Veganism in 1976

[Jamie in Chile]

I think the reason that What the Health is a bit more exaggerated than Cowspiracy is because there is only a slight advantage health wise when going vegan and it varies by person. That may be the truth I think, in order to create a slam dunk powerful message that they wanted for the movie, they had to exaggerate. Whereas the argument that animals agriculture is bad for the environment is so compelling anyway that they didn't need to exaggerate when making Cowspiracy.

I think you are being a bit harsh on the % correct, I'd say Cowspiracy was more like 90% correct, probably. They over-egged the 51% number and should have said animals agriculture accounts for between 15% and 50% and estimates vary. Apart from that, the rest of the film is fair, at least qualitatively, I mean I am sure the estimates of water use and so on are pretty rough and you could dispute the number for example but the claim that animal ag uses much more water than showering for instance, is not in dispute.

[brimstoneSalad]

Apart from that, the rest of the film is fair,

Well, they also cherry picked organizations to interview to put their story together about a conspiracy; specifically the ones that don't promote veganism, and implied that was the norm. Many environmental NGOs promote meat reduction and vegan diets. I don't think it's a conspiracy so much as a couple of those organizations being corrupt and basically "charity" Ponzi schemes, more interested in maximizing donations and not offending their base than making a difference.

It would have been nice to see better treatment of the topical issue, because there's some real substance there, particularly with government entanglements and Ag-gag laws, but it was kind of clumsily executed.

It was just a little disappointing because it could have been a really great film.

Oh, also it implied that the film maker just went vegan when researching this. He's been vegan for a long time. Call it creative license, but that was a little shady and the film could have done without. Maybe take some real meat eaters and introduce them to this stuff and watch their revelations instead of staging a fake one.

[Jamie in Chile]

I think the basic message of the movie, that environmental organizations such as Greenpeace spend a disproportionately low amount of their website, actitivism etc on animal ag vs its environmental damage, is accurate. They did exaggerate the conspiracy angle a little but I think it was justifiable for marketing. It's the world we live in. If the movie were called "An examination of the environmental impacts of animal agriculture" less people would watch it.

[Jamie in Chile]

Oh, also it implied that the film maker just went vegan when researching this. He's been vegan for a long time. Call it creative license, but that was a little shady and the film could have done without. Maybe take some real meat eaters and introduce them to this stuff and watch their revelations instead of staging a fake one.

I agree with you on this. It was disingenous. No lies, but deliberately trying to leave the viewer to believe something that isn't true. A trick that they tried to pull again with the second movie which surely won't work again for anyone who has seen the first one.

I think the second movie, WTH, basically follows the same emotional narrative as the first movie and was basically scripted and then they find organizations to play the parts they want them to play. Because this basically scripted setup was similar to the first movie, it was more obvious that they were doing it this time.