Review #003: 'Vegucated"

Vegucated is a documentary with an intriguing premise:  get three carnivorous New Yorkers to adopt a vegan diet for six weeks, ostensibly to show the health benefits.  Now, please understand that I am about as unvegan as a man can be.  I'm a Southern Baptist preacher, for goodness' sake.  I'm pretty sure that Chik-Fil-A will be served in Heaven.  I eat fruit and raw vegetables about like grannies play ice hockey:  seldom and only under duress.



Still, I've got an interest in losing weight and being generally healthier (see my blog 52 Pounds in 52 Weeks).  I've also got a history of cancer in my family, and have read from several sources that there is a suspected link between eating red meat and colorectal cancer.  While I wasn't exactly looking to be convinced, I did approach this film with an open mind.

Unfortunately, while the premise is focused on health -- and that appears to be how it was presented to the participants as well -- the bulk of the film is an expose of sorts of inhumane practices in the meat and dairy industries.  There is some focus on the experiences of the participants as they gave up animal products, but much more on their reactions to how those products were produced.  The filmmaker herself mentions that it was learning about factory farms and other practices that drove her to veganism, rather than any conviction that it was a healthy way to live.

I'm not against exposing cruelty in order to change people's opinions, but I feel that if this is the point of the film, it should have been marketed as such.  The participants ended by embracing veganism not so much because it was good for them, but out of guilt.  This bait-and-switch greatly lessened the impact of the film for me, personally.

In the end, I wasn't convinced, but I was convicted.  I don't believe that eating meat and dairy is wrong or unethical, but the way that it is produced is.  Dominion over the earth (Genesis 1.26) and being given the animals for food (Genesis 9.3, Acts 10.9-16) doesn't mean treating God's creation like mere raw materials.  I haven't decided to forsake the flesh of the beast, but the film did make me think, and while I wish it had been more open about its true premise, I'm glad I watched it.

Vegucated is currently available on Netflix.