I was made aware of the Netflix documentary The Game Changers by many followers. Ralph, what's your take on it?
The Game Changers
Quickly I googled and saw that this was a docu starring plant-based food and top athletes. Oh dear I thought, surely not another one like What the Health? No, The Game Changers would be much better with a stronger scientific foundation. Hmm, due to my previous bad experiences with American docu's, I was actually reluctant to watch it, but a flood of requests in my inbox made me give in anyway. I sat down to watch it.
The documentary began with an investigation about the Greek Gladiators who appeared to have possibly had a vegetarian diet, due to the large amount of strontium in their bones (1). This sounds very nice, of course, but of course it does not mean that this diet was deliberately used to optimise performance and that a consensus of Greek food scientists of the time was that a purely plant-based diet gives you the most strength and performance.
The myth was then debunked that to get strong and muscular you always need lots of protein from meat and other animal sources. Examples were cited of athletes who are at the top on a 'plant-based diet', to show that it IS possible without animal food sources. This is fine, but of course these anecdotes are not proof that this is therefore the best diet. Similarly, you can cite many top athletes who do consume animal products and perform insanely well. The anecdotes are fun for inspiration and nicely portrayed. This is something these docu-makers do very well.
By many athletes, protein is seen as the basis of strength and muscle mass, and it was shown that plant-based foods can also provide very high levels of protein. There was actually hardly any mention of the average lower quality of plant-based protein and that you can increase it by combining different plant-based protein sources such as legumes with grains. If you balance out your vegan diet properly, animal proteins can be perfectly substituted for plant-based ones. I can certainly agree with that, but there is little room for nuance and deeper explanation in The Game Changers.
Which way is it going, the right or the wrong way?
Ok, at this point I thought. It can now go 2 ways with the documentary.
- The good: It is explained that there are several roads to Rome and that we are all different. Then the advantages and disadvantages of the plant-based lifestyle are explained, interviews are shown spearheading how these athletes arrived at a balanced plant-based diet. So you can be both inspired and properly educated so you don't make (the most common) mistakes.
- The wrong: It is explained that a vegan lifestyle is the holy grail for everyone, and anecdotes from athletes and one-sidedly cobbled-together mostly epidemiological studies go on to serve as the basis of a supposedly scientific sauce over far too concise claims.
And unfortunately it became the second.
Cherry picking in surveys and anecdotes
Don't get me wrong. Plant-based diets and the theme of no or less meat is interesting and important when we talk about themes of animal suffering and sustainability. This may even make you feel a mission to push the world to eat less animal-based food. However, this is no excuse for me to be allowed to misuse the theme of health for this in a globally watched documentary. The point had to be made and the fact that scientific corners have to be cut for this is apparently not an issue. Indeed, often it was only substantiated with anecdotes of selected top athletes suggesting that their success would only be because of their vegan diet as if no other influences and variables exist. In addition, a number of experiments are conducted with three subjects in a pseudoscientific setting, purely to create a shock effect. Of course, this has nothing to do with science, but because it is obviously a doctor in a white coat performing these then the viewer thinks it must be true then.
For the next time you watch a documentary, it is useful to know a little about research methodologies. Read more about the different types of scientific research and the evidence base here: https://www.voedingscentrum.nl/encyclopedie/voedingswetenschap-soorten-onderzoek-uitgelegd.aspx
The many lifestyle variables out there are reduced to two
In The Game Changers, there seem to be only two options: You eat entirely plant-based, or you also eat animal sources. Within these two choices, of course, you can vary infinitely. For instance, there are crappy vegan diets and full-fledged ones, and this also applies to diets with animal sources in them. Besides, an eating pattern is more suitable for one person than another and nutrition should be personalised. Nothing is done with this in the documentary. Eating entirely plant-based is the 'magic pill' for everyone and everything and animal-based diets the root of evils such as cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, poor performance in the gym and even strong erection-reduction. In fact, what keeps being done is to show that broad lifestyle modification and losing weight can bring nice health benefits, but this is then completely attributed to the plant-based lifestyle choice without any evidence.
