Netflix has dropped a giant turd on my industry again.
Another piece of content designed to get people in a flap and drive up their subscriber numbers.
I’m talking about the very pro-vegetarian/vegan documentary, The Game Changers, which was released on Netflix recently.
I’ve had a lot of questions about it, which I’ll address in this article, suffice to say that I consider this to be just the latest fecal incident in a long list of outrageous claims you may recognize as headlines from recent years. Claims such as:
- High-fat (keto) diets will help you burn more fat / cure cancer / make you live longer
- Sugar is as addictive as cocaine
- The carnivore (meat only) diet will cure depression and disease
- Connor McGregor lost to Nate Diaz because he ate meat.
(The last one is what they allude to at the start of this documentary.)
Netflix makes money from people subscribing. People care a lot about food. Celebrity endorsement = believably in most people’s minds, and this purposefully has famous people in it. Netflix’s incentive is to create things that are inflammatory because it gets people talking and drives up subscriber numbers.
Sadly, this has filled the heads of millions of people with bad info, including some of my friends and readers, so I feel the need to write this.
Here’s how I’ll proceed:
- Recommendations for vegetarians and vegans interested in getting jacked.
- Calling out the bad science and questionable BS in The Game Changers.
- My viewpoint on vegetarian and vegan diets.
1) Recommendations for vegetarians and vegans looking to get jacked.
Q) I’m a vegetarian, do I need to make any modifications to your standard recommendations?
(This is from the site’s FAQ. Because nothing here has changed.)
Yes. Generally speaking, you’d need to consume approximately 20% more high-quality plant protein (i.e., pea & soy) to be on par with animal protein in terms of amino acid profile quality.
Regarding vegans specifically:
- All vegans will need to supplement with vitamin B12 because you won’t be able to get enough from your diet. 1,000 mcg (1mg) per day.
- Most vegans are at a high risk of vitamin D (unless you get daily sun exposure without sunscreen) and iodine deficiency (unless you eat a lot of sea vegetables). So consider taking 2,000 I.U.s of vitamin D and 90 micrograms of iodine per day, respectively.
- Some vegans will fall short on their calcium needs. Consider 1,000 mg daily.
2) Calling out the bad science in The Game Changers
Helpfully, just as I was writing this today, my two super-smart friends Greg Nuckols and Eric Trexler decided to cover it on the Stronger by Science podcast. (Listen here, skip to the 27-minute mark.)
They nailed it, and this is my summary of what they said.
The documentary treats diet choices as a false dichotomy between a vegan diet and the worst interpretation of a western diet (super-high fat, lots of processed meat, with a ton of sugars and starches). Nobody reading this is likely to eat like that, and nobody is questioning that the former will be healthier than the latter, for most people.
Debunking some claims:
Claim: If you eat a vegan diet, you will live longer.
If you compare vegans to any random omnivore — sure, vegans are generally healthier. But this doesn’t account for other health behaviors. Vegans are less likely to smoke, drink, and more likely to exercise. When comparing vegans who made the decision for health-related reasons to health-conscious omnivores, those differences in lifespan and chronic disease risk essentially disappear.
Claim: Gladiators had a high bone density and only ate plants.
Sure! Most retired American footballers have high bone mineral density. But they are large athletic people, who had been loading the hell out of their skeleton for decades and ate enough. This is not down to their individual diets.
Claim: Nate Diaz beat Connor McGregor in a fight because eating meat products makes you worse at fighting.
There is absolutely no basis for this claim. It also conveniently ignores the fact that Diaz fought a weight class higher than McGregor, and then McGregor beat him in the rematch.
Claim: Cows have more muscle than a human, but cows don’t eat meat. How do you explain that one?
Their digestive systems are different. They have four stomachs (kinda), which allow them to derive a lot more protein from the plants they consume. By this logic, you could argue that circadian rhythms are not important because raccoons are awake all night.
Claim: Humans are not carnivores. (A jawbone is shown.)
Agreed. We’re omnivores. Again, this is here to set up a false dichotomy with a meat-only diet.
Claim: Protein is not a key energy substrate for high-energy exercise.
