"Fed Up" Documentary Review

I recently finally got around to watching the documentary "Fed Up."  I've seen it's advertising on Facebook for quite awhile and saw the buzz from a few friends for months now.

First, I did find it entertaining.  At an hour and half it kept my attention.  I think it did a good job of portraying the growing obesity crisis and how are kids are at risk.  Our greatest resource, our youth, are definitely in danger.

I was surprised at how new and correct information is still not making it into the general public.  They do a series of interview (perhaps picked to show a point) with people and cereal and orange juice are still considered a healthy meal.  Running and other endurance activities are considered great "calorie burners."  Information like this seems so ancient and plain wrong that you wonder if you should even mention stuff like this to people anymore and this show basically shows that, yes, that info needs to be heard still.

They pretty much demonize sugar.  At this point in my life, I don't think anything should really be demonized.  Yea, sugar isn't that healthy for you.  But, please don't compare it to cocaine.  They do an info graphic where sugar and cocaine get lit up in the same part of the brain.  If you don't know, anything pleasurable will light up that part of the brain!

They make a big spoof of how tomato paste is a vegetable.  Tomato paste is actually pretty healthy.  Heating a tomato actually allows the lycopene to be absorbed better.  But, pizza shouldn't be considered a vegetable.

They do a great job of portraying how powerful sugar and soda beverage companies are.  This part is always a little shocking to me.  They do an excellent job of showing how much added sugar is in foods that really don't really need to be there.  Why do we need high fructose corn syrup in our ketchup?

They show how low fat became thing a few years ago and because of this sugar was added to take up the flavor.  It's just gone downhill from there.  But through this all, they don't mention that we as a country are consuming 150-300 calories more per day and burning 150-300 calories per day fewer.  So thats a big chunk of valuable information missing.

All in all it was an enjoyable documentary.  Sum it up,  anything that is made, has sugar and other weird ingredients in it, shouldn't be a major part of your diet or a consistent part of your diet.