[classical score playing]
[Pete Evans speaks]
[jazz music playing]
When you look at every
other species on our planet...
they all control
their weight automatically.
The only exception was us...
and any animal unfortunate
enough to be fed by us.
I just couldn't understand
why we were the exception.
Why did we require willpower,
and everything else
did it on autopilot?
So I applied
the only relevant skill I had,
which was looking at evidence,
and I found there was
very little evidence
for the standard eating advice
we are normally given,
and there was
a whole stream of evidence
which had been largely ignored.
In fact, what we have
been taught about nutrition
is dangerously wrong.
Who can tell me how
Yolngu people die today?
[people chattering]
[woman]
Heart disease.
[Tim Trudgen]
So, heart disease, yeah.
-[woman 2] Liver disease.
-[Tim] Liver disease.
-[woman 3] Asthma.
-Asthma. Yeah.
-Diabetes.
-[Tim] Diabetes.
-Yes!
-How many of you
have diabetes?
A lot!
[Tim]
Probably half
the people here have diabetes.
Yeah?
[Tim]
Diabetes, heart disease,
high blood pressure,
kidney disease--
all what we call
chronic diseases.
When did those diseases start?
1970s... late '70s, '80s...
So before that,
people were dying from...?
-[woman] Hepatitis.
-[Tim] Hepatitis.
-[woman 2] Pneumonia.
-Pneumonia.
-[woman 3] TB.
-TB.
They're all
the infectious diseases.
[Tim]
These are the ones
that came with the Europeans.
-[chattering]
-[Tim] Bacteria.
Infectious diseases.
-Yes, yes.
-[Tim] If we go back further...
How about the time
before the Europeans came?
[speaking Yolngu Matha]
Fighting...
One person kills another.
[Tim]
People died from fighting.
Accidents...
Sharks... Crocodiles...
-[Tim] What's the main one?
-Old age.
-Old age.
-Old age.
[speaking Yolngu Matha]
[jazz music playing]
[Michelle]
I had this label
that I'm a fat girl.
I am overweight.
I have asthma.
I've always had asthma.
I have a rescue inhaler,
and then I have
a maintenance inhaler.
My rescue inhaler is becoming,
like a regular inhaler.
where I use it
two or three times a day.
-[Amy] Okay.
-[Michelle] And I've just
gotten used to it now.
And I've been in the hospital
a couple of times for asthma,
where it got really bad.
When people talk
about wellness and health,
and "Are you well?
How do you feel?"
My automatic pilot is always,
"I'm great!"
My vision is getting
worse and worse, very rapidly.
I had three fibroids,
and one was really big.
Upper respiratory infection.
They put me
on broad-spectrum antibiotics,
mega doses of prednisone,
azithromycin.
And so, I have
this standing prescription.
I'll just take it myself.
I was also diagnosed with ADD.
I don't know if that came up
anywhere on there.
-This is really important,
so we missed the ADD.
-Yeah.
-[laughter]
-I'm like, "Oh,
and incidentally..."
-[Robert]
"Oh, and by the way..."
[jazz music playing]
[Michelle]
I remember when I was little,
my mom taught me
to write a letter
"Dear Cathy,
how are you?
I am fine."
Like, those were
the three things
I learned first.
"How are you? I am fine."
And I'm still doing that,
but I'm not fine!
This is levothyroxine.
I take one a day for my thyroid.
This is atorvastatin.
It's for my high cholesterol.
This is fenofibric,
tizanidine, duloxetine--
I take that for anxiety.
Hydrocodone,
cyclobenzaprine,
gabapentin tablets--
That's supposed to make
your brain process pain
in a different way.
This is also for my thyroid.
This is for my neck pain.
These are muscle relaxers.
And that's my medication,
which I think is more
than enough.
My mom struggled
with weight her whole life.
She created me
to be an emotional eater.
Somebody was picking
on me at school.
"Come on,
let's go get an ice cream."
Something happened
good in school,
"Oh, let's go out
and celebrate.
We'll go to Mickey D's,"
you know.
And I ended up doing
the same thing with my kids
and my grandkids.
My mom finally developed
the Alzheimer's
and the dementia,
and I saw
the progression
of the disease
from start to finish.
And you know,
I forget things now,
and I can't think of words,
and I start thinking,
"Oh, my God."
[crying]
You know?
"I'm-- I'm the same way.
I've gotten to be
the same way."
You know?
[screams]
[shouts]
[Debbie]
This is a vicious cycle
that needs to be stopped.
Kim, my daughter,
she has arthritis.
She has lymphodema.
She has hypothyroid.
Her daughter,
Kaylee, is nine.
She has celiac's disease.
Barry's children
are five and four,
Barry and Lauren,
my son and daughter-in-law,
they have a daughter,
Abigail, who's five.
[female nurse]
Abigail? You want
to come back with me?
Okay, sweetheart.
Just step right up here.
[Debbie]
She has autism.
She's nonverbal.
She has epilepsy.
She has central sleep apnea.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
-No, no.
-[Abigail moans]
[Debbie]
She has digestive problems.
[female doctor]
Any trouble urinating?
Any trouble
with bowel movements?
-She has constipation.
-Constipation.
She's on the MiraLAX daily
for that?
-Yeah. Yeah.
-[woman] Okay.
[Barry] The hardest part--
it's just having a child
that can't speak.
I know my wife feels
the same way.
That's-- To me, that's like
the most painful part.
-Abigail.
-Abs.
-Look. Look over here.
-Abigail.
[Barry]
Abigail seems like
she's doing really well,
and then she'll get tired,
and she'll have a whole
bunch of seizures.
And it's like
she's forgotten everything.
It's like her brain
resets itself.
-Playing music?
-Yeah.
[Barry]
It's really the seizures
that compounds her autism.
We're counting,
on average, about 50 a day,
so she's getting
a great big cocktail of garbage.
This stuff's pretty mild
compared to this stuff.
This is called Onfi.
This stuff here is--
it's over $1,000 a bottle.
My insurance covers 70%, so...
I get the joy of only paying
over $300 a month
-just for this stuff.
-[girl squeals]
[Robert Tate]
Have you noticed
any improvement with it?
We have. Otherwise, believe me--
[laughs]
For over $300 a month?
She would've been off of it
a long time ago.
The whole situation
makes me mad,
but mostly just because
how many six-year-old kids
are these neurologists putting
on these heavy narcotics?
I mean, this is as bad
as if you were to go buy
heroin off of the street,
and that's the first thing
that these doctors are trained
to offer the kids.
That's it. Good job.
[Barry]
I hate it.
The lump in my throat
as I was reading
the side effects, man.
I mean, "May cause harm
to yourself or others.
"May have rashy,
irritated skin.
May cause sleeplessness."
And, like, I've seen
my daughter
have some
of these side effects.
[moans]
[Barry]
We're gonna need a lot
of help for sure. I just...
I have no idea.
-I have no idea
how we're gonna do it.
-[Robert] Do what?
Switch her diet.
She refuses
just about everything
except for, like...
the Goldfish and Doritos.
So...
[jazz music playing]
I just don't know.
I don't know what
it's gonna be like.
I may get overwhelmed with it.
-[hisses]
-[inhales]
But I'm truly
at a point in my life
where I'm afraid.
I'm afraid that my chips
have run out.
You breathe it in,
and then you hold it,
and then you breathe out.
That's how that works.
I'm scared.
I'm genuinely scared.
[Robert] Debbie, you're about
to change your diet.
-What are you most afraid of?
-Failure.
-B-b-b!
-[chuckles]
B-b-b!
Wishing for luck...
Yes.
[shudders, laughs]
[Nora Gedgaudas]
We are all physiologically
and genetically
hunter-gatherers.
We've only been consuming
an agriculturally-based diet now
for maybe 500 generations or so
versus more
than 100,000 generations--
not 100,000 years,
but 100,000 generations--
on a largely meat-
and fat-based diet.
We have the brains that we do
because of the enormous amount
of fat that we consumed
as a species throughout
our evolutionary history.
Suddenly now, we're eating
a carbohydrate-based diet,
and in the last
13 or so generations,
since this thing called
the industrial revolution,
this has just gone down
a slippery slope.
[Richard Trudgen] You are
the oldest culture on earth,
is Yolngu culture.
Forty-thousand years.
So anybody that
has a go at us,
don't talk to us
unless you've got
40,000 years of research.
Yeah?
The American
scientific expedition that came
to Arnhem Land in 1948
showed that Yolngu people
were extremely robust.
No chronic disease, great teeth,
well-built, muscular.
I remember the Yolngu
in the '70s-- rippled muscles.
They were like supermen.
I came back in '83
to see a population
that was decimated.
This chronic disease tsunami
that is now wiping
across the Yolngu population.
[people chattering]
[Kama Trudgen]
Funerals are just this
constant part of life here,
where you finish one,
and then the next one arrives
and then the next one arrives
and you can kind of get
a funeral fatigue.
-6.3.
-6.3. [speaks Yolngu Matha]
[Kama]
And all of life is needing to be
reorganized around that.
