Fed Up

I just received my DVD from Amazon. It is very good. It will help wake up the population to the health problems of eating food that is not always good for you. A few years ago, Dr Barry Sears, released a book called "Toxic Fat: When Good Fat Turns Bad".  Toxic Fat: When Good Fat Turns Bad While "Fed Up" is an excellent documentary, it is only one (albeit a major) piece of the diet/health puzzle. Fed UP aims squarely at the fact that eating "cheap carbs", sugar, high fructose corn syrup, etc, makes YOU FAT. This is true, but it is only the tip of the iceberg. Dr Sears discovered that when excessive omega-6 unsaturated fats are consumed which are not matched by omega-3 unsaturated fats (high quality fish oil), these combined with the "cheap carbs" to produce "silent inflammation", that goes on for years and becomes not so silent inflammation as it destroys your body. "Getting fat" is usually only one symptom of this process. Additional effects include metabolic syndrome that progresses to diabetes. Also artery plaquing and arthritis is also caused by the silent inflammation caused by too much omega-6s combined with too many "cheap carbs" (sugars, and other high glycemic foods, such as bread and chips that "flash" into sugar immediately upon eating). "Getting Fat" is usually the only external (visible) effect of this lifestyle, but the internal damage is far worse.Since 1957, when the (incorrect) push to ditch "saturated fat" started, and thus switch people over to "heart healthy unsaturated fats", has lead to this mess. Too much omega-6s "heart healthy" fats are really "heart deadly" fats (unless taken with equal omega-3s). Most saturated fats (e.g. butter, coconut oil), and pretty healthy for you. In 1957, they used "hydrogenated" coconut oil to clog arteries. Hydrogenated oils are full of trans-fats, which are deadly, and they didn't know that in 1957. Virgin or expeller pressed coconut oil is quite healthy. Dr Sears states, that omega-6 fats consumed must be matched by am almost equal portion of omega-3 fats to achieve balance. The omega-6s create inflammatory conditions, when taken, and also in the future. Omega-3s create anti-inflammatory conditions, thus a balance is needed.One BIG problem, is that omega-3s are all unstable in air, they go rancid quickly. Therefore almost all oils found in prepared food (sunflower, soy, corn, safflower, canola, etc) are all majorly omega-6 based, since omega-6s are stable in air and "taste good". Olive oil is a special case, an Omega-9 (Oleic acid), that is anti-inflammatory like an omega-3. Any thing fried, any chips, etc, any food you find with "oils" in it, are probably mostly omega-6s, leading to inflammation, when combined with the excessive sugars as FED UP documents. While some nuts (Almonds, etc) can have benefits, their oils are mostly omega-6s still.One solution is to take lots of high quality fish oil (Dr Sears), as much as 10 grams/day of EPA-DHA may be needed. Since highly refined good fish oils (Dr Sears brand, and Life Extension Foundation brand) are 60% EPA-DHA, 18 fish oil pills per day may be needed to rectify the inflammation. Getting a lipids blood test will show you your HDL (good cholesterol) as well as triglycerides. Dr Sears states that your inflammation is whipped when your triglycerides are 1X to 2X the value of your HDL. If the trig/HDL ratio is higher, then you have damaging inflammation going on, so more fish oil is needed. The EPA and DHA omega-3 fats are the work horses in combatting inflammation. People ask what about taking "flax seed" (ALA) oil instead. Sure, it works, but the body can only convert 1 gram per day into useful EPA/DHA, and the rest gets wasted, so the best is taking high quality fish oil.Today, the average American gets only 0.15 grams of omega-3 fats, and 40-50 grams or more of inflammatory omega-6s. Even cutting back the sugars, these excessive omega-6s will still lead to diabetes, artery plaquing, heart attacks, etc. I hear of people having plugged arteries and heart attacks in their low 30s now. These omega-6s become part of your tissues, and continue to emit signaling molecules that result in continued inflammation and damage. I have been taking Life Extension Super Omega-3 EPA/DHA (fish oil) which also contains sesame lignans and olive fruit extracts for years, six pills per meal. I have perfect lipids and no ongoing inflammation. My doctors cannot believe it, and I don't take statins either. This fish oil has undone years of bad eating (excessive omega-6s in chips, fries, etc), before Dr Sears came along and discovered the inflammation / omega-6 / excessive sugars connection.Also, Olive oil, an Omega-9, while healthy on salads, etc, breaks down when used in cooking. Cooking with coconut oil is a good idea, since it is a fully saturated fat, and has no double bonds to break down at high temps. It is usable to 450 F.Somebody needs to do a follow on documentary, combining what is in FED UP, and the teachings of Dr Barry Sears, including the inflammation angle as part of the bigger picture.

