Plow to Plate Film Series Presents: Forks Over Knives

Forks Over Knives is not particularly polemical, as far as films about the food system go. It does not rail against fast food culture, corporate control of the food system, or the cooption of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  

Instead it passionately and repeatedly makes a singular point, arguing that most of Americans’ (and increasingly the world’s) health problems are directly caused by our heavy meat and dairy consumption and that a whole-foods, plant-based diet will make us healthier, happier, and even a bit hornier. The answer to our woes is not a pill, but fresh spinach!

The movie grounds these claims in the life work of two esteemed mavericks, T Colin Campbell, a nutrition scientist at Cornell University who earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry, nutrition, and microbiology and Caldwell Esselstyn, a cardiologist and clinician at the Cleveland Clinic. 

The duo worked independently, until they finally met in 1990. Campbell focused on hard science (his massive 30 year epidemiological China Study showed strong correlations between animal-based diet and cancer and other “Western” diseases while the opposite was true for those who ate a plant-based diet).  

Meanwhile Esselstyn’s clinical studies were showing that patients with severe heart disease to the point of being on death’s door, who he put on a strict plant based diet (later eliminating dairy, as well), got better without surgery or pills. Most are still alive 20 plus years later.

A lot of Forks Over Knives is about myth busting. The first myth, one that was bought into for a time by Campbell and Esselstyn, both children of dairy and beef farmers born months apart in 1934 and 1933, was that meat and milk which contain protein and calcium (nutrients essential for life and to prevent osteoporosis) are good for you.  

It turns out that plants contain just the right amount of protein for humans to thrive, too much meat triggers cancer, and that milk may accelerate, not prevent, bone decay.  

Another myth is that a vegan diet will leave you thin, pale, anemic, hungry and weak. To counter this the film introduces you to Mac Danzig, a buff, tough, mixed martial arts Ultimate Fighter Champion who gave up milk in his late teens and later eliminated fish and chicken from his diet.  

Finally, Forks Over Knives argues that a vegan diet is not hard to adopt.  While one of Esselstyn’s patients, San’Dera Nation, did indeed occasionally long for a Subway sandwich, by and large those on this strictly regimented diet, including writer/director Lee Fulkerson, stay dedicated to it and find it simple and easy to follow, motivated by the fact that they have more energy, feel better physically and mentally, have lost weight and look better, are off their meds, are living longer, and finally, an important point, are in control of their health and not limited by it.  As Nation implores, “Eat to live, don’t live to eat.”

Between Campbell’s body of scientific research linking protein to cancer, Esselstyn’s clinical results with real patients, and the vivid testimonials of those appearing in the film, a strong case is made for adopting the vegan diet, or at least cutting down on the summer barbecues. 

Shoppers at the Park Slope Food Coop should be glad that it carries few refined and processed items, a limited selection of animal based foods, and a wide selection of dairy and meat alternatives. Those moved by this film’s passion (and convincing arguments) have a plethora of fresh plants, vegetables, fruits, grains, and other food choices to select from.  

So go grab your fork, leave your knife behind, and chew in!