Fed Up – A Smart and Great Food Documentary

On the weekend my daughter and I saw a great food documentary called Fed Up.

I tend to get a bit nervous about food documentaries as they tend to either tell you some stuff is bad, “oh and this otther stuff is really good” or they just scare you into not wanting to eat anything that you did not grow in your backyard.

Fed Up was kind of a different food documentary.

The beginning of the movie was all about the problems with sugar. Following some kids that were overweight and not sure how to stop it.

Fed Up tries hard to break the refrain that we hear always, “Eat well and exercise”. The kids that they show are exercising a lot, but it does not seems to help.

What Do We Learn in Fed Up?

The problem with the Great American Diet is the amount of sugar in it. The idea shown by this movie is sound and scientifically accurate, so it should be a bigger new story than it is.

The important fact early in the movie Fed Up is that refined sugar overloads the pancreas and in turn the pancreas dumps a lot of insulin into the body that helps turn the sugar into fat.

There is a lot of sugar in our diet and the amount of sugar in soda is terrible

This is not new news for any diabetic but for some reason we non-diabetics always think that this does not apply to us. But in fact it does.

So after showing us that sugar is the culprit we learn that most people are just pushing the idea of exercise as fixing the obesity epidemic when in fact the people that are eating the terrible food just have no idea that their issue is food itself and not the amount of exercise.

You can’t outrun your fork

Another problem brought up in the Fed Up Documentary is the demonization of natural fats (We won’t talk trans fats) when in fact the real diet changes in the 70s and 80s to diets that were low fat and higher carb really did not seem to help many people.

Here is the Fed Up Trailer

this stretches into the school system and the kinds of foods that are being fed to children. According to Fed Up 80% of schools are being supplied with food by fast food companies and of course the kids won’t complain as a slice of pizza and chips seems to them to be a lot better tasting than brocolli and salad (I disagree, but that is beside the point).

The amount of money that is sloshing around school systems and the government by the very people making people sick is stunning. When the McGovern Report on food was issued, or attempted to be issued the fast food and sugar based companies protested.

Also whenever there is pressure on the food industury to cur out sugar we see a pushback and claims that they are doing their part, when in fact this is not true at all.

So What Are We Supposed To Do To Stop Obesity?

The message that Fed Up gives us is that there are a lot of refined carbohydrates in our diets and not enough real food.

Even when we think we are eating well with a cereal bar or natural style crackers and breads what we are really doing is pumping carbohydrates into our body that will turn to fat.

What we should be eating instead are more whole foods. Fruits, vegetables, steak, meat. And no soda, crackers, fast food, or items with a lot ingredients in them.

This is not news to me and should not be to you as well.

If you ever try to count calories and look at an apple, celery, or other fruits and vegetables you find they are loaded with nutrients and short on calories.

The other real message of the movie is that we must stop looking at what is marketed to us as a good food in commercials and other ads and instead educate ourselves and eat food that we know the real value of for our nutrition and health.

My daughter and I loved Fed Up and though it brought up a lot of great stories of real people and not only brought out issues with food but also offered solutions that anyone can and should follow.

If you have NetFlix you can see Fed Up on there. Otherwise you can buy the DVD on the Fed Up site

Fast Food Nation – The Movie 20 Smart Restaurant Food Switching Tricks To Drop Calories Stopping food cravings How Fast Food Marketing is Affecting Our Kids Health