There are definitely still
people are alive today
who, as they were growing up,
were living
a traditional lifestyle.
We're running out
of those people.
Everybody died.
My friends have all gone.
Even my best friends.
They're not with me anymore.
-[Robert] Life's not supposed
to be like that.
-No. No.
[Robert]
Yuranydjil, can you
tell me, in your own words,
why, why are you here
at this retreat?
-Boy, I can't talk
when I'm walking.
-Okay, fair enough.
Maybe down on the beach
when I'm sitting down, I will.
I think my body,
maybe weren't built
to do some walks,
or...I don't know.
I remember
when I was a little girl
I used to come
with my grandfather.
We'd be walking
along this beach.
And every night he'd,
he'd share stories.
He would tell me,
"This is the way to go.
"This is what you eat.
"Don't eat this.
"This is nice,
but this is bad.
"Don't touch this.
Don't eat this.
It's not even food.
It's "nhangining."
"Nhangining"
meaning "non-edible."
Even those red and black beads,
they're pretty to make
a good necklace,
but it's not good to eat.
It's "nhangining."
[chattering]
[Kama]
So much has been done
to Yolngu people
to send the message
that they are inferior
and that whatever is going on
in the dominant culture
is more powerful and superior.
And that definitely applies
to people's perception of food.
[Tim]
This one's got caffeine.
[Kama]
Coca-Cola is something that's
frequently drunk for breakfast.
It's something frequently given
to really small children
for breakfast.
A lot of people
look in on that,
and they think, "Wow.
That family mustn't care
about that child."
But that's coming
from information
that these families
just don't have.
[Tim]
The total carbs in one serving,
28.6 grams,
and a serving's 40 grams.
[Kama]
They believe they're
being loving and caring
to their child
by giving them good food
bought from the dominant
culture's store.
No sugar in this one, but...
[speaks Yolngu Matha]
[Pete Evans]
The Australian government's
pumping millions of dollars
into trying to fix
Aboriginal health,
and here's
these two individuals
that have managed to do
what they're trying to do
on a large scale.
[speaks Yolngu Matha]
[Pete]
What they're managing
to do is to say,
"The way you had it
before white person came
was actually the right way."
We have ancient wisdom,
and we have modern wisdom,
and I think the two
need to work
harmoniously together,
in balance.
[Robert]
So in the philosophy
of Hope for Health,
what is good food?
Good food is food
that is grounded
in the tradition
of Aboriginal people.
This is the Yolngu way
of cooking.
[Robert]
And how might that translate
to the rest of us?
[Tim]
Umm, it's basically...
meat and vegetables. Okay?
Meat and vegetables
that come from a place
that is closest
to its natural state.
[chirping]
[serene music playing]
[David Perlmutter]
Years ago, there was
a commercial
for a particular margarine.
[woman]
That's not margarine.
That's my sweet, creamy butter.
[David] This woman,
who actually turned out
to be Mother Nature,
tasted it, and she said,
"It's not nice to fool
Mother Nature,"
and made lightning happen
and thunder.
The fact is that processed food
is not natural.
That's trying to fool
Mother Nature.
[Debbie]
Should I get the trash bag out?
[Nell Stephenson laughs]
Probably.
[David]
We should be eating
the foods that nature provides,
not that are scientized,
not that factories provide.
Would it be okay if I sat down
on that chair over here?
-Go through the store
without a problem.
-Yeah.
Okay. I'm sorry.
[Robert]
Your mom is the daughter
of my father's sister.
-So, your dad is my mom's uncle.
-That's right.
[Barry]
Dude, everything in there's
gonna have to go.
[Robert]
I think it's probably best
if it does.
Pasta Roni.
What is Pasta Roni?
-[Debbie laughs] Pasta.
-[Nell] I guess.
Even the name in and of itself
tells you how highly processed--
it's somebody's brand name.
-Abigail, get down.
-Any food preferences?
I know you gave me
the three-day diet diary.
-[Barry] Those are
her food preferences.
-[both laugh]
SpaghettiOs, chicken nuggets,
-Goldfish. Doritos.
-Goldfish is the normal--
-[Robert] What about drinks?
-Apple juice.
Apple juice.
[Rangan Chattergee]
We've hijacked our taste buds
with food-like substances
that are not whole food,
that are not real food.
Here's a good one.
Imitation vanilla flavor.
"Propylene glycol, sodium
benzoate, phosphoric acid."
-Doesn't that sound lovely?
-I don't even know what it is.
-Right.
-[Robert] The whole "low fat"
thing is completely wrong,
so we're gonna add
more fat to the diet.
I mean good, natural fats.
That's avocados, olive oil,
meat fats
from pastured animals,
like beef tallow,
duck fat, lard.
[Nina Teicholz]
Having the federal government
get behind the low-fat diet
changed, vastly,
the food system.
You know, companies flooded in
with all their low-fat products,
responding to this huge demand.
[Robert]
One of the most insidious things
the market does for us--
-"Lite. Lite."
-[laughter]
Misspelled "lite" is even worse
than spelled-correctly "light."
Every single day now
we have new-fangled foods
and food-like substances
being introduced.
And then on top of it,
we're genetically modifying
and adding chemicals
and things
that we have
no way of adapting to.
[Nell]
There's added sugar
in everything.
Ketchup-- sugar.
Juice for the grandkids--
sugar, sugar, sugar.
-Corn syrup.
-[Jeff] The applesauce
has corn syrup?
[Nell]
High-fructose corn syrup
is the second ingredient.
[Debbie]
I would've never guessed.
"Fructose"? There's not
gonna be anything in here.
We have found a winner.
You know what? Scratch that.
There's sugar again.
-[Debbie] That's something. Wow.
-Yeah.
Obviously, we will never again
eat cereal in our lives.
[Robert]
Perfect. Get rid of it.
[David] Bread and other
grain-related products
are really worrisome,
"A," because
of their gluten issue,
but most importantly because
of their carbohydrate content.
-I don't even know if we need
to say anything about this.
-Uh, yeah.
-[Nell] Just-- you know.
-[Debbie] Okay.
[William Davis] I call wheat
the "perfect obesogen."
Food perfectly crafted
to make you fat.
Wheat is in all frozen dinners,
all breakfast cereals,
taco seasoning,
seasoning mixes,
instant soup mixes,
canned soup, salad dressings.
In other words,
of the 60,000 products
in the average
supermarket today,
59,000 have wheat.
[Pete]
There is nothing
you can get out of grain
that you can't get
anywhere else.
Not even close, in fact.
Meat, seafood, vegetables,
fruit, nuts, seeds, and eggs
have so much more to give.
"Maple and brown sugar,"
"heart healthy."
-You know that
that can't be right, right?
-[laughs]
[William]
Wheat was added
10,000 years ago,
which sounds like a long time,
'cause it predates
the Egyptian empire,
the Greek empire,
the Roman empire.
But 10,000 years
represents less than
one-half of one percent
of human race's
time on Earth.
[Nina]
We went from a diet
that was 90% meat and fat
to suddenly relying
on grains and legumes
for the very first time
in our evolutionary history.
These all gotta go.
You know, when a label
goes out of its way
to tell you how healthy it is--
"100% whole grain,
reduced fat."
By taking fat out,
you guarantee
that people have to shift
over to high-carbohydrate foods.
That's just what happens.
[David]
Fat is a critically
important part of our diet,
but we've gotta
be super selective,
'cause some fats
are very threatening
to our health.
The reason olive oil
is so good is
because you can get the oil
out of the olive really easily.
It's like cold-pressed
extra virgin olive oil.
But you take something
like this-- this, poison.
[Nina]
In order to make
packaged food,
you need a fat
that's solid and stable.
So, everything
on a supermarket shelf--
cookies, crackers, chips--
need a hard fat, a solid fat.
That's what gives it shelf life.
If you get rid of butter,
suet, tallow, lard--
traditional fats--
as our guidelines told us to do,
what's left?
Hardened vegetable oils,
which is basically trans fats.
We don't want to use
any of the vegetable oils
like corn oil
or safflower oil, soybean oil.
[Kate Shanahan]
Vegetable oils are toxic.
They're industrial oils.
They are foods that
we could not have manufactured
until the industrial era.
There are seeds
that have oil in them
but that don't release
their oil readily,
so you have to use high heat
and solvents to do so.
That totally wrecks
the molecules,
destroys many
of the antioxidants,
It's a mangled,
disgusting, smelly mess.
Every cell in your body
is wrapped in a membrane
that's made out of about
half fat and half protein.
If the fatty acids comprising
your cell membrane
are unnatural,
that cell membrane
cannot function
in the way that
it's supposed to function.
And that's the beginning
of disease.
It starts at the cellular level.
Vegetable oils are acting like
little miniature Trojan horses.
Your body doesn't recognize them
as not natural.
It will make cell membranes,
it will make brain cells,
but it's as if you were
trying to build a house
and your contractor said,
"Um, well, we don't
have any bricks,
"but we do have
these little Styrofoam balls.
-Let's go for it."
-Did the food grow
on the planet?
Did it swim in the water?