Correct. But nobody in the contemporary sports world believes this. It was there to set up another ridiculous dichotomy — you’re going to have a high carb diet, or you’re going to have a diet that includes some amount of animal protein. They suggest that by having protein in your diet you push out room for carbs to fuel your workouts. You would have to have a crazily high protein intake to do that.
Other criticisms:
1) They disregard the importance of protein quality.
Sure, if you have a diverse diet from several different protein sources and are eating enough, you’re unlikely to be clinically deficient in any particular amino acid and die a horrible death because of it. But they threw out the concept of protein quality, which goes against the weight of the sports nutrition evidence on the performance and recovery benefits.
2) A horrendously performed leg press.
A head touched two knees.
3) A smattering of weird demonstrations presented as if they were rigorous scientific experiments.
No, there’s a whole field dedicated to this that rolled their eyes.
4) They suggested that the addition of any animal protein addition to a meal ruined that meal from a nutrition perspective and became a harmful, unhealthy meal.
This is far from unique to this documentary, but it’s just not accurate.
5) They cherry-pick several athletes who became successful after going vegan, suggesting that this proves something. It does not.
First, this ignores all the VASTLY more numerous counter-examples and the role that random chance can play. But let’s play along — why may an athlete have found a performance benefit from going vegan? Well, if an athlete’s diet was carbohydrate-deficient prior, going vegan would have bumped that.
3) My Viewpoint On Vegetarian / Vegan Diets
The documentary is shit, but I am not saying vegetarian or vegan diets are shit.
It’s absolutely possible to have a vegetarian diet that will support your strength and physique goals. But there is no denying that setting up a vegan diet in a way that will won’t potentially compromise health and performance is more tricky.
(I’m not an RD and don’t work with vegans for this reason, as I don’t know enough to advise. However, here’s an excellent article on Stronger by Science for anyone interested: Plant Gains? Advice to the Vegetarian and Vegan Athlete.)
If you wish to become a vegan for ethical, environmental, moral, religious, or other reasons, please go ahead! But don’t become a vegan because some documentary scared you into it.
And if you are a vegan and wish to persuade people over to your way of thinking, don’t use this documentary to do so. The ends don’t justify the means (deception). Persuasion based on lies will backfire.
So, how should you eat?
The current state of nutritional evidence is the same as it was before the documentary was released — it does not support the claim that a vegetarian or vegan diet is best for our health, nor that plant protein is superior for physique and physical performance.
(For those who would like to dig deeper, Menno Henselmans does a very good job of covering the data around this here.)
There’s scope for flexibility with your dietary choices. This is a great thing!
- Be active — this does a lot of things that a diet simply can’t.
- Maintain your body composition in a relatively healthy state of leanness.
- Eat plenty of vegetables and fiber, preferably from a variety of sources.
- Don’t eat a bunch of charred, burned, fatty, processed meats.
Could we get far more nuanced about nutrition setup and talk about calories, protein, carbohydrate to fat intake ratios, and meal timing? Sure, but the basics above don’t change. (To receive my free book and nutrition email course on that, enter your email address in the box below)
Be thoughtful about what information you consume. The quality of ideas you put in determines the quality of your thinking.
Please keep questions on topic, write clearly, concisely, and don't post diet calculations.
Privacy policy.
Andy, what’s your take on the recent “James Wilks and Chris Kessler” Debate on Joe Rogan’s podcast?
There is no point listening to two people bogged down in dogma debate anything, Tyler. I’m sure it’s great to Joe’s ratings though.
(To others reading, James is the guy featured prominently in the documentary. Chris is the guy referenced in the email screenshot above.)
Great Article. The doc almost sucked me in, but everyone’s body is different. You HAVE to find what works for YOU. Period. Allllsoooo, Can we mention Rich Froning…”Fittest Man on Earth” four times. Protein shakes made w WHOLE MILK multiple times a day. If I did that, I would never poop again..LOL! Everyone is different. Love your breakdown:
There’s scope for flexibility with your dietary choices. This is a great thing!
Be active — this does a lot of things that a diet simply can’t.
Maintain your body composition in a relatively healthy state of leanness.
