Fed Up: “The Film The Food Industry Doesn’t Want You to See”
Ok, so I’ve watched a lot of documentaries about food. Netflix is full of them. Food Inc, Forks Over Knives, Fat, Sick, & Nearly Dead… so I almost skipped over this one. At some point, it’s just sort of the same old thing. But since I was battling a cold and we didn’t have much else to do, we decided to give Fed Up a shot. I’m glad we did.
I’ll caveat this by saying yes it’s a little extreme. That’s kind of the point of these things, right? It points out a few things you probably already know, like that our food system is broken, the government is in it for money, not our best interests, and there is sugar in everything. And I know that no system is perfect… and I know you’ll never be able to take the money out of it entirely… and I know that (some) sugar won’t kill you, but I think this documentary does a good job of opening your eyes to the magnitude of these problems. It’s crazy to think about how much money we’re spending , as a country, on healthcare related to obesity. Here is one of my favorite quotes from the movie:
“If a foreign nation was causing our children to become obese, that’s going to affect their health and hurt their happiness, cause them to be depressed, have poor self-esteem—if a foreign nation were doing that to our children, we’d probably go to war. We would defend our families. So why do we accept this from our own country?” Dr. Harvey Karp
I know that there are tons of factors at play here. I know that we can’t necessarily just point fingers at the food manufacturers and blame the FDA for everything. But you know what? We live in a place where it’s really hard to eat healthy. Between the convenience and low cost of fast food, to the absolutely endless amounts of food advertising, to the food marketing that is trying to make you think something is better than it is… it takes a lot of work to sort through it all.
I went to the grocery store on Saturday and decided to try to cut down on the amount of added sugar we consume. There was added sugar in everything. Salsas, peanut butter, spaghetti sauce, mandarin oranges… it took me almost an hour to make it through the store because I was reading the ingredients of everything. While a little sugar here and there isn’t the worst thing in the world, I don’t think I need it in everything.
So Alex and I are taking a little break from added sugars for now. (I’m giving up stevia as well!) It was harder than I thought it would be just to stock up the pantry, but now that we’ve got a house full of healthy ingredients, I think we can do it! I’ve never really given sugar much thought, so it should be an interesting little experiment.
While I’m at it, I picked up a few new books from the library:
Have you read any of these? I’ll let you know what I think once I’m finished!
Ok, stepping off the soapbox for now. I would love to hear what you think!
Looking for more food documentaries? Check out my complete list of the best food documentaries on Netflix!
I just finished reading “Whole 30”, great books about going sugar/legume/dairy free
I don’t think I could do Whole30 as a vegetarian but I’m interested in the books because I think some of the strategies could be really helpful!
THIS! Someone mentioned it to me the other day and I totally forgot what it was called – thank you for the reminder! I sometimes don’t think I need to know more about how f’d up the food industry is now, but that shouldn’t mean I turn a blind eye to it. Definitely checking this out.
I’m so glad that you inspired me to watch Fed Up. I honestly don’t think it was that extreme. I think it does a good job showing exactly what we’re doing to our kids and the HUGE issues it’s causing. I knew most of what they were saying, but some of the points were really eye opening. I love that quote you shared as well! It’s so true.
I definitely want to do something to help stop the problem. I’m not sure what yet but I want to get involved somehow!
Oh wow this sounds like such an insightful documentary- definitely need to check it out. When I wanted to cut back on my sugar intake, I found that thee assist way to do so was focus on eating as much unprocessed food as possible…otherwise manufacturers pump into so much sugar & sodium to make products taste somewhat good. For my sweet fix, a good-quality dark chocolate (70-85%) does the trick within just a few grams of sugar.
I saw this in Cville at the film festival. Katie Couric and Dr. Hyman were there for a Q&A afterwards! It’s kind of disheartening how political even eating healthy can be. Being mindful of added sugars is tough for me.
I’m adding this to my watch list. It sounds really interesting and informative. Thanks for sharing!
I’ve had this film on my to watch list for awhile now and need to do it soon! I love food documentaries and wish more people watched them. GMO OMG was a really good one as was Forks over Knives 🙂
I don’t watch too many documentaries but I also watched Fed Up and really enjoyed it! It seemed to be more interesting and less science-y to me for some reason!
I’m so glad I ended up giving in and watching it. It really made me more aware of how truly ‘messed up’ food is in our country. The same quote you highlighted above stood out to me the most as well – and just surprised me. I hadn’t heard that perspective before…and it makes so much sense! We are slowly cutting back in our house – I hate wasting food, so sometimes you just have to get through the groceries!
i have yet to see this but plan to very soon! I actually am learning about this right now in my nutriton course and it’s been eye opening to say the least. I think that I will be also taking a step back from the added sugars after seeing the effects it has on our bodies.