“The GameChangers” — has fuelled the vegan diet, as rarely has media coverage before. But should we really “eat” everything that is “pre-chewed” for us by the media without questioning it? In the words of Layne Norton (editor's note. PhD in Nutrition Sciences, Powerlifter, Author) to begin:
”I'm pretty sure I've developed PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) because of the terrible food documentaries I've seen so far.”
It's probably a bit of an exaggeration. However, a successful documentary on the subject of food should above all shed light on both sides of the “coin.” This usually happens rarely, because last but not least, documentation nowadays also wants to maintain.
The last “big nutrition documentaries” such as Fed Up, What the Health or Supersize Me did NOT do exactly that either. Accordingly, I had a premonition of this first, large-scale”Vegan sports science thing” It could probably be.
In the meantime, I have received various analyses, reviews and comments on this film. As a result, more and more background information about the people involved in the film became known.
The film's executive producer is James Cameron, who happens to be CEO of a pea protein company and recently invested over 100 million dollars in the company.
Not that this information isn't publicly available, but of course James Cameron wouldn't peddle it voluntarily. Unfortunately, in the most generous case, this is rather “unfortunate” if you yourself the claim of a 'Science-based & critical documentary'has imposed.
In the end, there is something in science that 'Conflict of Interest', which you should always specify if you want to play with open cards.
What still seems funny is the fact that the interviewed “experts” all sell vegan products, not to mention Arni's supplement company.
Don't get me wrong at this point, it is legitimate to earn money in the sector that you want to analyze or evaluate in some way. The only thing you have to do then:”Deal with it openly”. In the film itself, by the way, people complain that the dairy and meat industry had their study results”buy“would. It's difficult.
First of all, I'm not going to cover every single point of the documentation. I've limited myself to a few catchy examples to make it clear why this documentation is much, but not scientific.
But who a”Rant“Expected compared to a vegan diet or a plant-based lifestyle, will be somewhat disappointed. This should not be about devaluing a lifestyle or diet. Rather, it should be made clear that this documentation is more sensationalistic and serves less as a reputable source of information.
Whenever someone claims that an event A is directly followed by the result B, it is referred to as a sham causality.
In the movie”The Game Changers“This is a recurring thread. It is argued that the exhumation of some gladiators clearly shows that they “mainly vegetarian” fed — voluntarily. However, this investigation in no way indicates that a purely vegetable Close nutrition.
In the end, even the study author, who was brilliantly staged in the film, says that the gladiators were not entirely vegetarian or even vegan. Especially since Dr. Kanz omits that other studies suggest a more seafood plant combination diet.
It can also be assumed that the vegetarian diet was more related to other motivations: The majority of gladiators were recruited as slaves. A balanced diet rich in meat and fish was probably too expensive for the maintaining institutions.
But above all, the findings suggest that gladiators were fattened by eating a diet high in carbohydrates and fats, as subcutaneous fat protected against injuries.
conclusion: The gladiator argument in particular seems constructed, because at the end of the day, no one even in the film claims that the gladiators lived or ate vegan.
Another feature that runs through the entire film is the fact that Top athletes as examples be called. This raises the question of what added value this has for amateur athletes.
So what does the average district league kicker get the information that James Wilks (UFC Fighter), Scott Jurek (ultra runner), Patrik Baboumian (Strongman), Nate Diaz (UFC Fighter), Bryan Jennings (heavyweight boxer), Lewis Hamilton (Formula One driver) or Kendrick Ferris (weightlifter) live vegan or eat vegan? It simply doesn't matter which athlete eats what diet, as you don't train like them.
It is also irrelevant that Usain Bolt has brought in tons of chicken nuggets in the Olympic Village, even on competition days. Because you're not Usain Bolt.
Conversely, this does not mean that not everyone can or should not have their own experiences with the vegan diet.
But the presentation of it is more than questionable. First, Connor McGregor is shown literally compromising Nate Diaz before the fight. Admittedly, if someone jokes about other types of diet and loses the fight afterwards, it's gone stupid. But can you conclude that Diaz won the battle because of his vegan diet?
Jurek, Mitchell, Bausch, Ferris and Baboumian, who broke records due to their diet change, will then be shown. At first glance, this seems pretty convincing. We don't want to rule out that this is just the right thing for these individuals.