Did it run on land? That's food.
[Rangan]
The one question I wish
every single doctor
on this planet
would ask every single one
of their patients is...
"What are you eating?"
[mooing]
[Nell]
We have gotten
a really nice selection
of leafy green vegetables.
You've got some
excellent proteins--
wild salmon, bison--
fresh ginger root.
We have some nice fat choices.
We're gonna be cooking
with some coconut oil
-and lard.
-Okay.
What we're doing is focusing on
things that are natural.
[Pete]
In the western world,
we're not suffering diseases
of underconsumption.
In fact, it's the opposite.
We're suffering diseases
of overconsumption.
And once we get rid
of refined oils,
processed foods,
refined grains,
what we're left with is
vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds,
meat, seafood,
and good, healthy fats.
And that is what
we should be focusing on.
-Okay, here's the turmeric.
-Yup.
So, we're gonna use
some coconut oil to the pan.
[Debbie]
Yeah. Barry, you know
the pan spray I had?
-[Barry] Mm-hmm.
-[Debbie] Had to throw it out.
[David]
There's no question that
the brain can burn glucose.
What powers the brain
far more efficiently
in terms of its
energy-producing components,
called the mitochondria, is fat.
[Debbie]
So, we're going to get lard
all over our hands?
-[Nell] Yes.
-[Debbie] Okay.
[David]
Our brains thrive
in a fat-burning environment.
Now, technically,
we call this a state of ketosis,
and to get
into a state of ketosis,
one assumes
what is called a ketogenic diet,
which basically means
a diet that's lower in carbs
and higher in fat.
Oh, that smells amazing
with that garlic.
[Robert]
Barry, have you ever cooked
anything like this in your life?
No. [laughs]
Being in a mild state of ketosis
is really the place to be.
[acoustic guitar playing]
[Michelle]
Okay, this is
my first video diary.
I started this new way
of eating today.
I figured since we're
talking about all-natural,
I'm going to torment people
by having on no makeup.
Okay, I know this
is not supposed to be
a big old cooking show,
but here we have
some lamb with the bone in,
and I am sauting them
in some coconut oil,
and the green you see is
kale that I just removed.
And I made
some riced cauliflower,
so that I can feel
like I'm having carbs.
Bone broth in all of these,
by the way.
Normally, I would just go out
and eat three times a day.
I'm so used
to grabbing and going,
but I am really gonna do this.
I am gonna do this.
I have to do this.
[Abigail crying]
[Emma]
Not gonna eat them.
Emma's convinced
that we are punishing her.
-You want some chicken?
-[Emma] No.
[Barry] No? Why not?
I don't like them!
She's like, "Why are you
taking all of my food away?"
[crying]
[Barry]
"This is mean. I can't eat
macaroni and cheese.
I can't eat chicken nuggets.
I can't eat SpaghettiOs."
-No.
-[Barry] She just
went down the list...
-No.
-...tattering through
this list of, of junk.
I'm just like, "Man, we didn't
feed her anything healthy."
Like, we literally took away
everything that our children
have been eating.
-[crying]
-Okay, okay, don't throw it.
Those are scrambled eggs
on the floor.
She just started
pushing my hand away
as I was sticking
the fork into her mouth.
And then she literally
crawled across the counter
and she grabbed
this bag of Goldfish
that was sitting there.
She ripped it open and just
starts shoveling handfuls
of Goldfish into her mouth.
It reminded me
of when I was a drug addict.
I would get my bag,
and I'd be fiending...
for, for something.
I'd be fiending for a fix.
Oh, for goodness sake.
The first five days,
she starved herself.
She barely ate anything.
Yeah, I'm burnt out, man.
I'm burnt out.
That was the turning point.
She was just, "More, more,
more, more, more." [laughs]
Good job!
I mean, she just was
a bottomless pit.
Abigail's eating coconut.
And from that day forward,
it was like--
she was eating everything
I gave her. Everything.
[woman]
There you go.
[Kate]
Barry texted me the day that
she was eating with a fork.
[Barry]
There you go. Good job!
He texted me that she had
never done that before,
that she was eating
a piece of steak with a fork.
[Barry]
And what is she eating?
Steak and kale!
And, I mean, I was-- I was
literally jumping up and down,
and I think he was too.
I was so happy.
She just took the fork and...
[mimics pop]
stuck the-- stuck the steak
and popped it in her mouth
like she's been doing it
her whole life. It was crazy.
So anyways,
we're doing great.
I'm looking forward
to seeing
where she's at
in another two weeks.
There you go! Good job!
[Lisa Thatcher]
When a little baby's
put in your arms...
and you giggle,
and they giggle back...
this little body
is talking to me
without language,
but talking in their own way.
And the baby lights up.
He never lit up.
We knew from the moment
that he was put in our arms
at two weeks old--
we knew something was amiss.
When he was three,
I decided to put him
on the Specific
Carbohydrate Diet.
Just meat, vegetable,
fruit, nuts, and seeds.
Third day
on Specific Carbohydrate Diet,
he fed himself
for the first time.
Fifth day,
he said his first word.
So I almost
fell over on my chair.
He said, "We come,"
for "welcome." [crying]
'Cause I said, "Thank you."
I would always talk to him.
And it was always
me doing the talking--
us doing the talking.
And he, you know,
wouldn't answer to his name,
all that typical autism stuff.
And I said, "Thank you,"
and he said, "We come."
One of the things, though,
that always bothered me
was that he didn't seem
to be able to stop...
bobbing, rocking...
verbal noises,
and so I was already
beginning to wonder about...
if he needed something more.
[Ryan Lee]
We're at the Shriners Hospitals
for Children in Honolulu.
We take care of children
with brain-based disorders.
Specifically,
we specialize in autism,
ADHD, and other
developmental problems.
Use this hand
and tap your fingers.
[narrates]
Our medical study
involves a clinical trial.
We're investigating not only
if the ketogenic diet
impacts children with autism...
[child]
Do you have any parents?
[Ryan]
...but also how it might
impact children with autism.
To help with their language,
help with their socialization.
We want children to be able
to interact meaningfully
with their families again.
And you put
that one in there,
and you can push it off
with-- Yeah.
[Miki Wong]
The ketogenic diet
and the state of ketosis
changes the metabolism
in the body,
and so instead of using glucose
as your primary, go-to fuel,
the body taps into ketones.
Do you want butter too,
or you're fine?
-I'm okay.
-[Lisa] Yeah.
Ketones are acids
that the body produces from fat.
It cannot be produced
from carbohydrates or sugars.
[Lisa]
He likes coconut oil
all over everything.
[Miki]
And the body uses the ketones
for energy for the brain,
and the free fatty acids
for the muscles.
Good balance.
Open your eyes.
[Ryan] Aaron Thatcher's
been on the ketogenic diet
for approximately six months.
He has seen an improvement
in some of the core features
of his autism,
including
increased socialization,
interaction with his mom...
Just to get him peaceful--
-Yup.
-It is huge.
It brings peace
to the whole family.
And I would say,
you know, our loving
interactions are more.
[Ryan]
Increased independence
and self-care skills,
decrease in his stereotypic
repetitive movements
and behaviors.
[woman]
Aaron, we're going to put
these puzzles together. Okay?
Start with these and I have
some here, and let me know
when you need more.
[Ryan]
As evidenced
by his scores on the ADOS,
he initially, pre-diet,
had an ADOS score of 16,
which is in the high range
for autism.
And on his
three-month follow-up,
had a score of 8.
[woman]
What do you like doing
that makes you feel
happy and cheerful?
Coming here.
[woman]
Coming here?
You like coming here?
Okay. What are
some other things
that make you feel happy?
Taking a bus.
[woman]
Taking a bus. That sounds fun.
Okay. How about things
that you're afraid of?
-Are there things that--
-Turtles.
[woman]
Turtles, like
in the story that we read?
The ocean.
[woman]
Oh. The "honu" in the ocean!
That makes you feel afraid?
[Robert]
I was watching Aaron
take the ADOS,
and there are
questions on the test like,
"What do you find scary?"
-And he said...
-"Turtles."
[Robert]
Great! "A plus," right?
So I said, "Can you say that
in a complete sentence?"
-Given the opportunity,
he probably could.
-[Robert] He did!
-He did? [laughs]
-[Robert] We did give him
the opportunity.
Can you tell me
in a full sentence?
-I'm afraid of turtles.
-[Robert] Awesome.
Tell me in a full sentence,
what makes you feel happy?
-I feel happy I took the bus.
-[Robert] Awesome!
That's more therapeutic
than the question
that we asked him.
-[woman] Do you ever feel sad?
-Mmm.
[woman]
Can you describe what
it's like when you feel sad?
Sometimes I feel lonely.
[Robert]
What makes you feel lonely?
When I be by myself.
-[woman] Ohh. Can you
say that in a full sentence?
-[Robert] Full sentence.
-"I feel..."
-I feel upset
because I'm a lonely...
-person by my...self.
-[Robert] Yeah.
[Ryan]
There's some common
metabolic processes in the body
that exist within every cell
in our body.