This has, once again, opened up my eyes to how corrupt America truly is. The first video I've watched was That Sugar Film, and now Fed Up. This movie is a great companion to That Sugar Film, but it definitely dives deeper into the sugar crisis in America than That Sugar Film has.I've been off of sugar since watching That Sugar Film, and now Fed Up has solidified my choice to keep the no-sugar diet for life. My stop date for sugar is March 5th, 2023 and I hope to update this review in a year to show what having no added sugar can really do.I've noticed quite a change in myself and I've been dropping weight like it's nothing, and my skin looks a lot healthier. If you're on the edge about dropping sugar, please try it for your own personal well-being.

Fed Up begins with four children telling us about their struggles to lose weight and to cope with the cruel taunts of classmates because of their size. Their parents don't seem to know what to do and, like most of us, suffer when their children suffer. They try to help. One mother shows us the processed cereal she feeds her child because it's low fat. One of the boys fixes his "healthy" lunch - peanut butter and grape jelly on white bread, a banana and Cheez-its. Several eat the school lunch...pizza, hamburgers, French fries...not a vegetable in sight. Their diets are causing them to develop metabolic syndrome, a condition that includes high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis, diabetes, strokes, Alzheimer's, and cancer, among other diseases. Obesity is just one symptom, although the movie points out that people can be thin on the outside and fat on the inside and are just as much at risk.Why have they gotten to this point? It's not the kids' fault, the experts say. Junk food, foisted on us by the processed food and fast food industries, is leading us to a health catastrophe. The food, with its high percentage of sugar, salt and fat, is addictive and omnipresent. Its empty calories are converted to dangerous internal fat more readily than the calories in nourishing food. Additionally, these companies market their food to children on television, on the Internet, and by taking over school lunch programs, making sure that our children develop an early affinity and lifelong dependence on processed/junk food. The movie goes into great detail about how the US government is complicit in this problem by promoting the interests of big agribusiness and food companies over the health of our children. It then predicts that a tsunami of health problems will soon follow if we don't find a solution and the costs will dwarf our current national debt, .What's the answer? Well, it's not just exercise. For example, if you drink a soda, you would have to bike well over an hour to work off the calories. Add potato chips and you have to bike twice as long. While Michelle Obama's Let's Move initiative is laudable, it's not enough (and it is being "helped" by such companies as Coca Cola and Kellogg, which means the real solution was eliminated from the program for political reasons). The movie suggests that we start solving this problem by 1) changing the way we produce and consume food - a difficult process that involves pressuring our government to get its priorities straight, make laws that protect our health, and quit subsidizing the very industry that is making us sick; and 2) giving people knowledge and tools to cook healthy, real food meals at home...the movie directs you to the Fed Up website to get started with the Fed Up challenge.I thought this was an excellent overview of a very real problem. There are other resources that provide more thorough coverage, but this is a good start. If you want to know more, I would suggest you first watch Robert Lustig's Sugar: The Bitter Truth (Google the transcript if you don't want to watch for 1.5 hours). This will tell you all you need to know about the biochemistry behind how our body processes and stores food. Lustig's book, Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease goes into more detail and gives suggestions for moving to a real food diet. Michael Pollen's Omnivore's Dilemma, Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss, and Pandora's Lunchbox: How Processed Food Took Over the American Meal will tell you how our food arrived at its seemingly hopeless state. The movie did not address obesity caused by eating in response to stress, but The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite by David Kessler reiterates the role of processed food in compulsive and emotional eating while giving concrete steps for overcoming the pull of "highly palatable" foods through a form of cognitive therapy. Other great resources for kickstarting healthy eating are the website www.100daysofrealfood.com and the smartphone app, Fooducate (also a website) that allows you to scan a barcode and see a food's grade based on its processing and nutritional content.If it does nothing else, I hope this movie will stir people to think about what they eat and dietary changes they can make to sustain their own good health and that of their family. Making personal changes will be a piece of cake compared to changing the political and economic supports for food that is making us sick, but we can make our positions known to lawmakers and hope for the best.

I am a teacher and I am amazed by the amount of sugar my students are allowed to eat. Eye opening and interesting documentary.

EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH THIS MOVIE. Lots of secrets told in this movie. Lots of information about health and food and nutrition. What to eat and what not to eat. Lots of famous faces, even a president in this documentary. It is an American DVD, so can only play through pc, not UK dvd player. It is NEVER on tv anymore, you have to buy it to see it. It is the 2nd best health dvd I have ever got, after FOOD MATTERS.

good

Good

Yeah well it's a dvd, and a good one for that matter ;)

Excellent