, I also found the part about how when, formula first was developed, which I didn't realize it was developed as far back as it was. Um, I thought it was a 20th century thing, but how they didn't even know, of nutrition. And then later, You know, later through research, finding out that there are these undigestible sugars in breast milk, and then taking them and finding this specific bacteria in a baby that feeds off of it. that's so cool. There are no mistakes in how we are designed.

Tina 11:12

Right. Right. Cause that whole idea was looking at breast milk, as a perfect food. I mean, the baby can sustain itself on that and then trying to break down And say, if that's the case, then what is in it, because everything in it. should be essential. that was a Great story of bifidobacterium in fantasy.

Leah 11:29

Yeah. Yeah. So cool. another really cool part is that, that last part of the movie where it's like, what can we do again? They're offering a solution and that's broken down into I guess the catchphrase Michael Pollan catchphrase.

Tina 11:49

which is?

Leah 11:51

Eat food, mostly plants, and not too much.

Tina 11:56

That's it, it's it. and I know that, you know, I've talked about this. In my practice. I have always had a bit of an aversion to the nutrition discussion and I feel like it's a waste of their dollars because it's really simple. the only thing I would add to that is I also add, look at your heritage in what they ate, eat, what your ancestors ate, eat whole foods, real food, mostly plants, and don't overeat.

Leah 12:23

And they kind of touch on that because they do say don't eat any food that your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food,

Tina 12:29

Good point. Yeah.

Leah 12:31

know? So they, they, they kind of touch on that. Not saying necessarily eat what Trey grandmother would eat, but, know,

Tina 12:36

and this has always been a struggle, um, there's better ways of spending your time with me. You can just do this on your.

Leah 12:42

Oh, Yeah. And, and for me, I light up, I mean, that's why our team dietitian and I would do our appointments together cause we would just feed off each other. like, and I'm just, I originally to be a dietitian, so I don't know if I've ever confessed that, but, um, And then found my way into naturopathic medicine. But yeah, nutrition was definitely where I wanted to go. And. To cook. And I love to find solutions If people like to eat a certain thing, let's find a more healthful version, you know? Like I love that problem solving. So, so I, I like the food conversation. Um, So, and they talked about nutritionism, which I thought was such an interesting term. Right. So it's like, instead of thinking of food as a whole, it's just picking that one thing out. So when you look at food in the store, they're like this with more antioxidants, this with more vitamin D or whatever it is, you know, and that's considered nutritionism, right.

Tina 13:40

Yes. I've never used the word and I hadn't come across it.

Leah 13:43

And that might be his, like that might be a Michael Pollan ism but it's such a great way of looking at it. You know, it's like these foods that are like, you don't ever see an apple in a store saying like now with more fiber with more apple.

Tina 13:57

Well, and the whole reason to call it nutritionism was he used that and was using that as an analogy for an almost religious. Forever and a religious experience because you create mystery behind it, which is true. People feel like there's mystery behind nutrition, and now they must go to an interpreter. You need an his cases. I think he said in the movie, you know, you come to me, you know, or you go to a doctor and where your go between, between that mystery and explaining it to you. You need us right. Again, that be part of my issue with the whole thing is like, don't ask me what nutrition, just eat really good food, you know, and enjoy it!

Leah 14:33

I know, but then you have to, you, you do have to explain to people what really good food is because what they have grown up eating thinking is really good. Food may not actually be at. and that was the thing with the little boy, right. His mom was like, I bought food. I thought was healthy. Right. They were buying granola bars. They were buying yogurt, but maybe it was. They held up at one point that yogurt that had like M and M's in it, know, but it's yogurt. And so you think it's healthy,

Tina 14:59

Sure.

Leah 14:59

you know, so I, I do recall the challenge of trying to have people who are eating yogurt shift away from the fruit on the bottom or the fruit on the top, or, you know, whatever it's hard to kind of change that mindset that like that this marketing and advertising has created.

