Game Changers Movie - documentary about diet and improved physical performance?

#5

Don’t ketonauts and carnivores need to supplement* in these contemporary times**, to minimise the side effects and adverse events of a ketogenic diet? Especially, if people are going ketogenic and their start off point is poor health and fear of fat and salt.

  • electrolytes
    ** we used to drink water from streams and it wasn’t filtered, thus minerals were in higher concentration

Both vegans and ketonians have a supplement requirement to optimise the ‘healthiness’ of their nutrition. So “need to supplement” becomes a null argument.

#6

Is it not a documentary to encourage people into better health through nutrition?

(Carl Keller) #7

IMO, it’s a cinematic attempt to glorify veganism. Its message is: look how bad assed I can be by not eating meat. I believe this sends a dangerous message when considering this way of eating has only been available to humans for the past several decades. There are literally no cultures in history that have thrived exclusively on vegetables, most likely due to natural cravings and a lack of supplements to ensure good health. Those that have placed a heavy reliance on vegetables often suffer from bad bones, bad teeth, decreased longevity and even obesity and heart disease (as evidenced by paleo forensic studies of egyptian mummies).

(Chris) #8

I’m pretty sure the ones that might have begun to thrive were eaten by carnivorous tribes anyway. It’s because they were weak.

(Chris) #9

This is apples to oranges. Having to up your salt intake to mitigate some minor symptoms of adapting away from your poorly adapted diet in the first place doesn’t compare to needing to supplement nutrients you cannot get from plants for the rest of your life. And good luck getting bioavailable plant-sourced nutrients.

Also, ask around. There’s plenty that will tell you once they tried cutting salt out it didn’t make them feel any worse.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #10

:cowboy_hat_face:

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #11

The point often overlooked in these discussions is that what ruminants actually live off is the fatty acids into which their gut bacteria turn the plants that they eat. The point of the four stomachs is to give the bacteria a chance to do their thing. (Since we lack the long digestive tracts of our primate cousins, we need to rely on animal protein and fat for our strength.) Furthermore, the ruminants co-evolved with the grasses and both need each other. Grasslands do not thrive without ruminants, and most of the world’s grasslands are unsuitable for any other crops. Peter Ballerstedt and Alan Savory before him have been making this point for quite a long time.

My belief is that if you require supplementation, there is something wrong with your diet. All human cultures have made provision for getting enough salt, whether from their food (Inuit, Finns, Maasai, et alii) or by deliberately seeking out sources of the mineral. Call that supplementation if you like, but it doesn’t alter the essential argument. A carnivore diet is perfectly capable of supplying all other essential nutrients, as Stefansson and Andersen proved in 1927-28. Certainly a diet consisting of actual food, as opposed to what Michael Pollan calls “edible, food-like substances,” is likely to be able to supply ample nutrition. There is very little doubt that human beings evolved to eat mostly, if not exclusively, meat, and there is clear archaeological evidence showing that making the switch from hunting to agriculture caused clear harm to the peoples that did it.

(Carl Keller) #12

In the video below, Dr. Mike Eades compares two ancient societies that lived in the same area, 5000 years apart. He posits that the second society, which existed mainly on agriculture, are most likely descendents of the first society, and were much healthier hunter/gatherers. Skip to 26:30 if you want to get right to the comparison.

#13

Humans have brains and creativity. We are able to process foods before we ingest them. That can be good and bad. Cooking and fermenting plant wholefoods are forms of processing outside our human bodies that allow detoxification of the foods.

So we can eat plants as long as we do not lose the knowledge of how to process them.

Cooking and freezing meats and animal products are forms of food processing to limit parasites and the potential of food poisoning.

Fermenting butter and cream into cheese helps reduce the lactose but maintain nutrition.

We can watch experimenters with raw diet eaters to see what happens with them. There are also the curious humans that will find a fungus in the woods and mutter, “I wonder if this is edible?” as they pop it in their mouth.

Our human “digestive tracts” have expanded outside of our bodies with the expansion of knowledge, education and creativity that is linked to our expanding access to our brain power.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #14

However, fire is a fairly recent discovery, in the context of two million years of evolution. And the difference in health between tribes that ate mostly meat and the tribes that switched to eating mostly plants, even cooked ones, is startlingly evident. You can tell from the length of the bones and the condition of the teeth at a dig, whether they come from meat-eaters or plant-eaters. And this is confirmed by various isotope assays.

#15

However there was a choke point in the evolution of Homo sapient about 74,000 to 100,000 years ago. Where the current DNA science shows that we modern humans are the descendants of about 10,000 individuals that survived a global climate change disaster. So that concentrated our inherited genetics to and from that small population.

So when we look at fossil records and preserved remains of extinct branches of the Homo genus, as you mention by casting back 2 million years, we cannot fully apply that to ourselves, except for as an future evolutionary potential. Basically we are stuck with the genes we inherited from that small bunch of survivors of a closer era plus some minor, very minor, inherited Neanderthal genes for some of us.

Really our nutritional adaptivity, potential, and optimisation is based on more recent human history.

