Planeat

PLANEAT (CINEMA)
Dartmouth Films 

Release date: May 20th 2011
Certificate (UK): U
Running time: 72 minutes

Director: Shelley Lee Davies, Or Shlomi

Cast: Dr. T. Colin Campbell

Official Film Site

Away from the big city and just an hour’s drive to the ocean, on a small farm on a little island, that’s where I grew up. Before school in the mornings I’d help my dad water our plants; tomatoes, cucumbers, lattice, cabbage, spinach and I even tried my hand at growing corn.

We bought, and sold and I remember trips to cocoa and coffee plantation farms where my dad traded goods and to the Sunday markets where we had people who sold for us.

I guess I’m still a farm boy at heart because I often dream of having a vegetable garden or even just a small allotment where I can spend time watching things grow and enjoy knowing exactly where my food comes from as well as what’s in it.

Planeat is documentary which drives this idea deeper into me and also highlights some other things which I’ve long suspected. It’s based on the research by Dr. T. Colin Campbell who went to the Philippines to treat childhood malnutrition. At the time he believed what most of us do, that protein, in particular animal-based protein was what everyone needed to be healthy, and he tried to make sure that children there got enough protein in their diet.

But over time the children were being diagnosed with liver cancer, a condition which usually affects adults. These children, they found, were from the families that were consuming the most protein. This shocked Dr. Campbell, he grew up on a dairy farm and these findings were contradicting everything he had come to know.

He then began researching the relationship between protein intake and liver cancer. What he found was that protein from dairy products promoted cancer growth but protein from plants like soy and wheat did not.

Planeat drives two ideas home to its audience. The first one being that a diet of plant based food will lead to a healthier life, reducing cancer and the risk of heart attacks and the second one is that by continuing with our present ways, we’re exerting a terrible burden on the environment with practices such as beef and factory farming.

Of course, the big question is, are you ready to give up those fatty steaks, deep fried chicken parts, cheesecakes and just about everything else you might have in your refrigerator right now for foods sourced locally and grown as organically as possible? Planeat shows us that even if we’re not willing to make that sacrifice for the planet, at least we should do it for ourselves.

The argument is a compelling one even if Planeat doesn’t show us how dairy, beef or poultry farmers who depend on milk, meat, butter and cheese being sold would be affected if we all swapped to plant based food today. Certainly their livelihoods would be lost but if it’s a utilitarian approach we’re going for we should also look at the proportionality here too.

Despite this, Planeat serves up some mouth watering dishes by a handful of chefs dedicated to the vegetarian cause. The meat-free lasagne and cakes made without the use of dairy products are just a couple of salivating examples.

It’s a must see for anyone looking to make a change either in their lives or with the bigger picture in mind. If a documentary like Planeat can help the West wean its overweight collective self off greasy fast-food and comfort snacks it’s not just our bodies that would be a whole lot cleaner but our streets too and for this and the other reasons outlined above, I would recommend you seeing it and taking notice of what it has to say.