Tina 15:16

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And you know, I think that it's hard to jump from conventional marketed foods to health foods. And back in other words, if you're always eating healthfully, your taste buds are different than if you're jumping in and out. You know, you're eating healthfully sometimes out of duty, but you're still going back to processed foods where it's too sugary and it's too salty. And it's over-processed And what, what they put in there are some chemical compounds that are, you know, light up your brain, a little reward centers in your brain and stuff. You can't jump back and forth. And so I think that's the one thing I would emphasize that's not in the movie is like, give it time. Like you can't go from M and M Laden yogurt to plain yogurt and expect to enjoy the planning. Your taste buds won't let

Leah 15:59

Right. No. And then that right. And those, those were things that I helped along with the dietician to help patients to transition to. and you know, I, I liked the fact that they did touch on the trans fat. As being a bad thing. And like, they talked about the origin of low fat back in the 1950s.

Tina 16:17

What a disaster that was.

Leah 16:19

right.

Tina 16:19

Yeah. I'm going to say it was a, it was a good simplification of saying here was the proportion of fat. Here was the proportion of, you know, sugars and carbohydrates that people ate. And then when we came out, we being the government, not me. When the government came out and started saying, oh, no, we've got to trim down the fat intake. Instead of people trimming down the fat, they eat the same amount of fat, but just increase their carbohydrate intake. So we took in more calories, ultimately.

Leah 16:45

Yeah. And I think that's, you know, that's part of what they say as well as like, you know, serving size. And you were saying that when we were talking offline about the first movie, was like nobody ever mentioned serving size.

Tina 16:57

it's a big. deal. Yeah, because Yeah, the first movie demonized every bit of meat, but they didn't talk about. Because yes, meat can be bad for you in excess, for sure. No doubt.

Leah 17:09

And I, cause I, kept like doing my little online research. I found a blog where the author had looked at joy of cooking from like the 1940s or whenever it first came out to joy of cooking, the modern version. and there were recipes that were the same, But the serving size was different.

Tina 17:29

Oh,

Leah 17:29

So I th that's not, it hasn't been verified. I, have not looked at old versions myself and compared it to new versions, but I just thought that in itself is really interesting because if you think about, I remember as soda sizes kept getting larger and larger, you know, like the original size of a soda can, And that would be like two servings. I think, I think a soda can used to be two servings. So a 12 ounce can, would be two servings. And now you look at like a 16 ounce and that's considered one serving.

Tina 17:55

Yes.

Leah 17:56

So serving size, whether it's a drink or it's, the plates, right. They had the experiment where they looked at. The serving a person would give themselves based on the size of their plate

Tina 18:08

Yeah. Yeah. So the simple thing of just looking at your dinner plates and sizing them down, you know, getting smaller plates, that one little act in this movie, he talked about, it could be the difference between, you know, gaining nine pounds or not over

Leah 18:21

in a year, nine pounds in a year by eating off of a smaller plate. it was a significantly lower amount that they serve themselves when they went from this large plate to the small.

Tina 18:32

Yeah. So in that, scene that they didn't know, they got a smaller plate to get seconds. They did this little trick where they, stalled and then gave them all clean plates. Again, they, all thought they got the same size plate, but it was a smaller plate. so when they went and got more. Yes. The smaller plate meant smaller portion because that's what our eyeballs do. Right. So we'll put it we'll cover a quarter of the plate or a third of the plate with whatever, you know. So it's a little, little mind game we could play with ourselves, I suppose.

Leah 18:56

Yeah. And you know, if you do look at vintage, dinner where you see how much smaller it is,

Tina 19:02

Yeah. Classic is juice glasses juice glass used to be like three, four ounces, like old juice glasses are these little tiny things. And now.

Leah 19:11

glasses now? I don't

Tina 19:12

I don't know if they have them anymore, but I if you go to a restaurant and you go out to breakfast or something, give you a big old, eight ounce glass of whatever.

Leah 19:19

Well, I remember when I was in college and we'd go to the school cafeteria and they had these tiny little, I think they were like juice glass sizes. And you'd see, the athletes would get like six of them, full of milk or soda. but they yeah, they did the cafeteria kin with these tiny little things. I mean, it's not like that anymore. Right. you can just go get a 16 ounce, 20 ounce or whatever, but, um, I like how the film, they talk about the seventh day Adventists

Tina 19:49

One of the classic long lived,

Leah 19:52

populations.

