New year, new blog

I have upgraded the Everyday Explorers blog to Wordpress.

For more musings and photos of my explorations, you can follow me here: 

www.everydayexplorersblog.com

Thank you to everyone that has read my blog posts in the past year. I hope you have taken or learnt something from my ramblings.

You are what you eat: documentaries you have to watch

Thanks to the internet we all have access to an abundance of information on planet issues. Netflix rules when it comes to documentaries and below are three important films that I’ve watched recently. If you haven’t seen them you really should, they’re pretty shocking.

Food Matters

Food Matters blew me away. It talks about the connection between food/nutrition and personal health/wellbeing. It also looks at the truth behind pharmaceutical drugs and that big, greedy, corrupt industry.

The documentary poses the theory that you can use food to heal and cure diseases, such as cancer and heart disease, instead of using modern medicine. Some doctors offer nutritional therapy to cancer patients that involve putting them on a drip that gives them high dosage of vitamin c. And this cures patients – no chemo, no hair loss. This kind of therapy isn't offered in lot of countries. In fact it’s even banned in some places, such as the USA. Doctors have to work from Mexico in order to offer this therapy.

The documentary accuses the pharmaceutical industry of profiting from peoples illnesses by treating their sickness instead of curing them of it. It also advocates the raw food diet. Did you know that when you cook food it loses 50% of its nutrition?

It features Charlotte Gerson, Founder of the Gerson Institute. The foundation offers a natural, non-toxic, safe treatment of cancer and other diseases. Garson Therapy is said to activate your body's ability to heal itself through changing your diet and switching to plant based meals and raw juices.

There are no clinical trials on the Gerson therapy but there are patients that have used this therapy exclusively and it’s worked – most famously, Gearin-Tosh and Beata Bishop.

Food Matters have set up their own website, offering lots of health and nutritional advice. Check it out: http://www.foodmatters.tv

Food Inc

I think anyone that eats meat but does not go out and kill/prepare their dinner should watch this to know where their food is coming from. Documentary filmmaker, Robert Kenner, looks at the impact of mass farming on the planet, and questions the ethical treatment of the animals and workers.

It’s not just about global warming, it also discusses the treatment of the food and how this can have an effect on our health.

One scene in the film shows you the inside of a chicken farm, where they have developed chickens that grow bigger, faster, with more breast meat – which has resulted in the chickens legs not being able to hold their own body weight so they just collapse in their dark closed pens. The story is much the same for all these mass produced animals, crammed together in huge numbers, injected with antibiotics (which ends up on your fork – think about it), deformed, suffering, and often brutally killed. On some farms, cattle are being fed corn instead of grass, which has led to infection. And the solution to these problems…add more chemicals!

One scene shows a farm bleaching a hamburger to prevent the meat from being poisoned.

They’re choosing to bleach your meat instead of just switching back to grass fed cows…because cows don’t grow as big and fast on grass. And the industry won’t turnover a higher profit. These are BIG world issues.

It’s not all doom and gloom. The film also highlights the RIGHT way of farming. One organic farmer featured in the film feeds his small number of cattle on grass and lets them roam free on the land. Probably how you would prefer to picture your meal before it lands on your plate.

This is a must see that will alter your way of thinking and enlighten you on the issues we have with agriculture and corporations.

Find out more on this website: http://www.takepart.com/foodinc

An Inconvenient Truth

I am a sucker for anything global warming related and this documentary is one of my favourites.

It follows Al Gore’s campaign to educate America on global warming and it has won lots of awards for the film’s director, Davis Guggenheim.

The film has inspired many and has done a great job raising the profile of climate change.

It follows Gore on a roadshow around the states where he presents his facts and figures about the planet and what we’re doing to it, as well as highlighting the consequences of our actions if we don’t change our habits.

One key issue that Gore focuses on is the reduction in Antarctic ice, which is horribly depressing and upsetting as we have already gone too far to help much of the recovery of this. It also paints a picture of what will happen once all the ice has melted…it’s terrifying. Invest in a canoe whilst you still can.

What’s probably most shocking of all is the amount of people who don’t even believe that global warming is a thing. Despite scientists around the world signing a document to say that this is a fact and we need to address it, and despite all the overwhelming evidence, there are those in power who say it is unproven. This film was made in 2008 so since then the issue has gained more global headlines. This has forced politicians into changing laws and regulations whereby we need to reduce and limit our greenhouse gas emissions.

This quote by Roger Ebert, American film critic, journalist, and screenwriter, pretty much wraps this up: "You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to."

You can find our more about this on their web page: http://www.takepart.com/an-inconvenient-truth/film

Thanks for reading. Remember to buy responsibly and reduce your carbon footprint where possible.

And if anyone has recommendations for related documentaries please let me know.