As I have started to incorporate clean eating into my diet, I have also started to watch a lot of food documentaries to sort of scare me into eating more healthy.  And it’s working! I have put together a list of food documentaries to watch that will give you a new perspective on food and food manufacturing.

Some of the videos are available on YouTube, but others are available via Netflix or Amazon Instant Video.  Odds are you will be able to find most of these videos on YouTube by searching the title + full movie.  I have only included the trailers in this post.

 

1. Sugar: The Bitter Truth

Sugar: The Bitter Truth explores the damage caused by sugary foods. He argues that fructose (too much) and fiber (not enough) appear to be cornerstones of the obesity epidemic through their effects on insulin.

 

2. Food Matters

In a collection of interviews with leading Nutritionists, Naturopaths, Scientists, M.D.’s and Medical Journalists you will discover scientifically verifiable solutions for overcoming illness naturally.

 

Check out the rest of Food Matters series here.  They have several informative videos on food production.

 

3. The Meatrix

Will Leo the pig take the blue pill and remain in a fantasyland where quaint family farms produce food for our tables?

 

4. King Corn

KING CORNtells the story of two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation. As the film unfolds, IanCheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, moveto the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help offriendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America’s most-productive, most-ubiquitous grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to followtheir pile of corn into the food system, what they questions about how we eat—and how we farm.

 

5. The Future of Food

The Future of Foodoffers an in-depth exploration of several important developments in agriculture today including the diminishment of biodiversity, patenting of life, loss of family farms, consolidation of seed companies and the globalization of our food system. Using genetically engineered crops as a primary cause and result of these new developments, the film delves into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled the worlds grocery stores for the past decade.

 

6. Fat Head

Have you seen the news stories about the obesity epidemic? Did you see Super Size Me? Then guess what? … You’ve been fed a load of bologna.

Comedian (and former health writer) Tom Naughton replies to the blame-McDonald’s crowd by losing weight on a fat-laden fast-food diet while demonstrating that nearly everything we’ve been told about obesity and healthy eating is wrong. Along with some delicious parody of Super Size Me, Naughton serves up plenty of no-bologna facts that will stun most viewers, such as: The obesity “epidemic” has been wildly exaggerated by the CDC. People the government classifies as “overweight” have longer lifespans than people classified as “normal weight.” Having low cholesterol is unhealthy. Lowfat diets can lead to depression and type II diabetes. Saturated fat doesn’t cause heart disease — but sugars, starches and processed vegetable oils do.

 

7. Food Inc.

An unflattering look inside America’s corporate controlled food industry.

 

8. Dirt! The Movie

DIRTtakes you inside the wonders of the soil. It tells the story of Earth’s most valuable and underappreciated source of fertility–from its miraculous beginning to its crippling degradation.

 

9. Food Fight

Food Fight is a fascinating look at how American agricultural policy and food culture developed in the 20th century, and how the California food movement has created a counter-revolution against big agribusiness.

 

10. Fresh

FRESH celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system. Each has witnessed the rapid transformation of our agriculture into an industrial model, and confronted the consequences: food contamination, environmental pollution, depletion of natural resources, and morbid obesity. Forging healthier, sustainable alternatives, they offer a practical vision for a future of our food and our planet.

 

11. Forks Over Knives

FORKS OVER KNIVES examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the so-called “diseases of affluence” that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting our present menu of animal-based and processed foods. The major storyline in the film traces the personal journeys of a pair of pioneering yet under-appreciated researchers, Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn.

 

12. Farmageddon

The story of a mom whose son healed from all allergies and asthma after consuming raw milk, and real food from farms. It depicts people all over the country who formed food co-ops and private clubs to get these foods, and how they were raided by state and local governments.

 

13. The Skinny on Obesity

7-part series that dig deeper into the root causes of the obesity epidemic. Discover why what we eat is as important as how much we eat. Understand the effects of stress on obesity rates, and why some predict that the next generation will die younger than the current one due to obesity and the many health problems it causes.

 

Image via