Tina 19:53

populations. So they're also population that they made it into that book, the blue Zones. Remember that book?

Leah 19:59

I've heard of it. I've not read it. Yeah.

Tina 20:01

It's, just the several regions around the world that have extraordinary longevity in their populations and that seventh day Adventist. Um, we're One of the populations in that book as well. And they They've been studied for a long time because of their longevity

Leah 20:13

live into their nineties.

Tina 20:14

healthfully into their nineties.

Leah 20:16

Right.

Tina 20:16

Yes. So in this particular movie, they show them playing ping pong and doing a four-mile walk at 92 years old. I mean, that's very different than just making it into your nineties.

Leah 20:25

literally living into your nineties, not existing into your nineties.

Tina 20:29

Truly living.

Leah 20:30

yeah, so they talked about how every additional serving of fruits and vegetables that you have each day can reduce your risk of certain diseases like stroke And heart disease.

Tina 20:42

By four or five percent.

Leah 20:44

Yeah. I mean, that's- That's big. And that was a way that I will often approach with patients. Like instead of taking things out of a diet, let's try adding something in. Right. You just add in something that's helpful instead of like starting off by depriving someone of, something that they enjoy.

Tina 21:01

Yeah.

Leah 21:01

Well, let's add something in.

Tina 21:02

And just for the record, when you lower someone's stroke risk by four or 5%, it doesn't sound like much, but we're talking one serving and I can tell you now there are drugs that are FDA approved to prevent a second stroke that do a lot less than that.

Leah 21:14

Really.

Tina 21:15

yeah. They only reduce the absolute risk by 2% and they still are out there. And they're much more dangerous than another serving of broccoli..

Leah 21:32

All right. So we're back and we're talking about in defense of food and so far we're loving it.

Tina 21:41

Love it.

Leah 21:42

If you missed the first part of this podcast, which I don't know how you did, we are loving this movie. Um, The philosophy is basically eat food, mostly plants and not too much. And so we're kind of talking about now than not too much part touched on it actually before, because we talked about portion size

Tina 22:00

right, right. and uh, yeah, we overeat plain and simple.

Leah 22:04

and a lot of that is because the availability of food and I'm going to put food in quotes because it's not necessarily nutrition

Tina 22:12

right.

Leah 22:12

That's available. It's processed, packaged foods, but it's everywhere. You know, they showed, you know, we eat on the run, right? We're walking down the street. There used to be social taboos against doing that. You didn't walk down the street, drinking a soda or, you didn't eat in public. And now it's just so acceptable to eat when you're driving.

Tina 22:32

I can remember growing up, you were not just like that woman said in the movie, you were not allowed to bring food into the store. You literally put it down, outside or finished it.

Leah 22:40

I still did that. up until a few years ago. I mean, I still was like, oh, I got to finish my coffee or whatever. Before I go into a store, I still was like, that And yeah, now you see people going in,

Tina 22:50

That was, yeah, that was really interesting. Cause I was like, you know what? You're Right, I kind of forgot. We used to leave it outside or not go inside with it. it. our new social norm is, it doesn't really matter,

Leah 22:58

Yeah,

Tina 22:59

but that was, that was good. Showing people, eating everywhere, you know, eating on the run, they're walking down the. street, they're eating. They're like, there's no time that you're not eating. It's not like an event anymore.

Leah 23:07

Right, right. And that, that was part of what, they later say you know eat more like the French and it's because they eat on a schedule. They were very scheduled in how they're eating,

Tina 23:17

right. and there was a gentleman who even said to the French food is a celebration with others, which I thought that's exactly it.

Leah 23:26

right. Uh, you spend a lot of time at the dinner table talking. Socializing. I mean, I see even with myself, like I do spend more time cooking And then I eat it and then it's done.

Tina 23:39

Right.

Leah 23:39

And that was another thing that they had mentioned was spend as much time eating the food as you do preparing it. And I don't do that.

Tina 23:47

Right. Just being present and sitting there and actually being conscious, not looking at your phone, not looking at a TV, but being present with the food and then actually tasting it.