If you're taking a medicine,
you're targeting a specific
mechanism within the body.
Whereas, if you approach it more
broadly, such as through food,
we might be able to influence
a variety of organ systems
including the brain,
the pancreas, the liver,
muscle cells,
blood vessels, et cetera...
through one intervention.
And this is not a new thought.
This is an old thought.
Thousands of years old.
[chattering]
[jazz music playing]
[Michelle]
I think that eating alone
only bolsters the little
hamsters in your head
that are telling you what
you should and shouldn't do.
I mean, I rarely will sit
and eat a meal alone
without there being
some little commentary
going on in the back.
"Well, you really
should have less of this,"
or, "You really should
have done this or that."
[Natalie] There we go.
Look at that beautiful bird.
[Michelle]
Oh, that looks so good!
But when you eat
with other people,
you end up talking,
and bonding, and sharing.
I like--
I just like that better.
So you'll see that there's meat
and there's fat in here.
You don't have to eat it,
but it's really good.
[Lisa]
It's interesting
with the fat that's floating.
I've become so ingrained
over the years of,
-"Fat's no good. Fat's no good.
Don't want fat in my diet."
-[Michelle] I know.
You know what
I mean? It's hard to like--
[Michelle]
I thought about your face.
I'm like, "Lisa's gonna be like,
'I cannot eat that.'"
I thought about you!
[Lisa] Well, it all started
with Susan Powter back
in the early '90s.
[Michelle]
Yes! With the spiky hair.
[Lisa]
I'd go buy a fat-free cake,
and I'd eat the whole thing,
and I'd be like,
"I'm eating fat free!"
-[laughter]
-[Natalie] But all
of that sugar turns into fat.
It's carbs. So, they say
it's fat-free, when really--
[Michelle]
Yeah, when you're eating it
at the time, it's fat-free.
-It has no fat in it.
-But what does it turn into
once it goes into your system?
[Michelle]
Fat. More fat.
So we're going to make
the mayonnaise.
Basically, eggs and lemon
plus oil equals mayonnaise.
-[Natalie] Okay! I love it.
-[Michelle] Right?
-So let's prove it.
-[Natalie] This is olive oil.
Yeah, I'm using olive oil.
You want to use
a pure oil like this
that isn't going to be toxic
to your body.
[Lisa]
It's terrifying.
Look at all that oil.
[Michelle]
And Lisa's scared of the oil.
It's going to be okay, Lisa!
I'm like counting up
the Weight Watchers
points in my head.
I would love to be able to...
not have to count
Weight Watchers points,
and not have to...
be so scared
of eating sometimes, you know?
But I'm scared of,
"If I don't do that,
then I'll gain the weight back."
And so it's that--
It's that allowing yourself
to have the freedom
to trust your body,
to trust that when you do it,
it'll be okay, because you're
eating real food.
[Natalie]
Doing this as an act of love,
as something we're all owed.
Remember that?
[chattering]
-I'm just gonna do it to taste.
-[Michelle] Oh, my God,
I'm so excited.
To a long life
of happiness and health.
-And friendship.
-And friendship.
Absolutely. Cheers!
-That was fun.
-I love you girls.
I love you too.
[jazz music playing]
[Nina] In the 1950s,
the nation was
really in a panic about the
rising tide of heart disease
that had come from pretty much
out of nowhere
to be the nation's
leading cause of death.
In 1955,
President Eisenhower
himself has a heart attack,
and he's out
of the Oval Office for 10 days.
The nation is fixated
on this problem--
an urgent public health problem.
And nobody really knows what
causes heart disease. Right?
There's a number
of different explanations:
maybe it's a lack of vitamins,
maybe it's car exhaust.
So into this vacuum
steps Ancel Keys...
a pathologist from
the University of Minnesota,
and he says,
"It's saturated fats.
Saturated fats and cholesterol
cause heart disease."
Of 10 men,
we can expect five to get it.
[Nina]
And that was his hypothesis.
He had an unshakable faith
in his own beliefs.
He was called a bully
even by his friends.
And he was able
to get his beliefs
inserted into the American
Heart Association.
So the first ever
dietary recommendations
telling people to cut back
on saturated fat
and dietary cholesterol
to avoid heart disease
were issued
by the American
Heart Association in 1961.
That's the beginning
of the story.
It's the tiny little acorn
that grew into
the giant oak tree of advice
that we have today
and that we can't back out of.
What was the evidence
for that recommendation
by the American
Heart Association?
It amounted to one study,
coincidentally performed
by Ancel Keys.
That's the Seven
Countries Study,
where he went to seven countries
around the world,
mainly in Europe
but also the U.S. and Japan.
And he sampled
nearly 13,000 men,
and he looked at their diet,
he looked at their cholesterol,
and then he waited to see
who had a heart attack
or who died of heart disease.
I mean, he had a hypothesis
that saturated fat
caused heart disease,
and he was out to prove it.
For one, it's very clear
that he cherry-picked
his countries.
He had done a number
of pilot studies.
He knew where
people were not eating
much saturated fat
and had
low rates of heart disease,
like Yugoslavia and Italy.
And he ignored
other countries--
also low rates
of heart disease--
like Germany,
Switzerland, and France
where they ate
a lot of saturated fats.
He didn't go to those countries,
which would have disproven
his hypothesis.
His study showed that
low saturated fat intake
was associated with low rates
of heart disease. Associated.
But it doesn't mean
that reducing saturated fat
is what caused those people
to suffer less heart disease.
It was also true
that these people ate
very little sugar.
In fact, they also found
in that study
that what correlated best
with cardiovascular death
was sugar.
Then what ensued
was a tremendous amount
of science to try
to prove Ancel Keys'
hypothesis right.
Billions of dollars were spent
in large clinical trials,
the most rigorous kind
of science you can do.
And they were done
in mental hospitals
and veterans hospitals--
the kind of experiment
that you can't do anymore
because it's
considered unethical.
And at the end of billions
of dollars of research,
they could not prove
Ancel Keys' hypothesis.
We have lived a lie
for 50 years.
[Marika Sboros]
Professor Timothy Noakes is
one of the very few scientists
in the world
who have an A1 rating.
[Reporter]
Sports scientist Timothy Noakes
begins his defense
against unprofessional conduct.
The charges against Noakes
were laid
by the Association
of Dietetics in South Africa,
after he advised
a mother on Twitter
to ween her child
onto a low-carb, high-fat diet.
[Marika]
The health dietitian tweeted,
"Don't listen to him!
It's a terrible thing to say.
I'm going to report you!"
[man]
This will seriously harm
our profession!
The dietitian went on
and lodged a complaint
with the Health Professions
Council of South Africa--
that's the regulatory body--
for unprofessional conduct.
That is the most
serious charge
you can level
against a medical doctor.
It's time for us to take charge
of our nation's health.
This is a modern-day
trial of Galileo.
[Joan Adams]
Good morning.
It's the 16th of February, 2016.
We continue
with the official conduct
hearing against Dr. T. Noakes.
And, Professor,
you are still under oath.
[Noakes]
Thank you, Madam Chair.
-[Joan] Yes.
-This is a unique event
in the history
of modern medicine
that a scientist
has been charged
with giving
unconventional advice,
and can get up there
and say, "Actually,
it is not unconventional."
It has been in the literature.
[Marika]
The Association for
Dietetics in South Africa
is very, very much
a gatekeeper of nutrition advice
and the official dietary
guidelines of South Africa.
It's time to look
at the results and the outcomes
and say,
"Maybe we got it wrong."
[Marika]
And Professor Noakes is
building a really powerful case
for what really lies
behind the epidemic
of non-communicable diseases
around the world.
That's obesity, diabetes,
heart disease, cancer--
even dementia,
that is now being called
type III diabetes
because of its links with diet.
I'm talking
about insulin resistance,
which is so prevalent
in this country.
[Marika]
What actually lies at the heart
of his case is the science,
the wealth of evidence
that supports low-carb,
high-fat eating,
and equally that high-carb,
low-fat isn't so good
for you after all.
One of the definitive studies
of the low-fat diet
was done in the United States
by the National Institute
of Health
to prove that
low-fat diet reduced the risk
of cardiovascular disease,
and they invested
$700 million into it.
There were 48,000
post-menopausal women
who were going
to be studied for eight years.
They were divided
into two groups:
40% were assigned
to the low-fat eating pattern,
and 60% could just eat
what they liked.
The low-fat group were told
to reduce their energy
from fat to 20%
and from saturated fat to 7%,
and increase their fruit
and vegetable intake
to at least
five servings per day
and grains to at least
six servings per day.
So that would be the dietary
guidelines for Americans.
And what did they find?
After eight years,
this amazing study--
the low-fat diet did not
significantly reduce the risk
of coronary
heart disease, stroke,
or cardiovascular disease,
and achieved only modest effects
on cardiovascular risk factors.
So after all that effort,
that was the outcome.
[Nina]
In the 35 years we've
been following the guidelines,
animal fats are down by 17%,
red meat down by 17%,
eggs are down by 17%,
whole milk down by 73%!