Dr. James Loomis is now appearing for the first time, who subsequently justifies the remarks in “The Game Changers” and supports this change in diet with a completely out of thin air argument. For this purpose, a chain of arguments is set up in which “all others” would claim that animal proteins are the most important source of muscular performance.
Honestly, I have no idea why this is being listed here. I've never met an athlete who is actually convinced that proteins (no matter from which source) are THE energy source during physical exertion. Apparently a straw man argument that should be used to devalue animal proteins. Loomis does this with a pie chart, in which he contrasts carbohydrates and proteins. In its entirety, the chart then shows 100% — 100% of what?
If it means the total daily turnover of a person, then this graph is absolutely nonsensical. Because why should anyone have such a macronutrient distribution?
With the 60% protein stated initially, that would be a bumpy 4.38 g (!) for an average player (73 kg) per kilogram of body weight. According to the calculation, I would have to eat about 1.5 kg of beef tenderloin (approx. 1,600kcal) or 16 (!) Eat cups (8kg) of soy yogurt (approx. 4,000 kcal).
Dr. Loomi's presentation appears extremely questionable not only because of this impracticable food selection, but also because of the general opposition to the general doctrine of the energy-providing metabolic processes of the human body.
Because yes, proteins are essential macronutrients and are particularly important for people who exercise, but not as a powerful driver for long-lasting sporting activity, but rather as a structural element in muscle and tissue development.
As the example above shows, it is simply not practicable to cover high energy consumption exclusively with natural protein sources. Especially not for gladiators, whose food sources made up a fraction of today's choices.
As a result, energy-dense carbohydrates (from plant sources) are/were often included in the diet. Especially since the conventional macronutrient distribution of physically active people could look something like this today: 40% carbohydrates, 30% fats, 30% proteins.
conclusion: For the makers of the film, a neutral approach to reality does not seem appropriate. It should be deliberately divided into black and white, i.e. into meat and plants, in order to make one's own point of view clear. The fact that there seems to be no real discrepancy here does not really fit into the framework for action.
After it was established by the filmmakers that animal proteins are not a good source of energy for muscular performance, the next straw man argument follows.
UFC fighter Wilks starts this narrative with the fact that he always believed animal protein sources were superior to plant sources. But now he's proven wrong, in the end, “the big guys” (here: Ferris & Baboumian) would also have managed to build up a lot of muscle mass — completely without animals. He fuels this theory by always believing that he could not absorb enough protein from plants because, as an athlete, he had an increased need for protein overall.
In this context, however, it should be logical that athletes have an overall need for all micro and macronutrients, as they consume significantly more than the average person. However, if you consume more, you can eat more accordingly.
Why he now believes that this won't work out through a plant-based diet remains his secret, because: “[...] I am not sure anyone has ever claimed that is not possible [...] . ”
Vegetarian or vegan athletes, however, need more knowledge about the various plant-based protein sources. Because if you compare animal and vegetable protein sources gram by gram, then the animal sources are actually superior.
Of course, this line of argument has concrete benefits for filmmakers. An attempt should be made to suggest to the viewer that they have taken up an omnipresent myth. It doesn't matter that this myth doesn't even exist in reality.
But what is this constructed myth based on? Dr. Loomis, in turn, has an answer to this question. He immediately puts forward the thesis that the other scientists claim that plant proteins are incomplete in essential amino acids. But no one is saying that.
What we know from most research is that the lack of essential amino acids is not the problem. It is more about the bioavailability and absorption of the respective protein source (s).
We are therefore talking about a ratio from source to source and from gram to gram. It is therefore not decisive how many proteins are now naturally present in the respective food, but how much of it is ultimately left over to “build up” and how they influence muscle protein synthesis:
“The combination of progressive strength training and the availability of sufficient protein, regardless of the source, leads to strength and muscle growth.”
It is precisely this fact that the “documentation” completely falls under the table. It just tries to put animal sources in a worse light.
“As long as the entirety of the proteins is sufficient, the source doesn't matter.” We can leave it that way for now.
conclusion: In this respect, it is of course possible to provide your muscles with enough protein in a vegan diet, even in competitive sports.
However, “The Game Changers” still owes another point: the objectively best training and the objectively best nutrition program do not move the individual forward if practicality is not there.
The following example can only be used if you knowingly disregard the physical laws of nutritional physiology or, as is more likely here, disregard the difference between absolute and relative frequencies.
The point of view in the movie is: Peanut butter has more protein compared to eggs and steak. If we compare commercial peanut butter with a steak, measured in 100g, then the peanut butter has 9g (30g vs. 21g) More protein to offer.