Leah 23:56

right. I thought what was really cool is when they went into schools and they changed how food appeared on the line, right on the, on the lunch line. Yeah. You, you put the fruit and the vegetables first and then like next to the register, you put a basket of apples. Cause that would be like the incentive, right? Like places you go and right by the register, That's all of the impulse purchase. you know that that's where the candy bars and the dessert things come. But instead you put apples I can't remember what the amount of carrots that they went from serving

Tina 24:26

from 25 to 75 pounds

Leah 24:28

of carrots.

Tina 24:29

and a week by just pushing the carrots to the front of the line. So, so the kids are hungry and when you're hungry, you start grabbing food, you grab the carrots, put it on your tray because it's the first thing you see. But if it's the last thing you see, you might not.

Leah 24:41

Right. and so, yeah, they were saying, serve vegetables first, which, you know, with the French, they actually finished their meals with a salad. It was like, I don't think I want to finish my meal. with a salad, I always grew up, you eat the salad first. So, but still, you know whatever works, as long as you got a salad there or some sort of, vegetable,

Tina 25:00

Right.

Leah 25:00

um, eating before your full.

Tina 25:04

This is a classic tool too. I think it's a, I know in some Asian cultures they say stop when you're 80% full, you should push away from the table.

Leah 25:13

That's an Ayurvedic, I don't wanna say rule, but that's, that's what I learned. Um, when I was studying, I Veda was don't eat until you're full.

Tina 25:21

you know, and if you, the portion sizes are smaller, it's going to happen naturally. And if you do mostly plants, it's also going to happen naturally because it takes you longer, especially if it's well-prepared and you're taking your time to eat. You get more full, as you go along,

Leah 25:34

eating slower for sure. Because if you're eating slower, you put down your fork, I'm completely like, I think this is the hardest thing for me. I used to be a very slow eater. and I don't know what happened along the line, but somehow I like my full meter just went away. Like I will, I was in like twenties. I remember going to a restaurant with friends and everybody was giving me what they couldn't finish. And it was funny because I was so freaking skinny. That they thought it was funny that, and that I would just keep eating and eating and eating. And like my friend, John had to actually carry me out of the restaurant because I was so full horrible. I mean, so I've been like, I don't have that meter. but if you choose slowly and you put down your fork, you know, and like, it's something that you have to train yourself to do if it's just not in you.

Tina 26:21

Yes. I agree. I agree. You have to get in some kind of habit we're putting down your fork is one of those things, for sure, because that, forces a certain amount of time between bites. I've always been a slow eater, actually, Most of my memories when I was little, everyone would leave my mother be cleaning the kitchen. I'm still at the table eating. my, my siblings will be all be long gone.

Leah 26:41

And I think I started that way. I do think that like, you know, when you start working and eating at your desk and you're just trying to get that, I think that, you know, or like standing at the stove, eating right out of the pan,

Tina 26:51

I'm so guilty of that, of lunch hours being, You know, something else I'm doing at the same time. I'm so not conscious of what I'm eating. Yeah.

Leah 26:59

so I think, I think that's where a lot of it started with.

Tina 27:02

room for improvement.

Leah 27:03

Yeah. So, I mean, again, this movie was really inspirational. What I did find was there was a period where I really, really monitored my portion size and how fast I was eating. And made a big difference on my acid reflux,

Tina 27:17

Oh, okay. You mean controlling your portion size?

Leah 27:20

controlling portion size,

Tina 27:22

Okay.

Leah 27:22

and, an eating slower. So I know where we're going off the subject of the movie, but I just want to say like, it, it can help with so many more things.

Tina 27:32

Um, what I also agreed with in this movie is your body can handle a little bit of breaking the rules once in a while. You don't have to be. You don't have to think yourself all the way into the perfect diet, where there is a condition out there now called orthorexia, right? This disordered eating that you think that there's some Orthodox way you must eat to be healthy and you obsess about it to the point of it being a pathology. I mean that I've seen that. I fear that for some people, especially people who have a history of eating disorders earlier in their lives, they're more prone to it. So we have to be. careful when we talk about diet, So I like, I liked that forgivable nature of this message in defense of food, it said, you know, you can break The rules once in a while, every once in a while, you can.