So, everything we've been
told to cut down on,
we have cut down,
and everything we were told
to increase, we increased.
Grains are up by 41%,
vegetable oils up by 91%,
fruit up by 13%,
vegetables up by 23%.
So on the whole,
Americans have been
following the guidelines.
It leads you inevitably
to the conclusion
there must be something wrong
with the guidelines themselves.
There were parts of the study
which were a bit worrying,
and this was women
who were sick
at the start
of the trial with diabetes.
This healthy diet should
make them even healthier,
but it didn't.
Women with diabetes did worse.
And what I find interesting
is they never reported
the eight-year data
on women with diabetes
in that study,
and you have to ask, "Why?"
[Nina] When these
study results are coming out,
they're deeply inconvenient.
This hypothesis has been adopted
not only by the American
Heart Association,
but also by the National
Institutes of Health,
the entire federal government,
medical societies,
and a number of industries:
the vegetable oil industry,
ADM, Monsanto, Bunge--
some of the biggest companies
in the world--
and the grain industry,
and the soybean industry.
So these results had to be
ignored somehow
or suppressed.
[Marika]
I've been left
with a very disturbing feeling
that this hearing was set up
from the very beginning.
We'll adjourn tomorrow
at 10:00 sharp.
[Marika]
There is much more at stake
than a simple tweet.
There are powerful
vested interests.
People stand to lose a lot--
whether it's status, money--
in accepting
Professor Noakes' viewpoint.
[Robert] Could you describe
what the low-carb, high-fat
pyramid would be?
Yeah. Actually,
that's an important--
that is maybe a graphic that,
more than any other--
What you have to do is take
the existing food pyramid
and turn it upside-down.
So that everything
that used to be in the base
of the food pyramid--
grains, carbohydrates--
really has to be up in the tip.
And then below that are
our fruits and vegetables,
and then the big bottom slab
really has to be fats
and animal foods.
That is actually what
a healthy diet looks like.
Hi. Hi!
How are you guys doing?
[Kate] I was so excited
to come here today
to see if there's
any changes with Abigail.
The first time I met her,
she was walking on top
of the window sills...
-She's a climber! [laughs]
-Abigail, get down!
...flopping all around
on the couches...
[laughter]
-[doorbell rings]
-[Kate] She comes in and...
-Hey, cutie!
-...she's absolutely calm.
-[Barry] Say hi.
-[Kate] Hi, Abigail.
Do you remember me?
It's very exciting.
Very exciting.
[Barry]
Can you say hi?
Seems like she's losing
some of that massive belly.
It looked like she was,
like, constantly bloated.
That seems to have decreased.
Her bowels have regulated.
They were using a laxative
every single day.
And I don't know if you noticed
that when you're trying
to present her something
that she doesn't want...
-No!
-[Barry] No?
-She's actually saying, "No."
-[Robert] Yeah, I noticed
that too, actually.
With her mouth.
She's actually saying, "No."
She's able to concentrate
and she's able to progress,
because she's not
running all over the place
and she's not seizing.
Her seizures are going down,
and we have tangible data
from the school.
We are actually
starting to ween her off
of the anticonvulsory narcotic
that she's on that
I think you guys heard
plenty of complaints
from me about.
There are great strides within
just five weeks. It's great.
[Robert] What do you make
of his sort of subdued
attitude about all that?
[laughs] They live
with Abigail day-in and day-out.
You don't see
your children grow.
-[Robert] Incredible news.
-[Kate] Yeah.
-[Robert] Not big news or...?
-[Kate] Yeah.
I have faith in bigger
and better things, man.
[jazz music playing]
[Sara]
All right, let me just get
my recipe for this one.
So we're going to make
the chocolates and then--
[Sara]
I want you to grind
the macadamia nuts.
[narrating]
Today, we're gonna be making
two survival foods
for somebody just starting out.
The first one
is macadamia bread.
-[Robert] That's
your fat bread that I saw?
-That's my fat bread.
I'll deal with the messy part
'cause I've got the apron.
-[Jane laughs]
-[Sara] And I'd like to make
a sugarless chocolate.
It's something you can have
in your refrigerator
when you just, "Ah,
I need something sweet."
-We both needed our
little something.
-Yeah.
I use stevia.
I don't use sugar
because it elevates
my blood sugar.
[Jane]
Taste it. See what you think.
I think it's perfect.
[Jane]
I think it's perfect too.
I think it's perfect.
Everybody needs
to learn a new word
it's called hyperinsulinemia.
We're going to grind the
macadamia nuts into a butter.
We are constantly triggering
our insulin.
Some people develop
type II diabetes,
some people develop
cardiovascular disease,
some people develop Alzheimer's.
I developed cancer.
In 2012, I went
for a breast MRI...
and something lit up
like a Christmas light.
I had invasive
with HER2 amplification,
which is a very aggressive
and metastatic type
of breast cancer.
I'm going to add
the coconut butter.
Cancer cells have
an Achilles' Heel.
You inhale oxygen,
your blood stream carries
oxygen throughout your body.
So that's an energy source
for healthy cells,
and that energy is used
by the mitochondria,
which is in the cytoplasm
of the cell.
But cancer cells can't do that.
Don't do this
if you have granite.
They can't get energy
from oxygen.
Cancer cells need
to ferment.
They need sugar and refined
carbohydrate to proliferate.
Did you ever see "Star Trek:
The Trouble with Tribbles"?
Okay? Do you remember
at the end they say,
"I figured it out!
If you don't want them to
reproduce, stop feeding them."
And that's what cancer is.
So I started
a ketogenic diet.
A ketogenic diet is
a high-fat, very-low-carb.
It's like Atkins on steroids.
This particular diet for cancer
means 80% healthy fats,
10, 12, maybe 14% protein...
and no more
than 12 grams carbohydrates.
[Jane]
Oh, yeah.
Look at how nicely it rose.
[Sara]
All I was looking for
was to prevent it
from metastasizing,
and, surprise of surprise,
it started shrinking.
My tumor started shrinking.
You can see
it came out gorgeous.
And my last MRI,
the radiologist said,
"Had I not known you were
diagnosed and treated,
"I would look at this
from another patient
and say,
'Nothing to see here.'"
[Robert]
So, you never actually
went through chemotherapy?
I didn't do surgery,
I didn't do chemotherapy,
and I didn't do radiation. No.
[Robert]
The headscarf is a religious--
Right. Yes. Absolutely.
No. No. I have my hair.
-[Robert] I don't know
how to ask that.
-I have my hair.
[Sara] I eat well.
I have a wonderful family.
I have a wonderful healthy life.
This can be in a doughnut pan
so you can make lox,
cream cheese, and bagels.
I've never had an illness
from the day I was diagnosed.
My immune system
is so good now
that everybody
will get sick with the flu,
and my grandchildren
are coughing in my face
and sticking their hands in
my mouth, and I don't get sick.
-That's the norm.
-[Sara] Yes. That is the norm.
[acoustic guitar playing]
[Sara] I'd walk into the
doctor's office, and they'd say,
"Ah! Our miracle patient
has arrived."
And that was
very disturbing to me,
because I didn't think--
you know, God runs
the world of course,
but I didn't think
there was anything miraculous
about what was happening.
I thought it was hard science.
What did I do that was different
from what anybody else can do?
And the answer
to that was the research.
A scientific study
changes the picture.
[Eugene Fine] Cancer's
described as an immensely
heterogeneous disease.
That's, in fact, a buzz-word
that's now very much
in the literature.
If you have a primary tumor,
this cell can have
this mutation,
and right next to it
you can have a cell that
has different mutations,
and the cells in the metastasis
have still different ones.
So, what happens is,
no matter how you target
your cancer therapies,
you're gonna end up catching
some of the mutations,
and then some of them are
simply going to be mutations
you didn't hit with
these particular therapies,
and then those cells
are gonna be the ones
that survive
and come back to get you.
Most cancers
are treated by cocktails
of multiple drugs which fail.
They also subject the patient
to toxic side effects
and poor quality of life
while it's failing.
But in some respects,
the more heterogeneous
the cancer gets,
the more it tends to converge
to a common metabolism:
That cancer cells depend
on glucose as a source of fuel.
That then could lend itself
to a metabolic approach
which targets just that.
I don't know that that's
going to be the case
in most cancers,
but it still doesn't
stop me from being optimistic
about the idea
of using diet as an adjunct
to chemotherapies
and other forms of therapies
to improve the overall efficacy
of treatment.
[Jason Fung]
So I can make anybody fat.
Insulin causes weight gain.
So for example,
if I prescribe insulin
to people, people gain weight.
I could make you obese. I just
have to give you enough insulin.
If you think about
what the major causes
of disease are
in the 19th century
and early 20th century,
what was killing people
was infections.
Right? So people are
dying of tuberculosis,
people are
dying of pneumonia.
We developed penicillin.
We developed all these great
drugs, so people lived.
The problem is that's
not our situation now.
So we've taken
the same attitude of,
"Here's a magic pill,"
and we've applied it
to a dietary disease.