Eat plenty of vegetables and fiber, preferably from a variety of sources.
Don’t eat a bunch of charred, burned, fatty, processed meats.
Thanks – this was a really interesting read. At first when watching the documentary I thought perhaps veganism was the best way forward, but I started to question it myself (especially when I saw the leg press – WTF!!!). I wonder how many calories I’d need to consume to meet my nutritional requirements and also would the high carb diet cause me to put on weight because, while I’m a regular gym go-er I’m not an athlete training for hours every day.
Hi Anna, glad you found this useful.
To answer your question: Here’s my Calorie And Macro Calculator. Use that, read what’s there, then read my book and take the free email course via the email grab at the end.
While some of the ‘science’ in the film is quite laughable, I think just highlighting the fact that a number of athletes at the absolute peak of their sport thrive without issue on a Vegan diet is important. The film feels like a miscalculated knee jerk reaction to the many people in the media, the fitness industry and generally every day that say ‘but where do you get your protein’ and claim you cant perform well when plant based.
For reference I’ve been a vegan for four and half years for ethical and environmental reasons. While I wouldn’t claim my performance has improved being on a vegan diet, I dont feel hampered by it and most certainly feel more at ease not eating animals.
Thank you for the comment, Rob. I don’t really have anything further to add here to what I’ve already stated in the article.
Thanks for the reply Andy. I only recently came across the website and have to say I’ve found it very useful. Thanks for all the high quality free content.
Most welcome, Rob! 🙂
Hey Andy. How have you figured that Netflix is shitting on your industry by funding this film?
I’m a 50yr old man who has avoided statins by changing to a plant based diet 2 years ago. Also a man who has become a gym junkie about 5 years ago.
I read the China Study 2years ago and am convinced that avoiding meat is best for me.
I liked the film. James Wilks is an amazing individual.
I suggest watching the movie Dominion free on youtube. there are more important things than calories or macros
Hi Daniel.
I appreciate the recommendation but I choose to get my nutrition information directly from research and monthly research reviews. This requires a lot more effort but I feel it’s important (given that this is my profession).
• Reading research is the most direct way of gathering information, which is important because otherwise, you’re reading information that may be subject to biases.
• Reading multiple research reviews helps me to check whether I’ve screwed up my interpretations and keeps my own confirmation biases in check.
Make sense?
Daniel, just a quick follow up.
When you said that there are more important things than calories and macros, I thought you might have been referencing some keto, gluten, or insulin hypothesis of obesity bullshit, and wanted to diplomatically sidestep it.
But I see that after googling it just now that it’s a documentary on the state of modern agriculture and the meat industry. I don’t feel it is my place to comment.
Hi Andy, first thing first I am on the same page with you for the most of the topics above you mentioned. I’d like to look from a totally different pov and have your opinion on that.
So i cant stop thinking since the meat industry is so huge (almost untouchable) who does back up this doc? Not from body pers view but from healthy life and better blood values pov, do you think veggie or vegan life is better ? (Again, most of the so called proofs in the doc is non-sense, i want to learn your thoughts based on your experience/researches)
Following you with all respect! (Even read your book via amazon)
Best
Berke
Hi Berke, thank you for the comment.
“Not from body pers view but from healthy life and better blood values pov, do you think veggie or vegan life is better?”
Sorry, I don’t understand the question. Can you rephrase it?
Hi Andy, I meant not from body building / increase muscle density & volume perspective but from visceral organ and general health perspective
There doesn’t appear to be a need to go fully vegetarian for health reasons.
For vegetarian vs. omnivorous diets, the research shows equal, or slightly in favor of the latter.
For vegan vs. omnivorous diets, research is more in favor of the latter.
But when I say omnivorous, I’m still talking about a diet rich in fruit and vegetables, just not exclusively so. I’m not talking about the typical shitty western junk diet.
Point being: there doesn’t appear to be a need to go fully vegetarian for health reasons. And while someone may wish to go vegan for other reasons (religious, moral, environmental), the risk of running certain acute deficiencies is something to be very careful of.
Great article. It was thoughtful and well written. Keep up the great work.