Leah 28:17

Have something that you enjoy.

Tina 28:18

Yeah, it's a special event. It's, you know, whatever, whatever it is, not even that you enjoy, but something like you wouldn't normally eat. I don't know.

Leah 28:28

Have your chocolate have your, your soda, you know, like every once in a while to have something that

Tina 28:35

Um, yeah, I'm thinking of like someone in your family makes some dish you used to eat as a kid in the seventies. That's really not good for. But they made it and It's special and you're visiting with this, relative a grandparent or whatever you sit down and just eat it. Be nice and play along.

Leah 28:51

Oh, I'm thinking about when I go to a taco cart and I get like one of the Mexican Coca-Cola's and my husband and I will split it, you know, like, that's my tree. I go and I have tacos from a cart and I have a Coca-Cola, you know, and it happens maybe like at the most four times, but, yeah, I mean, it's, I saw it as a treat and, you know, growing up that's what fast food was for us. Fast food was a treat

Tina 29:18

Yeah.

Leah 29:18

now it's kind of a way of life for

Tina 29:20

Yeah, it's almost like, I think a fast food, is devoid of any nutritional value really in my mind. And so it affects your biome in your gut, not in a good way. So can your body handle that once in a while? Like, I don't know, once every three months or six months or something. Sure. You can recover from that. The problem is when people get in a habit and they're like, that's what they do every day or. Consecutively enough that your gut really suffers. I mean, your biome will change depending what you put in your mouth. And so if we really go off the rails in a dedicated way. day in and day out, then you're really going to change your gut It's not hard to recover. It's just, you have to eat well to maintain a good biome.

Leah 30:00

Yeah. And I think, You know, The movie did really address, the importance of the microbiome. they compared cancer rates in Africa,

Tina 30:09

Yes.

Leah 30:10

versus, blacks in the United States and. Changing their diets, right? Didn't they swap the diets out and they just, saw the changes in the microbiome. These were in healthy people. These were not in people who had cancer, but they just took healthy people from the U S and then from Africa and swapped their diets. And within a couple of weeks, the microbiome had changed.

Tina 30:33

Yeah, So that's, that's another example of, of going back to the diets, our ancestors ate wherever we, wherever we hail from, it gets tough because we're kind of mixed genetics.

Leah 30:43

and those government subsidies, as the other movie talked about how, you know, these products like corn would be marketed to everybody, you know, advertised is why you should eat it. Um, this movie touched on how. It's also used kind of, I don't want to say on the down-low right. They took corn and made it. an additive to food. So it's like high-fructose corn syrup would be an additive that is made from corn, you know, when you, read all of those terms on the back of your packaging, a lot of those things come from corn, soybeans, wheat, and rice.

Tina 31:17

yes. So it's kind of like a. You know, ethanol in our gas tank. in other words, we found an outlet for the growers and the government subsidizes some of this. Like some of it's all just happening on a level that has nothing to do with health at all, but

Leah 31:32

Right, but, but it's not an in your face thing. It's not like "got milk?" Where it's being thrown at you. It's just being put in there without, your knowledge, you know, if you're not reading l

Tina 31:42

Yeah, what I liked about this movie is it didn't say the players who are partaking in any of this are in any way, not ethical themselves. It is a system that's been with us soap for so long that even if you're part of this, you know, you're a grower or you. are, I don't know, like we're all part of this system where the government has in the background influence. Our food industry in a way That's created more processed food and more ultimately yeah. food. Devoid of nutrients.

Leah 32:12

That's what I was going to say. Yeah. Nutrient free food

Tina 32:16

All right. So all in all, we felt quite differently about this one, then we did the first movie fair to say.

Leah 32:22

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, no, this, this movie was such a relief to watch. After the first one, I was really stressed to go into another movie that was, you know, a similar

Tina 32:33

right.

Leah 32:33

similar subjects sort of there's no agenda. I didn't feel that this, You know, the movie starts off and they ask like, why does food need defending? and I see why, because of all of this information that is out there about this is good for you, this is bad for you And it's the same food, you know, we, we covered that in our good for you. Bad for you, right?