That's insane!
The multi-million
dollar question is,
"Why is it happening?"
I mean, it's not like
we're deficient
in pharmaceuticals, right?
And we don't have
a Toujeo deficit.
Right now, it's really
the perfect storm.
I mean, we're eating
more processed food
than ever before,
our environment is toxic,
and we're leading these
incredibly stressful lives.
I think a lot of diseases
are really the same disease.
so like obesity,
type II diabetes,
high blood pressure,
heart disease--
it's all basically
the same problem.
[Jason]
Type II diabetes is
a dietary disease.
It's the leading cause
of blindness.
It's the leading
cause of amputations.
It's the leading cause
of kidney disease and dialysis.
It's a leading
contributor to cancer.
It's a leading contributor
to heart disease.
So, practically 70%
of what we practice
in modern, western medicine
is all related
back to your diet.
[Lierre Keith]
What happens when you're
eating these high-carb diets,
of course, there's this
constant flood of, first, sugar,
and then insulin,
'cause your body is,
like, freaking out.
"Oh, it's too high. We're going
to hit a coma point here.
We've got to do
something about this."
So out comes
the insulin.
[Andreas]
When you're constantly shouting
with this insulin hormone,
the receptors on the cell
will downregulate.
It's called insulin resistance.
The body is not
responding well to insulin.
It's like if you're shouting
really loudly,
people are going
to put their fingers
into their ears. Right?
And if you shout really loudly
every day for years,
the cells get deaf.
They don't hear it anymore.
Your body has to excrete
two times more,
five times more,
ten times more than normal
to get the message across.
And then you treat it
by injecting even more insulin.
And I think that's,
you know, criminally insane.
[Pati]
When you start on the Lantus,
which is
the long-acting insulin,
you start out
at a certain number,
and then you gradually
increase it
by like three
to five units a night,
based on what
your sugars are.
So I think
I started out at 20--
this is four years ago--
and I was up
to 55 in no time.
When you look
at diabetes, type II,
it effects every single system
in your body.
So it's not just the insulin
and the sugars.
You end up getting--
I have peripheral neuropathy
where I've lost feeling
in my feet.
I have gastroparesis.
I have early kidney disease.
I have--
um, what else?
I have coronary artery disease.
The arteries in my whole body
are pretty much affected.
This carotid artery
is 99% occluded,
meaning that I could have
a stroke...at any time.
-We had talked on Friday.
-Yes.
And so you decreased
your insulin even more?
Did you have
any issues this weekend?
-Where were your sugar levels?
-[Pati] No. No, they were...
They were all good.
Last night's was 91.
Since the two months that I've
been doing this food program...
-Two?
-Yeah. It may just be six weeks
that she has been here.
...I've lost 17 pounds.
And within a month,
we were able
to decrease her insulin
by half, even more.
I don't have
any more sliding-scale,
regular short-acting.
I have-- the long term is down
from 50 units
to 20 units a night...
which, in the long-run,
is going to save me
a whole bunch of change.
[Robert]
If things keep going
the way they are...
Mm-hmm.
The possibility is that
she could cure
her diabetes with food.
Can you imagine?
[crying]
I was hopeless.
I was just getting fatter and
fatter, and sicker and sicker.
I really was
at the end of my story.
If I could inspire
one per-- one person...
to stop and take a look
at what's happening
with their life--
if it's in regards to your
weight, depression, diabetes--
understand that there's hope.
[acoustic guitar playing]
When they rounded up
the tribes in this country
and put them on reservations,
they were starving,
and the U.S. government
gave them commodity foods,
consisted of white flour,
sugar, and lard.
What do you do
with white flour,
sugar and lard is...
you make fry bread.
It's our concentration
camp food.
[Nora]
The fait accompli of what
we call manifest destiny,
what happened
to all the aboriginal peoples
of the Earth
since European encroachment,
wasn't accomplished with guns.
It was accomplished with food.
Damper has become number one
food for Yolngu people. Heh.
Settlers, missionaries,
they gave us damper,
and our grandfathers,
grandmothers,
and all families...
They liked it.
That is looking yummy.
[Kama]
These modern, displacing foods
were being brought in
as rations by the missionaries.
They're very addictive things
like tobacco, sugar, and flour.
You must have damper
with a syrup or jam.
-[Robert] It's required.
Must be. [laughs]
-Must be. Always.
[Robert]
But even if you took
the syrup and the jam
and all of that stuff off of
the damper, it would still be--
-It would still be bad.
-[Robert] Yuranydjil,
it's still...
Not good. Not good.
Maize has become
our staple food.
It's called "pap"
in South Africa.
It's mostly prevalent in
impoverished rural communities.
In South Africa, that's
mostly our black population.
[Noakes]
So when we talk about maize
being the staple food
in Southern Africa,
we have to understand
how it got there.
It was a decision
by the South African government
to produce maize
on an industrial scale.
And the question is,
"Well, was that good
for our people or not?"
It's not indigenous.
It was never indigenous
to South Africa.
All our maize
is genetically modified,
it's refined,
it's high carb.
You might as well be eating
a bowl full of sugar.
And dietitians,
including the one
who laid the complaint
in the first place,
are proponents.
[Noakes]
And I'll argue that it was
the introduction of maize
and making this the staple food
which has been a problem for us.
[Ajay Bhoopchand]
Madame Chair. Objection.
I really can't see
how the details
about something based on
a conspiracy theory is relevant.
[Ravin Ramdass]
Madame Chair, in respect
of the influence
of industry driving
the obesity epidemic.
There were sponsors for ADSA.
There were
a number of sponsors,
including Kellogg's,
Pillsbury, et cetera.
If you work
with the flawed model
of just energy-in
and energy-out,
you forget about how
behaviors are modified,
you forget about
how addiction comes about,
you forget about how advertising
influences the whole epidemic.
I am submitting
that is irrelevant.
The objection is overruled.
[Ravin]
Professor Noakes,
you may proceed.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
What I learned
during the process
is the key to this debate,
that industry
completely controlled
what the information
coming out to the public was.
And I exposed that
in one chapter...
[Rangan]
These guys know
what they're doing.
It's not an accident--
I don't believe--
that people are hooked on all
this junk and processed garbage.
The Global Energy Balance
Network was a front
for Coca-Cola.
[Rangan]
There's something bigger
going on here.
The whole food system
needs changing.
[Noakes]
What Coca-Cola is doing
is to control the messaging
of obesity globally
by controlling the scientists.
One of the tactics
that industry uses
is they'll fund studies
that are designed
to confuse the record.
[Noakes]
Their goal was not
to talk about obesity.
Their goal was to confuse
the public, in my opinion.
[Nina]
Almost all
scientific conferences
depend on industry funding
even to discuss a subject.
There's no funding,
nobody's interested.
Nobody wants
to even talk about it.
It's like depriving
a field of oxygen.
I've repeatedly been told
that there's no evidence
to support
the low-carbohydrate diet.
That's incorrect.
This is a randomized
control trial
published
in 2008 by Dr. Phinney.
These are expensive trials,
and there's no money to do it.
He does not get
funding from the National
Institute of Health.
He has to go and raise
this money himself.
This is the evidence.
He's putting people
with a metabolic syndrome--
half of them
on a high-carbohydrate,
low-fat diet,
and the other group
on a high-fat ketogenic diet.
Look at the results.
Body mass and abdominal fat:
high fat outperforms
high-carbohydrate,
low-fat diet.
Triglycerides--
one of the key markers
of metabolic syndrome--
down 50% on the high-fat diet.
[Kate]
We tend to over-consume
carbohydrate in this country
because it's addicting,
but also because we produce it
in ridiculous amounts.
If you fly
from New York to L.A.,
the majority of what
you're flying over--
all those little circles
and squares on the ground--
that's America pumping out
carbohydrate as fast as it can.
That's the 30,000 foot view,
that's what's happening,
and that's reflected
in our grocery stores.
Now here's the HDLC,
which we are all taught
is the "good cholesterol."
What we're not
told is when you eat
a high-carbohydrate diet,
your good cholesterol
comes down.
And you go on a high-fat diet,
HDL cholesterol goes up!
[Nora] There isn't
a single multinational
corporation on planet Earth
that wouldn't stand
to profit from every man,
woman, and child consuming
a carbohydrate-based diet.
The very particles that
are damaging our arteries
are increased
on a high-carbohydrate diet
and reduced on a high-fat diet.
It's incredibly cheap
to produce.
It's highly profitable,
and it keeps you
perpetually hungry.
What could be more perfect?
[Noakes laughs]
Now, this is even
more remarkable.
Saturated fatty acids
in the bloodstream
which greater your risk
of heart attack.
Now you eat more saturated fat,
and the saturated fatty acids
in the bloodstream go down.
[Nora]
Pharmaceutical companies
are profiting from this.
Weight-loss industry's
profiting from this.
Undertakers are
making out like bandits.
About the only people
that aren't profiting
from all of this are--
are the rest of us.
[Barry]
All right, this is
what it looks like
when a yuppie tries
to approach a couple
of cows on a farm.
