Did watching the documentary “What the Health” convince you to stop eating meat?

Why the biggest problem with Veganism has nothing to do with food.

For the podcast this week Matt and I buckled in to watch the latest documentary from the filmmakers that bought us Cowspiracy. To be clear, I’m not a vegan, but I’m not opposed to a plant based diet either. In fact, I’ve been trialling being vegetarian for the last month now. I basically figured, I don’t eat a lot of meat, I haven’t drunk cow’s milk since I was about 11 years old and I don’t love any animal products enough that I couldn’t envisage my life without them. I am in no way an expert in nutrition, which is good, because the problem I have with this film has nothing to do with food. It has everything to do with communication.

My whole life has been about communication. From acting classes since I was six, to going to a specialist high school to study drama and following that by going to WAAPA to study acting. I’ve always been a writer and a story teller. For two years I was a salesman for a wine company and during that time, I sold over a million dollars worth of wine. The point I’m trying to make is: You can’t bullshit a bullshitter. I’ve seen every kind of deception and manipulation there is, in film, in writing and in person and I have a fairly low tolerance for people who try to manipulate me.

It’s clear in “What The Health” that Kip Anderson has an agenda. He wants anyone who watches his film to be convinced they should be eating a plant based diet and he’s willing to do absolutely anything to prove it to you. The result is a film that masquerades as a documentary, but is actually just straight propaganda. Once again, I have no problem with a plant based diet, but the documentary film genre deserves better than “What the Health” has to offer. When a film only shows one side of an argument and demonises, discredits and misrepresents the other by cherry picking from the worst of the worst in a certain industry, they do more harm than good.

This one sided style of propaganda is the kind of thing you’d expect from a multi level marketing company’s recruitment video. The barrage of experts, whirlwind of statistics and the onslaught of quickly referenced studies is too much to process as a viewer and it illuminates a troubling take away from the film. Kip doesn’t want you to be informed nearly as much as he wants you to be on board. If that means he has use fear of death as his big motivator, then so be it. This isn’t about education, it’s about indoctrination and manipulation. There’s a kind of brainwashing at work in “What the Health” that is eerily present in Vegan content online as well.

It leads me to this very simple question: Where’s the candor? Where’s the willingness to bring up the diet’s short comings or acknowledge the meat eaters that live into their 80s and 90s without disease or incident? Where’s the balanced view? If Veganism is everything that these people believe it to be (and they have some very compelling reasons as to why it is), then why do they not trust the average person (when given ALL of the information, both FOR and against the consumption of animal products) to make up their own mind?

My guess is it has to do with feeling suppressed and demonised themselves for a long period of time. As the science is catching up to the ethical reasons that caused many vegans to become vegan in the first place, they’ve grown impatient and frustrated with their opposition and believe that this approach is the only way to save the planet in time from the evil that is animal agriculture. When you search for a “What the Health Review” on Youtube and are confronted with a man that watches the film in a vegan restaurant and whose criticism is: “You should show this to non-vegans first and then follow it up with Cowspiracy for best effect.” You begin to question which side should be complaining about conspiracies.

If the world were to immediately shut down animal agriculture and switch to Veganism, the result would not be pretty. In many ways our society is unfortunately built on shaky foundations that prioritise the past over the present. Systems like animal agriculture, coal and others, all of which we know are harming the planet, are also entrenched in our every day lives. They can’t be switched off in an instant, because if they were, whole industries would collapse and I’m not talking about agriculture and coal. Even if your gut reaction is to say “Good and so they should.” I think you’re underestimating the effects this would have on everyone else as well. Similarly to my re-imagining of this film: The process of transitioning to a better tomorrow needs to be balanced, considered and executed in stages. We can only hope that new industries provide enough earning potential to satisfy the greed of those that would otherwise happily run our planet into the ground.

In an era of fake news and opinions being published as fact, we need more from our independent film makers, we need more from our cultural and political leaders. We need facts, we need ALL of the facts, both the ones that do and don’t suit our agendas. We need an informed population that are empowered to make positive choices. Anything else only serves to cultivate distrust, deepen the divides between us and discredit the people trying to make change. Do better Kip Anderson, do better.

If you’d like to listen to Matt and I go in depth and off track on everything we did and didn't like about the film, the check out our podcast: Netflix and Grill.