Sugar! What’s not to like? But what if you were told sugar is the big contributor a worldwide explosion in obesity, diabetes, and something called ‘metabolic syndrome’? What if you discovered sugar is addictive? And what if you discovered that the sweet stuff is added to way more food products than you ever imagined?
Some people eat only fruit, some only meat, some only raw food, and some only at certain times of day. More and more people are obsessed with what they eat and in some cases this becomes a genuine illness.
Once upon a time, people fasted during Lent but few still do today. Yet from Jesus Christ to Gandhi, people have been hailing the virtues of fasting since the dawn of time. Research shows that fasting regularly helps prevent some serious diseases such as diabetes and arthritis. But skipping meals is neither popular nor easy: on the contrary, resisting hunger pangs is extremely difficult.
While life expectancy is increasing in Western countries, cases of diabetes, hypertension, obesity and cancer are increasing, and the use of medication has exploded.Does this mean that in order to live to a ripe age we are condemned to swallow more and more drugs? What if there was another way? For half a century, in Russia, Germany and the U.S., doctors and biologists have been exploring a different therapeutic approach: fasting. The results are amazing.
This film investigates how the multi-billion-dollar weight-loss industry systematically buys scientific research and uses it in its favor. Results based on questionable short-term studies find their way into respected publications and motivate physicians to prescribe such diets to their patients. When the film's producers publish their own study, which is so absurd no one should take it seriously, they realize the extent to which people will believe anything that claims to be scientific.
In this film, first-time father and prize-winning journalist Benoît Bringer investigates whether we should still eat meat. As the population grows and the pressure to provide cheap food increases, there has been a drive towards relentless productivity and industrialized farming. Animal cruelty, major health issues and environmental damage are inevitable consequences. We can all see the problem. But are there alternatives?
Maddie and Ashlee see their stakes go up and a researcher experiments on himself; for Wayne and Justin it’s go big or go home, and the girls learn there’s more at stake than just losing weight.
Saskia and Alofa struggle with healthy eating; the Gut Bugs team faces an unlikely obstacle while sending poo in the post; science sheds clues to why some people have better microbes than others; and the girls get some early results from their faecal transfusions.
At an elite medical facility in Auckland, four teens agree to swallow capsules filled with other people’s faeces in hopes of losing weight; a team of researchers hopes to revolutionize treatment for obesity and diabetes; and a lack of suitable poo donors threatens to derail and disembowel the whole thing.
Future Food is a highly topical new series of 6 x 27’ documentaries, asking how we are going to feed ourselves in the 21st Century. Tonight there will be 219,000 new mouths to feed at the world’s dinner table – that’s 80 million more people over the next year. By 2050, the world’s population will have risen to around 9.5 billion and require 70% more food than we grow today. How will we feed them? Future Food visits India and exploring six questions at the heart of the debate.