One theory (now partially disproven by research from South Africa) was the Toba catastrophe theory.

https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/10/22/163397584/how-human-beings-almost-vanished-from-earth-in-70-000-b-c

That all happened as the last ice age, was ending with it’s more minor oscillations through glacial and interglacial periods, that allowed humans to spread out over the planet again and environments in flux between abundant food forests to grasslands dominated by yummy ruminants. The human diet is a spectrum, and it is amazing how well we can survive and keep breeding, even on a plant based diet.

(Scott) #16

I watched this last night because a inlaw that thought keto was too difficult liked it. I immediately recognized the dark skinned MD as a very biased member of the vegan community. Someone else had sent me his video because they wanted for me to see “how dangerous” keto is. Okay back to the Game Changers documentary and my take away.

All of the comparisons between plant based and other diets were either after a meal, overnight or a total of seven days on a plant based diet all had shockingly successful dramatic results.
1). Subject were give a meat bean burrito (I think) and a blood sample was taken. Then after a vegan bean burrito, presumably the next day, another sample was taken. The proof to show the ills of meat was cloudy plasma when the samples were spun out. Does anybody know the supposed issue with cloudy plasma?
2). After the same burrito test the plant based group were outfitted with a device to measure the how many erections they had while asleep. Three subjects after one burrito in one test have dramatic changes. I am not sure what this proves but it wreaks of scare tactic to me.
3) Firefighters were given one week on a plant based diet and had changes in their blood lipids and weight. I couldn’t help but notice that they cherry picked one or two people to highlight that were outside of the averages.
4) Lots of plant based athletes which did not seem remarkable to me. There are many sports athletes that excel on a low carb meat based diet. So what does this tell us?

It just came off to me as a cherry picked weak data promo to advance plant based way of eating with the goal to limit the availability of meat based products in the food supply. I have no problem with anyone moving to a plant based diet, more power to you. I do have a problem when vegans attack other ways of eating with a goal to limit or eliminate them.

(Bob M) #17

The problem is that people believe this. My wife’s sister just told us we should all watch it. I kept my peace, though I did sign off our family thread because of that.

Anyone who thinks Arnold would have gotten to 235 pounds of ripped muscle by eating vegan should try it themselves. It’s not going to happen.

See this for instance:

RESULTS:

This investigation observed lower testosterone responses following supplementation with soy protein in addition to a positive blunted cortisol response with the use of whey protein at some recovery time points.

#18

I just started watching the documentary.

It’s really well crafted. We’re being led through by a self defence martial arts expert who is looking for the right diet for recovering from injuring both his knees.

These are amazing athletes on display. If I go vegan, will I be able to fight, run fast, lift heavy things and get selected for the Olympics for pushbike riding? The way the documentary is styled it feels like I could. Not one of them seems to have gas. And there are doctors in actual white lab coats.

I’m stopping just after the part where the 3 football players eat the burritos and get shown the difference in serum from blood drawn 2 hours after the meal.

I’ll have to re-read this thread as I’m totally sucked into the story.

(Robert C) #19

This podcast goes over the “documentary” in detail - debunking just about everything…

#20

I haven’t yet heard the Joe Rogan podcast (though I’m looking forward to it - love Chris Kresser!) but here’s an article about how many of the vegan athletes featured are out for injuries.
(It made me wonder how many of any athletes are out for injuries at any given time… I have no idea how common that is within the life of a proathlete!)

#21

I came straight to the ketogenic forums from the watching experience and got told off by my wife.

She said I was going back to my biases. I said Chis Kresser was debunking it. She doesn’t know Kresser. I said he is an acupuncturist and heard a laugh stop snort. So she said that I had to go and look from the other side and see if the vegans were debunking the debunking. I said, under my breath, that I can see a vortex forming. But my wife is the smart one in this partnership and I have never proved myself more right than her, ever, so I went adventuring in plant based news.

To their credit the vegan media had an immediate response. It was aimed at Joe Rogan and his diet and sponsorship of his show. They played the man, went after the messenger, ad hominem. So I have to go back later and see if they produce any interesting questions from their view point.

The thing I learned from my wife was to #exitecho, that is exit the echo chamber (Yes, we are in one, one, one, one… They can be good for bolstering support. But an echo chamber blinkers us from other potential information)

I will persist in watching the Game Changers, more for self examination and to test my own knowledge against what is presented. I also feel it can be disingenuous to comment too much because my lifestyle, hence me, feels threatened, but not give a differing point of view a hearing.

@RobC great share. Chris Kresser is very thorough. I am amazed that your response was within 3 minutes of me reigniting this topic. Was it serendipity? I fell asleep listening to Kresser work through the film last night, so will re-listen today. :slightly_smiling_face:

#22

Watched to movie, I yelled “bull” multiple times :wink:
I watched the podcast yesterday, always love some Chris Kresser.
It’s nice to know that we have a great podcast to share with those who actually believe this movie…

#23

If you’re getting your information from Joe Rogan y’all got problems

#24

We’re getting information from Chris, Joe’s just asking the questions…