The Game Changers (documentary): Another "fact-filled" pro-vegan production

Let's get this straight right out of the gate: I know that we should all eat more vegetables and avoid things like fast-food etc. As a long-term carnivore, i am trying to incorporate more fruit and vegetables into my diet now because of course it is better for you. However, this documentary goes down the usual doom-and-gloom path of attempting to shock people into not eating meat because meat will kill you and plants will make you live forever.

I don't have a problem with suggesting that we should eat more vegetables - I think this is obvious; but their message is filled with misdirection and outright lies. I don't think this approach is necessary - they could simply highlight the good without intentionally manipulating the data, but I suppose it wouldn't be shocking enough like that.

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The Game Changers takes a different approach to veganism (a term they avoid throughout the production, by the way) by featuring elite athletes, many of which are vegan and others that transitioned to plant-based diets (this is their term instead of vegan) at some point in their careers. Of course they only focus on the success stories.

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Celebrity endorsements

The show is hosted by James Wilks, an Ultimate Fighter winner and former MMA competitor who conveniently avoids addressing the fact that when he won Ultimate Fighter and when he was competing in UFC, he was a omnivore. There is another advocate they bring along as to the power of veganism, and this one is particularly absurd.

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That's right, The Terminator himself is an advocate for plant-based diets. They kinda glance over the fact that during Arnold's career of winning all them bodybuilding contests and becoming the biggest buff-guy star in the world, that he was not at all a vegan or even a vegetarian. He converted to a plant-based diet in 2018.

There are other apples to oranges examples they use such as Bryant Jennings (heavyweight boxer) converting to a plant-based diet and how much better he felt and performs in training. But then he slips up (surprised they didn't re-shoot this) and says that prior to plant-based he was mostly on a KFC and Popeye's diet. Well, of course you felt better with that transition!

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Scientific Studies

They bring on doctor after doctor to explain in complicated physician terms the benefits of eating plants and only plants, and I believe them because obviously, eating only plants has primarily good benefits - but it depends on what KIND of meat you were eating previously.

I'm sure it is just a wild coincidence that nearly all of these doctors have books, DVD's, businesses, and various other pay-to-play programs that will directly benefit if people want to transition to a vegan lifestyle.

One of the studies that seems so damning is where they talk about how "the risk of colon cancer in men in the United States is around 5%. If you eat just 50 grams of animal protein a day that risk is increased a whopping 17%!"

Whoa! That's a pretty scary statistic, right? I had to look this one up because I thought it really seems extreme that eating 50 grams of meat per day (that isn't very much meat, guys) can increase your risk from 5% to 22%, which is what most people would presume. There's just the problem of them misrepresenting the ratio.

That's because it isn't true. The actual increase of risk goes from 5% to nearly 6%, the difference between 5 traveling up to 6 (based on 100) is around a 17% increase... go ahead and type 5 x 1.17 into your calculator... i'll wait.

This sort of intentional misdirection, is it necessary? Because when i see that a program uses this sort of #fakenews to try to get their point across, I immediately want to dismiss everything that they say. If they would just be honest, I would be a lot more likely to take what they are saying to heart but once you lie to me, I'm going to be apprehensive about the entire deal.

Nutritional Data

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They attempt to show how vegetables have the same stuff in them as meat does and that athletes, including bodybuilders, don't need meat for gains. The examples they use are less than sensible and as expected, they leave out critical elements of the equation.

The example they use as comparison is that in order to get the protein and amino acids BCAA's...etc (i don't really remember all the doctor words they used) that is in 3 eggs or a 3oz piece of beef you can substitute spinach, broccoli, or even a peanut butter sandwich. In the visual representation they show reasonable portions of these things. However, upon digging, i found out you would need to acquire the following amounts for their claims to be true.

• 19 cups of spinach (that's one hell of a salad, beefcake!)
• 6.5 cups of broccoli (barf)
• 5 Tablespoons of peanut butter

The first two are obviously huge amounts and would need to be served by the trough. But I'll focus on the peanut butter one.

5 Tbsp of peanut butter is nearly half of a small jar and contains 500 calories before you even factor the bread into the equation. I don't think you could even eat a sandwich with that much peanut butter on it... it would fall all over the floor.

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_{got my protein in, let's hit the weights}

They focus on apples-to-oranges comparisons such as certain vegetables contain more protein per calorie than steak etc. This is not a comparison at all since we all know that generally speaking, vegetables contain very little calories. They would never show you protein per gram because that wouldn't support their cause.

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Massive Conflict of Interest?

The film is produced by James Cameron and his wife (among others) and that is always a big draw because well, he is an extraordinary name in film. But what they don't come out and say (and they should have known this would arise) is that Mr. Cameron is the founder of Verdient Foods, a company that specializes in providing protein from plant sources. They recently secured $140 million in investment and aim to be the "the largest plant-based protein provider in the USA" (those are not their exact words but it is something along those lines)

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While there is no doubt in my mind that James Cameron actually does believe in the plant-based lifestyle, it isn't too difficult to extrapolate that he might be a teensy bit biased and really interested in only presenting information that supports the potential sale of his products.

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tl;dr

I don't have a problem with veganism or I guess it is called "plant-based diets" now. About a year ago I converted to putting more vegetables into my diet and started avoiding processed food. I also ate a lot of meat and combined with exercise i lost more than 20kg and am in about the sort of shape that i was in during my early 20's (I'm in my 40's now.)

This film is entertaining but it really doesn't present any sort of information fairly. Almost every single claim that they make in this documentary can be easily refuted if you bother to dig into the information that is being presented, and I definitely have a problem with that.

I guess I just don't understand why plant-based lifestyle advocates can't simply tell the truth and use that information to try to get converts. There is plenty of real information out there that suggests that an increase in fruit and veg in your life has easily identifiable benefits. However, this doco resorts to shock-tactics and I suppose it is a sign of the times because I think a lot of people will watch this and assume it is all true because: doctors were in it.

For me, this can be put into the not-so-honest waste-bin.