Tina 32:55

right, right. Yup. Well, we talked about alcohol and coffee and soybeans and.

Leah 32:59

Yeah. Well, alcohol is bad for You so.

Tina 33:01

Unfortunately.

Leah 33:03

But yeah, I mean, I, I love that, you know, does food really need defending? and it, and real food kind of does, you know, so, um, our rating system is broccoli

Tina 33:16

Five broccoli's is the max.

Leah 33:18

So how many.

Tina 33:20

Oh, I gave it a five. Glowing green, perfectly cooked steamed perfection. Broccolis

Leah 33:30

Yeah.

Tina 33:31

I didn't disagree with anything in this movie, which you know, so, so does that mean, I just get to pat myself on the back and say, oh, I've been right? No, I think that they, they use. The literature in the right direction. Like they went from fact to conclusion, instead of saying here's my conclusion. Let me create a case for it with selective information.

Leah 33:53

And with solution, right. They had solutions that are out there. It wasn't like, oh, this is theoretical. Like they actually had solutions to problems And um, Yeah, I don't, think I really found anything where I was Like Hmm, I'm not sure about that. You know, I was looking things up because I was like, who's this person, like, you know, they're so interesting. So yes, I'm going to give, um, just five super happy pieces of broccoli.

Tina 34:21

and you know, this movie was moving, but in a good way, cause kind of like, oh, there's hope I got a little teary eyed, I'll admit it. When there was these kids who are, you know, they're helping these underprivileged neighborhoods and teaching them how to grow. And, you know, I totally was like, this is awesome.

Leah 34:43

Yeah, no, I, I definitely, Became teary at those, at those moments as well. And then like, you know, then in the end you see Anthony and we're not going to spoil that, but, um, yeah, they kind of ended with

Tina 34:54

Yeah. With the little boy they start with.

Leah 34:56

Yeah,

Tina 34:57

Yeah, ending on a hopeful message and ending on it. Like, all of these issues are ongoing and

Leah 35:03

awareness.

Tina 35:04

eat food, mostly plants, not too much.

Leah 35:07

Yeah.

Tina 35:08

it's so simple. It's hard to do.

Leah 35:09

it really can be for some people, so.

Tina 35:12

So our next movie to review and discuss will be supersize me.

Leah 35:16

Yeah. And we both seen. That movie came out, um, in 2004. So there are probably some people listening who have never seen that film. it is available to watch for free on YouTube, Pluto, TV to be. Um, and then if you subscribe to prime video, it's on that as well.

Tina 35:40

Cool. Yes. I think a lot of people have seen it and know, at least the gist of it. You can remember. but it'll be good. I'm going to rewatch it

Leah 35:48

yeah, so I will, I will rewatch it as well. Cause it's been, I haven't seen it since 2004.

Tina 35:54

It was kind of the first one in this genre,

Leah 35:56

yeah,

Tina 35:57

One of the earliest ones.

Leah 35:58

yeah, for sure. Um, I want to quickly mention, cause I didn't mention a song after the first one. If you did watch, what the health, hopefully you made it to the end and listened to a fabulous song. That was by a a band from Tulum Mexico. And it's a traditional song, calledLa Guanabana. Which is a traditional fruit soursop. Um, but it's yeah, so it's the song that ends the film and That I forgot to mention. That was actually the best part of, of, the film.

Tina 36:32

I would agree with you. The song at the very end was the.

Leah 36:36

Yeah, it

Tina 36:36

I like that song. Yeah. All right. So it's going to be up on our Spotify list.

Leah 36:39

I can't find their version, the band that was in the movie, but I will put a version of that song on our Spotify list. And I'm just going to say, that's going to be the song for the whole series. Cause I just, I don't know.

Tina 36:49

there you go. All right. Sounds good to me.

Leah 36:53

It's easier that way.

Tina 36:54

Perfect. Alright. On that note.

Leah 36:57

on that I'm Dr. Leah Sherman.

Tina 37:00

And I'm Dr. Tina Kaeser

Leah 37:02

and this is the cancer pot.

Tina 37:03

until next time,

Leah 37:04

See at the movies! a