The Perfect Human Diet (2012)

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

I've watched a lot of documentaries on health and eating habits and can I just say what a relief it is to finally have one with actual scientists and doctors. I have always been a heavy meat eater and I personally know many vegetarians with much worse health than I. My doctors are always amazed at how healthy I am with little exercise and a diet which includes meat in every meal. I have always avoided sugars my whole life. It was never a personal decision, I just have never enjoyed deserts and candy. My wife thought I was so odd when she met me and found I don't enjoy desert after dinner. My friends wonder why I'm not a thousand pounds and attribute it to genes. Carnivore for life.

The problem with the conclusion that this documentary comes to is it won't work! If all of humanity—seven billion strong and increasing—ate the "natural" quasi-Paleolithic diet that the scientists in this film find "perfect"...well they won't because with present technology it is impossible for the planet to feed that many people that high on the hog. Raising the necessary number of cows, pigs, chickens, etc. requires more land and fresh water than is available. It's as simple as that.The second problem involves a "what is, is right" kind of fuzzy thinking. The fact that our ancestors ate a lot more meat than they did grains does not mean that sort of diet is best. They ate that way because they had no choice.The third problem is that the kind of meat hunters and gatherers ate was a bit different from the fat-laden, choice cuts of meat eaten today. It was lean and grass-fed. And a lot of it wasn't meat at all. It was fish, shellfish, clams, mussels and insects.Aside from these three very important points the documentary is not bad. The film makes it clear that it is the modern diet of processed foods that is responsible for the obesity epidemic in the developed world. And yes the paleo-primal, hunter-gatherer diet is superior to the junk food that is shoved in our faces on TV, over the Internet, on billboards and at fast food restaurants.And yes meat- and fish-eating turned upright-walking dull-witted apes into hominids. Without high-quality foods we could not have grown our big brains. But that was then. This is now, and what is needed is a balanced diet of whole foods with plenty of fruits and vegetables, some carbs, some high protein foods, and oils from the trees: e.g., olives, avocados, coconuts, etc.—Dennis Littrell, author of "The World Is Not as We Think It Is"

This documentary is quite shallow at the end, even though there is a real effort to interview serious scientist and to approach the different diets. They go from the extreme no meat to only meat... as some of my peers saidHowever this is the first documentary that is really focused on an evolutionary perspective for diets, and for this, i gave them my two stars. But, the format makes me to a reality TV show, especially for the first half. they seem to be very into "scoop" and sensitization of the informations, which annoyed me quite much i have to say. with the little harp music that often comes... this is really annoying. So i really had a problem with the format.plus the use of the expression by some of the scientists " we are design for...", well as a scientist myself this is... ouch! And one the guy is citing the sphenoid bone which is a the center of the theory of the intelligent design.... For me this documentary is really on the slippery slope and i am wondering if it has not just been made for good traditional American (that is just evolved enough to accept there might be some kind of evolution) to give them weak scientific justifications for they diet.And most of it, there is an important point that they forgot to take in the equation : the impact of the environment.... This is something that our ancestors did not have to deal with.. So yes some of our ancestors ate mainly animal products, but those resources now have such a cost on our environment, which makes me question a lot about the perfection of this diet. If we want to really think about our diet, i think that we are at a point were we need a more broad approach that really embraces more problems that are related to food. They are NEVER talking about the pesticides...!!!! This is why i think this documentary is at the end quite presumptuous, even if the questions it asks is really interesting.

This is not an exaggerated doc. It shows what we ate for millions of years and who it helped us thrive.The doc spends most of the time talking to scientists who actively study this, not people of opinion or ideological preferences (like a vegan). That's what I found most compelling.Some individuals will say how can this be a good diet when the lifespan was so short. Well science has also shown that life expectancy was not really affected by what our ancestors ate but how they did not know about hygiene which is the single most important element on how life expectancy is so high today, then you have medicine for injuries (and they lived in much harsher environments), as well you have death from childbirth which along with hygiene really kill a a life expectancy ratio.