Thank you, John.
As a supplementing, whole-food, plant-based vegan (phew!), I appreciate this article of yours. You acknowledge vegetarians and vegans will read this article, and you compassionately alert them to the need for conservative supplementation, just as should be done in omnivore articles (Vitamin D, sometimes B12).
Btw, I’ve read elsewhere (from Dr. Joel Fuhrman and Dr. Michael Greger) that Vitamin K2 is also recommended.
Hi Scott! Thank you.
Yes, supplementing with K2 may be a good idea given that it’s rapidly vegans will mostly miss out on it.
“Vitamin K1, the most abundant form found in an individual’s diet [115], is high in green leafy cruciferous vegetables, fruits, various vegetable oils and beans [114]. Vitamin K2, the more bioavailable form of vitamin K [114], comes in a variety of fish, offal, meat, dairy products, fermented cheese (e.g., blue cheese), and fermented products like natto (fermented soybeans, a Japanese delicacy) [116].” – Reference: Plausible ergogenic effects of vitamin D on athletic performance and recovery. (Skip down to the section in vitamin K if you’re interested. It’s an easy read.)
Setting up a vegan diet in a way that will won’t compromise health and performance tricky. I’m not an RD and don’t work with vegans so I don’t know enough about it to advise. However, here’s an excellent article on Stronger by Science with recommendations and references for anyone interested: Plant Gains? Advice to the vegetarian and vegan athlete.
Thanks for the links, Andy. I’ll read them both. I always enjoy Stronger By Science content.
Below are two additional vegan guideline resources you might want to bookmark in case you come across more vegans (we’re growing, after all). There’s no presumption of size, strength, or sports performance gains, just longevity and healthspan, but it’s always good to read broadly.
Speaking of reading broadly, I found your article (and thus your site) through Tony Gentilcore. I love his content, too.
https://veganhealth.org/daily-needs/
https://www.theveganrd.com/vegan-nutrition-101/vegan-nutrition-primers/recommended-supplements-a-vegan-nutrition-primer/
Tony’s great, and thank you for sharing those links, Scott.
Are you using “plant based” and “vegan” interchangeably here when referring to diet? I think an important distinction should be made, where plant based just means the majority of what you eat are from plants (like 80% calories from plants and 20% calories from animal products for example), and not the entirety of what you eat. I know some people would disagree with that definition, so I think you should clarify what you meant. You say: “it is not necessary for everyone to eat a plant-based diet for optimal health.” do you mean 100% vegan by that or something like 80% plants and 20% animal products? If you mean vegan, I’d substitute that in for plant-based to be more accurate.
Very good point, Kevin. I’ve updated the language of the article. Thank you!
Hi Andy,
Could you please provide the articles (scholarly/peer reviewed) from where you gathered all this information? Thank you.
Maria
Hi Maria, thank you for asking.
This article by Menno Henselmans does a very good job of covering the data (systematic reviews and meta-analyses) on the questions of whether a vegan diet is the healthiest diet, and whether plant protein is indeed best for our health, physique and physical performance.
I should have added that link to the article so that people can dig deeper by themselves, so thanks for the prod to do so.
If there’s something else, please feel free to ask. I’ll answer if I can.
Thank you, Andy. I appreciate the link and the article. I found it interesting and compelling so I decided to dig further and read the articles cited. I found that ALL citations were sponsored by the meat, egg, dairy industries, or Nutrition 21. Also, the Annals of Internal Medicine’s recommendation is based on an assumption the majority of individuals are not willing to modify their eating habits or feel a burden to do so.
• Händel et al. (2019): This work was funded by MatPrat – Norwegian Centre for Consumer Information: Egg and Meat.
• Daly et al. (2014): Supported by a competitive, peer-reviewed grant from Meat and Livestock Australia Ltd.
• Campbell et al. (1999): Monetary gift from Nutrition 21.
• Haub et al. (2002): Supported by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.
• Hartman et al. (2007): Supported by a grant from the US National Dairy Council.
• [2]: funded by the Dairy Farmers of Canada.
• [4]: Supported by the US National Dairy Council.