The biggest drawback
was the budget,
because it's very expensive
to eat healthy.
One of the ideas
we threw against the wall,
and it actually stuck was
that we were going to buy
a grass-fed cow.
A whole cow.
Emma, why don't you go
with Mom-mom to pet the cows?
We saved over $400.
[Nora]
For tens of millions of years,
long before we ever came along,
grasslands and ruminants
co-evolved.
Cattle are basically
designed to eat one thing
and one thing only,
fresh green grass.
Check it out! Yeah, buddy!
Grass-fed meat.
[Debbie]
I've got hamburger.
I've got T-bone steaks,
porterhouse steaks.
I've got liver.
I didn't like it as a kid,
but I thought,
"It came with the cow,
so I'm gonna see what
we can do with it."
The butcher, he's like,
"Oh, you got bones
for your dog, huh?"
[laughs] We're like,
"No, they're for us." Like--
[Nora] We used
to have 40 more species
of large herbivores
roaming across North America
before the end
of the last ice age,
and we had 60 million bison
thundering
across the Great Plains.
Today we have
60 million cattle
that are populating feedlots.
You know,
grain feeding of animals.
[cows mooing]
And what do grains
do to cattle?
They fatten them up.
We could take
a hint from that.
Roughly 97%
of all the meat produced today
is produced in these feedlots.
-[women] For the animals!
-[men] Go vegan!
-[women] For health!
-[men] Go vegan!
[Nora]
And where we hear passionate
vegetarians and vegans
and animal rights advocates
screaming about how we raise
animals for food,
I'm standing
right there with them.
It's wrong. It's unsustainable,
and it has to stop.
But there's
also misinformation
and misunderstanding
being promoted
by genuinely
well-meaning people.
What people don't understand
is that everything really hinges
on restoring natural systems.
[Robert]
Do you see that
happening in the United--
Like, can we reclaim
our Midwestern prairies again?
Is that possible?
It depends on how successful
this documentary is. Right?
[Robert]
You were-- You used--
You were a vegetarian.
Oh no. I was a vegan.
I was never a vegetarian.
I went from standard
American diet, vegan.
I think when I started
as a teenager,
I had very good impulses
about the world that I wanted
and the...ethical base
that I wanted to form
the actions that were my life,
that were going to be my life.
That hasn't changed.
So justice, and compassion,
and anything that
questions human hubris
or human entitlement--
those are the only values
that are gonna get us
to the world that we need.
The problem is information,
and with a different
collection of facts,
a different set of information,
I might have made
a very different decision.
If you want to reduce
your carbon footprint,
one of the best things
you can do is eat locally,
grow your own food
in your own backyard.
So I took this up
with a fervor.
I really wanted to do all this,
so I made a garden happen.
And pretty immediately
hit the wall of...
what do plants eat?
We're used to thinking of plants
as sort of insensate salads.
They actually have needs.
Well, I'm going to get
the organic whatever,
and I go to the farm store,
and I'm looking around,
and every single thing
that's an amendment
that is for fruit
like strawberries,
it's bone meal
and blood meal.
Well, where do I think
minerals come from?
Well, I don't know!
I've never done this before,
and I'm horrified!
I mean, I don't even
want to smell it.
I don't want to touch it.
It feels so unclean.
[Robert]
And where does this bone meal
and blood meal come from?
I comes from, you know--
from animals. [laughs]
He's like, "Where"--
it doesn't fall out of the sky.
I know this is
about dead animals!
It's horrifying to me.
What do I do?
I have to supply
what the soil needs,
and what the soil wants is
dead plants and dead animals,
and I can't take animals
out of that equation.
I mean, it's absolute hubris
to think we can.
That's what soil is.
That's how it evolved.
That's a thriving,
living community.
There are insects, and they want
to eat strawberries, too.
So either I'm going to kill them
or I'm going
to get some creatures
that will do it for me.
And I went ahead
and got chickens and ducks.
[quacking]
Again, this was
this just tremendous moment
of ethical
and moral meltdown.
So now I'm enslaving
these chickens and ducks
to do this terrible thing
for me, which is kill.
You've never seen anything
like a duck eat a slug.
You want to see happiness?
"This is what I live for,"
was what my duck said,
and, boy, was
she a happy little creature.
The chickens as well.
So they ate all the bugs for me,
and I never saw another slug.
Animals tell us
what they want.
You know, if you just
let them do what their nature
is to do, then they're...
It's not even
that they are happy,
it's that they are
who they should be.
The most destructive thing
we've done
is this activity
called agriculture.
We don't really have
a clue what goes into making
that corn or making that soy.
All we know is that
you look down on your plate,
and it doesn't look
like a dead thing,
therefore, heh,
it somehow must be peaceful,
and kind, and sustainable.
And we're utterly wrong
about this.
You take a piece of land
and you clear
every living thing off it,
and I'm including
the bacteria in that.
So all the plants and animals
that are supposed
to live there, they're gone.
Now you're going to grow
an acre of corn or wheat.
That corn is
going to require things
that are not there for it,
and you're going to have to come
from the outside and apply them.
It's going to take
a lot of fertilizer,
insecticides, and fungicides,
'cause you're fighting
a war. Right?
All those other plants
and all those other little
animals want to come back.
Now another
thing that happens is
every time you plant that corn,
you're destroying that soil.
A prairie or a grassland,
it's the perennial roots that
make channels for the rain.
When you only have annuals,
they don't live a long time,
so they don't have time
to build long roots,
so year-by-year,
you are drawing down that soil.
And then of course,
all that soil washes off.
If you're on any kind
of a slope,
it all is just going to go
into the local river,
and kill it with all that dirt,
so now there's no fish either.
In the meantime though,
while the corn is still growing,
you can transport it
to a miserable cow
living on a cement floor
inside a steel building...
and feed that cow
for about 60 days.
Past that point,
she will die from the corn
because it's not
her natural diet.
But until that point,
she will get really fat,
really fast.
And then slaughter her,
feed her to humans,
so you're going
to make people sick
eating this meat as well.
As far as I can tell,
this is nothing but death
and destruction
from the very beginning
to the very end of this.
Now I'm going
to walk you through
another scenario, which is
you take
the same acre of land,
but you don't hurt it
in any way.
You let it have
its own wisdom,
its own impulse toward life,
its own wild way.
And what you have is a whole
bunch of perennial plants
growing there.
You have a whole bunch
of really sturdy grasses.
You've got big birds, and you've
got ground-dwelling birds.
And then you've got small
mammals and larger mammals.
You might even have,
every once in a while,
a really big mammal
come across there.
You might have a wolf,
a bear, or somebody.
And in the meantime,
you've got a ruminant.
[moos]
So you've produced the same
amount of food for people.
You've got
the one ruminant at the end.
You slaughter her,
and now people can eat,
but that acre that is still
in that prairie, that grassland,
you could come back
in 10,000 years
and all of that life
would still be there.
The only thing different
would be a little more soil,
which is to say
a little more resilience,
a little more depth to life.
And that is how we lived
for 2.5 million years
as humans on this planet,
participating in that cycle.
[Joe Salatin]
We're here in the Shenandoah
Valley of Virginia,
and what we do
is pasture livestock.
[moos]
In nature, herbivores live
in large groups
and they migrate.
All we're doing is duplicating
that kind of migration,
moving the animals
across the land,
so that this choreography,
this ballet
of the pasture
can perform
its dance on the grass.
When people say eating
this way is unsustainable?
Oh. Listen,
it's not only sustainable,
it's actually
what we call regenerative.
It allows the grass, then, time
to regrow, to recuperate.
Grass is essentially
95% sunshine.
This takes sunbeams
and converts it into something
that has weight.
And amazingly,
the herbivore can take this,
ferment it in her rumen,
and turn this into, arguably,
the most nutrient-dense food
in the world.
Grass grows in what
I call an S-curve.
If you can see that 'S'.
So diaper down here,
teenage, rapid growth,
and then nursing home out here.
What we want to do
is keep this forage
in this rapid-growth state
as much as possible.
So the role
of the herbivore in nature
is actually to prune the grass
to restart that rapid
metabolic capacity.
This is what builds soil,
hydrates the landscape,
and actually sequesters carbon.
This is the system.
When grass is allowed
to be as productive
as its supposed to be,
it actually is
far more efficient
at converting solar energy
into biomass than even trees.
That's why
all the rich, deep soils
of the planet are
under prairies with herbivores.
And if every farm
in the world would do this,
we would sequester
all the carbon
that's been emitted
since the beginning
of the Industrial Age
in fewer than 10 years.
[Joel]
When a confinement
animal facility
shows a picture
of this hog factory
or chicken factory or whatever,
they're not showing
all the land that's required
to grow the grain
to keep it going
and all the land
that's required
to handle all the manure
that it's generating.
In this system,
you're seeing all that land.
I think a lot of industrial
agriculture thinking
is that the earth
is a reluctant lover.
Whereas, actually,
we view the earth
as an abundant, loving partner
who responds to caress,
who responds to care,
and if we will come humbly
to the land,
why, it's ready to give us
way more than we could have
wrestled from it.
