Has anyone seen Forks Over Knives? It’s playing across the country right now. I saw it at the Dallas Magnolia Theater with a number of local vegetarian groups in attendance. The film was concerned with the health aspects of a vegan diet while touching on other aspects and focused on the research of T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D. and Caldwell Esselstyn Jr., M.D., two doctors whose research both led them to the health benefits of veganism.
I saw it with my mother, and she was moved by the filmmaker’s and others’ health improvements on a vegan diet enough to take my stepfather again the following weekend. After watching it, they’ve both made a commitment to the vegan lifestyle in an effort to improve their health.
I hope you also get a chance to show this to people who may benefit from the information presented in a no nonsense manner about improving health. I hope my uncle sees it who is suffering from multiple cancers. He said he would as it’s playing his city, but I have no idea if he’ll actually get out to it since he lives several hours away.
I’d post the link, but it seems I’ve yet to earn that right.
While I appreciate the motivation of those who made the film, I’m not sure about the title premise.
In the chapter “The Fork as a Weapon” in my book, “The Weaning of America”, I suggest that the fork was originally the multi-pronged spear, used to kill non-human animals (especially fish) and to hold their bodies in place for processing (skinning for example, sometimes when the animal was still alive).
While the knife can certainly be used as a weapon, it has many other uses as well, including processing plant foods. Generally speaking, cultures in Asia and Africa who traditionally based their diets more on plant foods than flesh, don’t use forks, they used spoons, fingers or chop sticks…and many still do.
Interestingly, a dentist told me many years ago that the most common cause of broken teeth in America is the careless use of forks.
I’m certainly not telling anyone that they must give up forks to be an ethical vegan, but I’ve gotten by quite nicely without using forks for more than thirty years.
