World War II - the effects of mass vegetarianism on Norway

When Nazis invaded Norway during WWII, Norway's people were forced to eat vegetable produce after all their livestock was confiscated to feed the German troops.

Look at what happened to cardiovascular related deaths during that time, and look at what happened to those figures after the war when the meat supply was returned to the people.

This is just one of the highlights of a very informative documentary I watched last night about diet and lifestyle called "Forks Over Knives" on Netflix.

Much of this programme's content made a lot of sense to me, it also struck me how straightforward it seemed. I've always thought that many of modern life's ills are purely because of an artificial lifestyle. Our digestive system evolved over millions of years - the notion that what we put into our bodies currently as natural or suitable is totally daft. 

Anything that has to be cooked is not technically suited for human consumption - and its not just meat - all artificially processed foods fall into this category. Even dairy foods are not exempt from this common-sense approach - after all - think about it for a moment - biologically do you really think we are designed to consume milk from a different species?

But why? I hear you say - when governments all tell you its good for you? Consider who funds those food advice bodies - the food industry.

If you don't want to see the conspiratorial angle - consider one based on pure science. Evolution takes a long time to adapt an organism to an environment and food source, something in the order of millions of years to adapt. Were microwaves, ovens and stoves around when our digestive processes were designed?

Fire was not something mankind had access to during the evolutionary process - it came a lot later, in fact only 125,000 years ago in terms of hard evidence of man's ancestors using it. Its not rocket science to realize that our digestive systems have not evolved yet to compensate for cooking. 

No wonder people are suffering with weight problems and heart disease - and this film certainly made it pretty clear to me that my own decisions made with my partner about changing our diets was not simply a matter of budget, its about ignoring the rubbish the farming industry has fed us for years and thinking laterally and analytically.

China and Japan provided some incredible information on diet and death figures - this film shows a clear link to cancer and mortality rates based on diet, specifically based on meat intake.

Here's another trailer....

So whats the conclusion of all this? Well put simply modern life is killing us, and many of these modern diseases are caused by diet. If you have a highly active lifestyle, you might be lucky and get away with a long life without a change in diet. But if your days involve sitting at a desk and your waistline has ballooned since your twenties, then something is clearly wrong.

In terms of the mortality figures and how this relates to cancer and diet - I've acutally seen this in practice. Fifteen years ago my own father's cancer went into remission when his wife started feeding him only natural unprocessed foods. Unfortunately he started to miss meat, and sadly he gave in to temptation and died a year later at the age of 70 after giving up a healthy diet.

Remember... YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT.

• You can read more about a critique of the film here
• You can also watch it on Netflix here