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What we choose to eat is a personal, and increasingly political, decision. For decades food and politics intersected in debates about factory farming methods, the environmental hazards of pesticides, and the relationship of people to animals. But, the rising obesity epidemic in the US coupled with skyrocketing health care costs has cast overweight Americans as an unwitting driver of the nation’s economic woes. Complicating any debate about food are the myriad factors that lead any person to choose an organically grown apple over a conventionally grown orange or Big Mac over a grass fed steak. One’s culture, economic status, and the location of residence all influence eating habits. However the growing influence of the field of nutritional science is also driving more Americans toward certain foods and away from others. Nutritional research is behind the US government’s many incarnations of dietary recommendations, from the four food group plate of the 1950’s to the recently unveiled “my plate” that succeeded the food pyramid. For generations Americans were told to stay thin and heart-healthy, by eating a low-fat, high carb diet.

Now, competing theories are emerging. Uprising has twice interviewed science journalist Gary Taubes, author of Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It. Taubes argues that we are fat precisely because of our carb-heavy, low-fat eating habits, which he, and a growing number of others, say is based on faulty science and that a meat-based shows the best results for good health. Taubes is an award winning science journalist, contributing correspondent for Science Magazine, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator in Health Policy Research at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health. Read our interviews with him here and here.

But a new documentary, Forks Over Knives, has made a splash with its critique of current diets – their argument diverges from Taubes’. Forks Over Knives argues that a plant-based, whole grain diet has the ability to reverse diabetes, heart disease, and melt away excess pounds. Forks Over Knives features Dr. Campell, a nutritional scientist, and Dr. Esselstyn, a breast cancer surgeon, who are considered pioneers of research behind the benefits of the Forks Over Knives diet.

Gary Taubes and the experts in Forks Over Knives agree that refined sugars and carbohydrates cause obesity and related health problems. Where they disagree is over how much animal based protein is healthy, and weight friendly. So whether you choose your food based on how you look in the mirror, or on the health problems you struggle with, or on your relationship to animals and the planet, these competing theories will give you something to chew on.

Thank you Gifts:

Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It by Gary Taubes (Book) – $125

Forks Over Knives (DVD) – $100

Food Fight Pack – (DVD+Book) – $150

*Special thanks to the South Central Farmers for their generous donation of boxes of their fresh, organically grown produce to KPFK listeners during this hour’s pledge drive! Find out more at www.southcentralfarmers.org.

Call 818-985-KPFK(5735) or visit www.kpfk.org to make a pledge.