• [5]: This work was funded by a research award from the US Dairy Research Institute.
Again, thank you. I think it’s important to have these kind of discussions so I appreciate you opening this forum.
Hi Maria, I see where you’re coming from. You’re implying that these papers can’t be trusted because they’re funded by Big Meat and Big Dairy.
But by the same logic, we should throw out most of modern medicine because it’s funded by Big Pharma.
And let’s say you are the US National Dairy Council and sales are taking hits because there are people talking about how dairy isn’t healthy. What else are you supposed to do but fund research, hoping to prove otherwise? If you wait on the government, nothing will get done. If you fund it yourself, you know some people throw it out without consideration, but you have to trust people will look at it.
There are conflicts of interest in scientific literature all the time. It’s important to be aware of potential bias and look at the way in which the studies were conducted to see if their results hold up to scrutiny.
Fortunately, an army of scientists from around the world, all with careers dedicated to this stuff, descend upon papers when they’re published and tear them apart if done badly. These ones Menno is referencing were not. Now, of course, I am sure you can find some scientists somewhere who would disagree, but that’s just life. It’s prudent to look at what the majority are saying, not just those who are entrenched in a certain camp (in this case vegan or vegetarian) and be aware that you may be in an echo chamber.
If you wish to discuss any specific point of critique of any of the papers, best to post that on Menno’s article as he’ll be more familiar.
Great article Andy, glad you tackled this topic.
So much poor quality information being consumed by people on mass.
Thank you.
So, so sadly, yes.
But Arnie was in the documentary, must be credible 😂😂
Hahaha
Hi Andy,
My wife and I watched the documentary last night and we had been debating all morning long about it. I will be forwarding this to her as my finishing move! I agree this documentary was shit on many levels. Especially the part where they said plants have all the essential amino acids we need. Oh yeah? How much of them? What percentage of the food is “all” the essential amino acids? The amount they have is not significant. Should I eat 5 pounds of kale to get all these amino acids? Or maybe 2 eggs, a little chicken breast and a giant salad with a little oil and vinegar? I’ll go with the ladder every time.
Anyways, great info like always. Thanks, Andy.
Most welcome, Chris.
Hey Andy
FUCK YOU!!!
You are the ignorant one, that is if you think “science” is important
And yes, you can quote me.
Ok then.
Some people are just a waste of time because their mind is already closed. That is you, Andy. A waste of time.
My mind is 100% open to anything that will improve the outcomes of my clients. This is all I can afford to care about. But this is not one of them.
The idea that clients have to turn vegan in order to achieve their health and physique goals is not only false but disempowering.
I have written this for both clients and other readers who trust my writing and look to my opinion on things. I will continue to battle the bullshit in this industry in this way, as I have done for the last 8 years.
When I’m wrong, I’ll say I’m wrong. When new things come out, I’ll adjust. I’ve got to be careful to not just jump on any information that supports my opinion, no matter how tempting that may be.
Here’s an example from last week.
A friend emails me to say that a fella called Chris Kresser was on the Joe Rogan podcast and made a PDF debunking The Game Changers. He emailed thinking I’d be happy. I was not. It’s just a guy profiting off of being anti-Game Changers by selling people on his Paleo bullshit. Here’s my response, but fair warning, the language isn’t polite.
Why as someone who is also critical of The Game Changers, I can’t get behind Chris Kresser’s critique of it.
Problem is, when you don’t have a ‘gimmick’, it’s way harder to create momentum and a big following in this industry. But gimmicks don’t work. This site is for those who have figured that out.
Hey Andy, thanks for this post.
Let me give you a small personal anecdote from my past:
I have been on a vegetarian and then vegan diet in my teenage years, and really regret this in hindsight. It stunted my growth, I had severe deficiencies in various macro and micronutrients, and got pretty sick. Changing to a balanced diet with meat, fish, vegs fruit and starches changed my health almost over night.
This “documentation” really is nothing but propaganda. Seeing that Arnold is backing it made me sad tbh.
Have a great Weekend my friend!
Yours,
Chris
Me too, Chris. Thank you for the support and for taking the time to write.