8 salient claims and scenes
I'll give you eight examples below:
1. Protein does not provide energy, glucose provides energy.
An argument that some people from the 'low carb community' use to knock off the vegan diet is that it is often high in carbohydrates. Of course, this counter-argument is not a good one, as both proteins, carbohydrates and fats provide energy. Thereby, the body has all kinds of mechanisms to convert one macronutrient into another. Also, the intensity of the (sports) activities you do determines whether you function more on fat burning or more on sugar burning, for instance. So this statement in the documentary was made purely for effect.
2. All the protein you get by eating meat comes from the plants the animal eats. So you might as well eat the plants.
Ok, so we should start eating grass now because the cow eats it? Of course, we are not just what we eat, but mainly what we digest and absorb. That doesn't work out so well with grass. This is an extreme example of course, but the debate is whether we can digest pure plant-based food well and whether we can absorb all the nutrients well enough. So this statement is too short.
3. The blood plasma test: blood was taken from three subjects after eating a vegetable burrito and one with meat. The blood then went into a centrifuge. With the meat burrito, the blood plasma was cloudy and with the plant burrito it was clear. This was an argument that this therefore leads to poor endothelial function and reduced performance.
This is patently a test to shock people. Cloudy plasma means that certain fats are circulating in the blood after a meal. That this need not mean anything at all is not mentioned. On the contrary, a loose scientific fluff with a difficult term 'deteriorated endothelial function' (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endotheel) is linked to turbid blood plasma. No further substantiation is given for this. The viewer sees something scary, namely turbid blood plasma and then hears a doctor in a white coat pronounce a difficult term. Oh dear, now I really have to stay away from animal products! Um... Endothelial function is certainly important and can be positively influenced by a broad lifestyle approach (i.e. more than just nutrition). Why this necessarily requires plant-based nutrition and that it would work better than, for example, the much better researched Mediterranean diet in this respect is not substantiated (2).
4. Plant-based foods can improve endurance capacity because beet juice has been shown in research to boost performance.
The fact that beetroot juice can sometimes boost performance has indeed been widely studied in scientific research (3). This is presumably due to the very high concentration of nitrate found in beet juice. This does not mean it is due to the fact that it is plant-based, so that fly does not apply.
5. Eating meat leads to more inflammation. Eating 1 burger leads to an increase in inflammatory markers by as much as 70%.
The research used to support this can be found at HERE read. This study shows that when adding an avocado to a hamburger, the inflammation increase after the meal is less. Um, so this does not substantiate the saying. Moreover, a burger is a combination of everything (white bread, sugar, additives, flour, cheese, and so on) and cannot be lumped together with all animal food sources. And also, it's the same game again. Inflammatory markers certainly matter when it comes to health, but these can be positively influenced by very many lifestyle variables and all kinds of dietary forms. Of course, in this documentary, the only factor and solution again is plant-based eating.
6. Heme iron from meat gives you cardiovascular disease.
There THIS research cited for it. This is an observational study where you cannot show causality (cause-effect), only associations. In addition, it does not distinguish between unhealthy fast-food hamburger diets and healthy diets with animal protein. So you can do virtually nothing with it. Ridiculous that in spite of this, rock-hard claims are made with it to scare people.
7. Walter Willett says dairy intake may increase risk of prostate cancer.
That involves THIS research. This is yet another observational study where you cannot prove causal links. Shamelessly, the claim is made again anyway.
8. The erection study: Three men were given a vegetable meal one time and a meal with animal components the other time before sleeping. At night, the number and severity of erections were measured with a special tool applied around the penis. The result was that a plant-based meal greatly increased the number and ferocity.
Again, this was a sensation test that has nothing to do with science. In addition, sleep quality was also not included. Of course, the first night with the meat meal, the subjects also had to get used to the measuring device around the penis. Perhaps sleep was simply better the second night after the plant-based meal.
Final conclusion of Game Changers docu
The documentary contains inspiring images and entertaining content. The claims made are poor to almost unsubstantiated and also mostly untrue. This makes it more like a fantasy film, where an attempt is made from an activist agenda to hijack the issue of health and make people unjustifiably afraid of animal-based food sources in this area. I find this unfortunate and unnecessary. Surely the animal-friendliness and sustainability arguments should be enough?
If you would like to submit other claims from The Game Changers to me, please comment below.
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