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Vegucated: A Review

Sterling Anderson

Department of Exercise Science

NUTR 1020: Scientific Foundations of Nutrition

04/14/2021
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Vegucated is a documentary following three New Yorkers for six weeks as they

experience a vegan diet and are educated about the vegan lifestyle. Marisa Miller Wolfson wrote

and directed the film Vegucated and later released the documentary in 2011. Marisa became a

vegan after extensively researching the history and hidden truth of the food and clothing

industries. She became a vegan activist in 2003 and has led several workshops, given talks, and

organized film screenings of vegan documentaries at universities, churches, and conferences ever

since.

             The film starts with old commercials advertising the animal industry and showing free-

range livestock with the ideal living condition. The advertisement even states, "Milk has been

one of the most nutritious of all foods." The beginning was incredibly impactful to viewers a past

ideology about the animal industry that has long stuck around in society even though science and

documentaries, such as this Vegucated, have now proven them to be not true. The viewers are

given a chance to compare the past to the present. After briefly introducing herself and her

background, Marisa takes us to the streets of New York City to ask random individuals, "What is

Vegan?" The majority of the individuals could not give the correct definition, though some were

close. This is important, as it shows individuals who still believe in the old concepts of nutrition

and how little is known by the public about healthy eating.

A vegan is an individual who abides by a strict diet that does not include any animal product.

This lifestyle can be confused with vegetarianism but differs because vegetarians still consume

animal by-products, such as cheese or honey, but they do not eat meat. An individual who lives

an entirely vegan life even abstains from using animal products such as leather. For this review,

we will only be discussing the vegan diet. There are several reasons why an individual would

choose a vegan lifestyle, such as ethical, religious, economic, environmental, and health reasons.
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After finding 3 participants through Craiglist, Marisa takes them to a doctor to discuss the

benefits of a vegan lifestyle and do an initial medical exam. Body composition and blood were

taken so that participants could compare their starting lab results to their lab work after the six

weeks were completed. From there, the participants are taken to stores where they can purchase

vegan products with Marisa's guidance. Participants had little knowledge of what could be

substituted, so items such as tofu, Boca burgers, veganaise, flaxseed, and soy milk were shown to

them.

After participants had two weeks of a vegan diet, they went on field trips to documentary

showings, conventions, and even a small family farm to learn about the animal industry and the

impacts it has all around us. Participants were shocked, angry, and even emotional after learning

about the inhumane practices in slaughterhouses and how the industry damages the environment.

Throughout the documentary, you can observe the participants' change as they start

understanding and appreciating the vegan lifestyle.

It has been proven that the impact of the food industry has devastating damage to the

environment. Livestock contributes more to global warming than the entire transportation sector.

Byways of food production for livestock, raising and feeding livestock, transporting, and

processing animal by-products, more CO2 is emitted into our atmosphere than for production,

transporting, and processing plant products. Methane produced by livestock also contributes to

global warming because it is twenty-three times stronger than CO2 when trapping heat in the

atmosphere. Waste by-products from livestock are released into the environment impacting

human life and the environment. Streams and lakes are contaminated with animal waste affecting

wildlife and freshwater supplies. It has also been proven that the amount of fresh water being
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used to produce animal by-products in the long term will shorten freshwater supplies for humans

in the future.

Some individuals choose a vegan lifestyle for ethical reasons. The food industry has no

regulation on how the animals should be treated while being raised, transported, or slaughtered,

resulting in inhumane practices and procedures. Animals live their entire lives in small cramped

areas, chickens have their beaks clipped off, male chicks are disposed or ground up for fertilizer,

chickens are genetically modified to have larger breasts, and animals are not administered any

anesthetics during any procedure are only a few examples of inhumane practices and procedures

among the farms and slaughterhouses. Some of these further prove the negative impact on the

environment, such as food and freshwater waste.

             From a nutritional standpoint, eating animal by-products have huge impacts on human

health. Heart disease, high blood pressure, bad cholesterol, hypertension, obesity, diabetes, and

several forms of cancer have been linked to the consumption of animal by-products. In the film,

Marisa takes the three participants to the Vegetarian Summer Fest, where they attend a lecture by

T. Colin Campbell. A Nutritional Biochemist professor at Cornell University. Colin is a coauthor

of the book "The China Study," where they went to 65 different rural China counties to find out

what 65,000 people ate, primarily plant-based, and how they lived. They observed that as soon as

anima by-product started being introduced into their diet, blood cholesterol levels went up, heart

disease and cancer started to appear. A healthy low-fat vegan diet can prevent diabetes and treat

it even more than the American Diabetic Association Diet and common medications. With a

vegan diet, you have a 26% lower chance of dying from American's number 1 killer, heart

disease. This is because vegans avoid artery-clogging saturated fat and cholesterol. The

American Diabetic Association (2011) states, "appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including
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total vegetarian and or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health

benefits in the prevention and treatment of "certain diseases."

             At the end of the six weeks, participants are taken back to the doctor and have their lab

work done again. The participants had decreased weight, blood pressure, and bad cholesterol

compared to their first lab results. With this new knowledge, the participants are faced with a big

decision. Do they continue the vegan lifestyle, or do they go back to their old eating habits? Only

one participant remained vegan, another was primarily vegan, and the last went vegetarian.

             While some may argue that a vegetarian and vegan lifestyle is unhealthy, we knot

otherwise. It is easier for individuals to take on this lifestyle through advances in nutritional

science and continue to e healthy. However, it is easy to make it healthy to unhealthy.

Individuals must understand the importance of intaking the correct amount of nutrients, vitamins,

and minerals to ensure optimal health. While supplements may be an option, it is possible to get

everything you need from plant-based foods. It is also possible for those who cannot follow a

strict vegan diet to be vegetarian, Ovo vegetarian, or pescovegetarian, which allow some leeway

in food options. The overall goal is for better health and lessens the impact we have on the

environment, so even the most little steps make a big difference.

             I chose this documentary because I am interested in switching to a plant-based diet. I

constantly look for ways to incorporate more vegan substitutions into my diet while still getting

all the nutrients that I need. I firmly believe that our society needs to switch to a more plant-

based diet to save our environment. Documentaries, such as this one, are incredibly relevant to

our time and are an easy way for individuals to be educated without going to school. When

Marisa tells viewers that meat production has increased by five-fold since the 1950s, I was

shocked. This means our situation is not getting better; we are only continuing to destroy the
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planet we call home. It is facts like these that get our attention and make us want to make a

change. I have learned that we cannot trust what the food industry tells us because they want us

to buy their products. Nor what our national nutrition committee is advising us as chairman are

profiting from food industries.

             In conclusion, to protect our planet and our health, our society needs to make the switch

to a more plant-based diet. Animal by-products that are consumed increase several health

complications that can even lead to death. The food industry itself is one of the most significant

contributors to climate change; from growing the food for livestock to transportation and

machinery in the processing process, we pollute the environment and draining resources. The

documentary ends with a powerful quote by Albert Einstein that I would also like to end with,

"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on earth as much as

the evolution to a vegetarian diet."

Bagley, D., Mataska, F., & Wolfson, M. M. 2011. Vegucated. United States: Kind Green Planet