-[honking]
-This is the mystical,
awesome cycle of life,
and to be able
to be this close to it
has a humility to it,
a perspective...
that is actually quite profound,
and actually
quite historically normal.
[people chattering]
[Barry]
Really for the past few years,
every time I've spent time
with my mom...
just her cognition
reminded me of my grandmom.
It was starting
to remind me
of those early stages
of my grandmom.
[Debbie]
My son just told me
not too long ago,
he said, "I love you,
"and I'm really becoming
concerned with you.
"You're starting
to check out of life.
"I see you starting
to deteriorate
the same way that she did.
That scares me."
I used to get
these horrible headaches.
I was battling depression.
I would just start to cry.
I would tell my husband,
I said, "I'm tired of this.
I'm just tired
of feeling like this."
Since we started
eating clean like this,
I have not had--
and I kid you not--
I have not had one
of those headaches. Not one.
My energy level,
my thought processing--
I mean, I've seen
remarkable changes.
Oh, whoa, whoa!
You know,
until you've been there
in that dark place,
you can't really grasp
the magnitude of it.
I have been there,
and I have lived that.
It's like a vicious cycle,
you know?
And this is, heh,
this is just so much better.
Does it taste
like a strawberry?
Was it good? Yeah?
[Barry]
To sit down and have
a conversation with my mom,
and she's clear-headed, like,
for the first time in years.
You gotta squirt water
down into the hole.
[Barry]
I feel like I've got
my mom back.
[Debbie]
I can't wait to see
in six months from now
what other changes
could there possibly be?
The good news is--
something that I never thought
I would never hear myself say--
that I am completely off
all insulin.
-Oh. Pati! Congratulations!
-Yeah. Thank you.
-That's incredible!
-I'll take a high five. Yeah.
And your blood sugars
have been completely fine?
It's been 10 days.
-Heh. Are you kidding?
-But who's counting?
[Robert]
How much weight
have you lost entirely?
Forty-five pounds so far.
-That's so exciting.
-Forty-five!
I think that's
three dress sizes.
I'm halfway.
I would like to lose 90, so.
[Robert]
I find that so fascinating,
that the first lines of defense
are always like,
"Take this pill, take that pill,
that medication."
And like, oh, you're
at the end of your rope,
and it's like, "Maybe you should
try changing what you eat."
Pati:
I think I always knew that,
but I don't think I knew how.
As much medical knowledge
as I have, even nursing--
I don't think they teach you
enough about nutrition.
I mean, that kind of makes me
a little bit embarrassed to say,
-but it's been a whole,
big lot of reflection.
-Good.
[Pati]
A whole new world opened up.
I think that's what was amazing
to me. I mean, I just...
[Robert]
Yeah. Anyway,
-I think that's good enough,
so thank you for that.
-I'm happy. Thank you.
[Robert]
There's something
implicit in all of this
that no one seems
to be saying.
The human body is
a vastly complex system,
but how we fuel it
is really simple.
If we fuel our bodies correctly,
then the complexity
should just take care of itself.
So metabolically speaking,
there are really only
two fuels we can use.
They are sugars and
carbohydrates, which is glucose,
and fat,
which is ketone bodies.
If we go with the notion
that fat is the fuel
that nature has intended,
then suddenly all the dominoes
just fall into place.
[Noakes]
The final part of the jigsaw.
We spend millions of rands
training hypertension experts,
obesity experts,
diabetes experts,
heart disease experts,
but they're all treating
the same condition.
We can continue
to teach a failed model.
We can continue
to train more doctors,
and build more hospitals,
and tell people they must eat
lots of carbohydrate--
a model that is causing
millions of South Africans
every few years
to develop type II diabetes.
Or we can say,
"Maybe we got it wrong."
Because the only people
who are suffering,
besides myself and my wife,
are the people
of South Africa.
Professor Noakes,
on the charge
of unprofessional conduct,
the majority
of this committee
find you not guilty.
[cheers, applause]
[Michelle]
You've got to let it go
And watch it grow
'Cause it takes every voice
To make this world a home...
[Michelle]
It's been about five months
since I started eating this way.
My clothes fit better,
my skin is clearer,
my voice is clearer,
my mind is clearer.
-[women chatter]
-This, this is all about
the freedom you want.
I was having
ongoing respiratory infections
most of my life.
That has--
I haven't had a single thing.
No antibiotics whatsoever.
No antibiotics.
Haven't needed it.
I haven't used my inhaler
for about three months
for any reason whatsoever.
-[Natalie] I think this is cool.
-[Michelle] I did not expect
my lungs to clear out.
-[Lisa] But to actually sit down
and talk about--
-Yeah.
No more inhaler.
From the first
until the last, connected...
Our bodies are perfect.
Directed we fly...
If you don't actually
take a moment
to just revere
the way nature works--
just truly look at it,
at how perfect it is--
you're in for trouble.
'Cause if you listen
to the voice within
A melody will soon begin
And you'll feel the vibration
in your soul, ooh!
[people singing]
This is my blanket and
my sheets that I born with.
My mom used to always make me
warm with this, like this.
[Robert]
A week ago you were talking
to me and you weren't--
your body was not
in a pleasant place for you.
[Yuranydjil]
No, not yet.
The second week,
I went out on that walk
and I started singing away
as I was walking,
and I was so happy!
-[music playing]
-[singing, cheering]
[Yuranydjil]
My body was rejoicing.
-[Robert] Rejoicing?
-[speaks Yolngu Matha]
And I felt
this is the first time
that I have
ever felt flexibility,
the refreshment inside.
From this time on,
I'm going to look after my body.
-[Robert] How's the asthma?
-[Yuranydjil] No. It's been--
I haven't been worrying
about it anymore.
It's-- I think it's gone.
Mmm.
[Kama]
You look at the problem
of indigenous health
and it just seems like
this massive epidemic
that's just so huge
and impossible,
and how can you find
a pathway through it?
So many resources
are being poured into it,
and I think so many Australians
are frustrated
about how many resources
are being poured into it,
we're not seeing any results,
and it feels like
this hopeless solution.
And then its crazy
when you can get people
in a situation where you can
change what they're eating
just for a few days,
and you can already see
these incredible improvements
in their wellbeing,
in their blood pressures,
in their blood sugar levels.
And you think,
-"How can it be this simple?"
-[Robert] It can't be
this simple.
It can't be this simple,
but it's happening.
[woman]
Look at that. Everywhere.
[Yuranydjil]
Learning all of this...
[sighs] so nice.
Human anatomy.
All these blood cells,
all these cells
that make up our body,
so perfectly woven together.
So beautiful.
[chattering]
You touch your nose.
Touch your nose.
Boop!
Boop! One more time.
She's pulling her hand.
Boop! That's it!
That's your nose!
One more time. Ready?
Boop!
Abigail, where's my nose?
-There.
-There! [laughs]
Silly. Nose.
[Barry]
It's almost like
her brain has had
this certain way
of functioning,
like biologically,
it's functioned as a brain
of a person with autism
until we started
to give her the nutrients
that her body
and her brain needs
to start functioning normally.
[Robert]
Can I have the block?
Can you give it to me?
-[Barry laughs] Good job!
-Thank you!
Oh, my gosh!
I never saw her do that.
[Robert]
Give the block to Daddy.
Daddy.
Come on, you silly.
-[Robert] Yes! Yay!
-[clapping]
Now give the blocks
to Mommy.
-To Mommy. Give
the blocks to Mommy.
-Mommy.
-[Barry] Good job! There you go.
-[Robert] Yes. Thank you.
[Barry]
But at this point
she's like six years behind,
so she's starting
at the level of a two-year-old,
or whatever
developmental level
that Abigail's at.
[Lauren] I got her
a bunch of summer clothes
in April
'cause it was her birthday.
It's probably not until July
I started putting 'em on her,
and they were all too big.
They were all a size
too big for her.
[Robert]
She looks amazing.
[Barry]
It's such an easy recipe.
I've got it memorized.
It's four eggs,
half a cup of almond butter,
and a cup of squash.
-[Robert] So no grains?
-No grains.
And I always melt some ghee
over the top of the pancakes
so she gets some fat.
There's a child
trapped in this body
that, that is, you know,
crying out to be released.
Hey! Heh. Hey!
And it's
like she's waking up.
[Robert laughs]
Yeah.
[acoustic guitar playing]
I know a carpenter,
I know a laborer
He is my teacher,
he is my brother
I have a neighbor,
he is my savior
He doesn't waver,
he's a strong believer
I know a farmer,
I know his vision
I know his struggle,
I know his hope
They are all archetypes
People that
I might like to be
Just like in a completely
different way
And we all, all
We're coming out
of our caves
Coming out of our caves
Yes, we all, all...
Catch a swell,
catch a wave
To another inspiring place
We all, all
Coming out
of our caves
Coming out of our caves
Yes, we all, all
We're coming out
of our caves
Coming out of our caves
Ah, hey, yeah
So yeah, hey, yeah
[vocalizing]
Yeah! Out of our caves