If you want to change the world, look on your plate. According to the gripping feature-length documentary HOPE What You Eat Matters, the potential for meaningful transformation is within our grasp. The film tackles issues like obesity, food insecurity, and our planet pushed to the limit.
Obesity has become an epidemic, especially in the West, leading to increased cases of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes and certain types of cancer. According to the medical and nutritional experts featured in the film, much of the plague can be traced back to our reliance on animal products.
The solution lies in a plant-based diet. The film includes many patient testimonies in support of this claim. In each case, the patients reversed their health problems and prevented potentially fatal episodes by changing their diets.
The wonder drug has faced a backlash from the pharmaceutical and agricultural industries. Hungry for profit, they see no economic incentive to change their business model. They thrive on their ability to satisfy the public’s growing demand for animal-based meat.
But the systems they use to meet these demands are rapidly depleting the planet’s resources, increasing chronic disease and starving nearly 2 billion people worldwide. In theory, there is enough food to feed everyone in the world. However, the vast majority of grains and soybeans are not intended for human consumption; instead, they are grown for animal consumption. As the world’s population continues to grow every year, the crisis will only escalate if consumers don’t demand change.
The movie doesn’t shy away from showing the food industry at its least glamorous, including the gruesome things that happen in slaughterhouses and food processing plants. By ending our dependence on these animals for our livelihoods, we can also effectively end the scourge of corporate-sanctioned cruelty to animals.
HOPE What You Eat Matters makes a convincing, multifaceted defense of a plant-rich diet.
Directed by: Nina Messinger