So get to the jar of peanut butter? Well, it's not that easy after all. Because if someone eats this 100g of peanut butter in one fell swoop, this meal costs just under 600 kcal. On the other hand, if I eat 100g lean beef tenderloin, I have eaten around 120kcal.
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Now let's turn this into “real” meals:
Let's say you eat a slice of toast with the usual 30g peanut butter. It is estimated that you have consumed 13 g of protein in this meal (9 g peanut butter, 4 g of toast) and a total of 290 kcal. My personal sense of satiety wouldn't start here, but let's assume it did.
Now we have a 200g lean beef fillet (approx. 240kcal) with 42g protein and 300g green beans (approx. 100kcal) as well as 2 large potatoes (approx. 160g with 114kcal).
In total, we get 440 kcal, which is 150 kcal more than peanut butter toast. However, this also resulted in 660 g (!) Ingested food, of which approx. 460 g are of plant origin. In contrast, our sandwich weighs just under 70g. So it would be 6 (!) Toasts are needed, which together contain 1,740 kcal, to produce 460 g of plant food.
By way of comparison, the German average consumption is just under 2,200kcal/day. Based on these figures, you can now see how nonsensical the chosen example is. Because for an average person who works 8 hours a day and may still exercise for 1.5 hours 3 days a week, this type of diet is not feasible. Especially not if you want to achieve a performance-boosting effect.
The example illustrates, albeit unintentionally, that it is obviously not important to pay attention to your micronutrient intake. Ironically, everyone in our steak example would have eaten a lot more vegetables than with the vegan peanut butter version.
conclusion: We know that there are many very excellent vegan dishes that are worth eating. The aim here is not to defame vegan dishes, but to highlight the nonsensical nature of the examples chosen in the film.
Next, the documentary suggests that we could get rid of all inflammation immediately with a vegan diet. But is that so?
First of all, it should be said that inflammation is a broad and complex field and that the following only outlines the range of topics.
Without a short-term inflammatory response (e.g. stimulation of mTOR through (strength) training), no reparation processes are initiated, which would result in a lack of adaptation processes and there would be no response to a pathogen by the immune system.
The situation is different with chronically elevated levels of inflammation in the body. They may be indicative of a systematic “dysfunction” of the immune response caused by a particular lifestyle, genetic predisposition and/or pathological changes.
The film then flies over well-known keywords such as TMAO, arteriosclerosis, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes mellitus, CHD and blood lipid levels. All of this gets better ad hoc without meat consumption and a plant-based diet even has a protective effect, according to the film.
Even in this case, the (individual) initial situation is not related to the final result, but only the end product from a “plant-based diet” is used as an opportunity to cement the position.
Because it is very important whether an individual is a heavy smoker, overweight and suffers from acute lack of exercise and changes their diet and lifestyle as a result.
Let us also assume that this fictitious individual has now followed a typical western diet, in which no or few vegetables, lots of finished products & fast food were the order of the day, as well as puff pastry baked goods twice a day. Will a plant-based diet help this engineered person? Probably yes.
It would be a logical mistake to conclude that omitting all meat products alone led to this improvement, because it may be the increased proportion of vegetables.
In the end, even the craziest things correlate with each other. The stork brings the kids and the consumption of margarine correlates wonderfully with the divorce rate in Maine.
The continuous, deliberate misinterpretation of the observed correlations, paired with the confusion of absolute and relative risks, is pseudo-science.
Layne Norten and Asker Jeukendrup gave an example of how the film handles this in the case of inflammatory markers. It is about the film's claim: “[...] many, many studies have shown that animal products would increase inflammation markers.”
In fact, some case-control studies have found such associations. However, this is not surprising. If you take into account the existing pre-existing conditions and the associated lifestyle of the people examined, the picture gradually changes. Apart from the correlation between inflammatory markers (CRP, TNF-α, IL-6) and the consumption of red meat, there is another connection:
In fact, the relationship between high body fat percentage and inflammation marks appears to be much more consistent. Especially since the term “red meat” has not yet been uniformly defined.
conclusion: “The Game Changers” usually features very heavily processed red meat, often in the form of burgers, which is more of a combination of various high-calorie energy sources. In addition, the presence of vegetables is completely excluded from these foods.
The situation is similar with the firefighters shown, who in turn suffer from poor blood lipid levels. The viewer does not know what their diet was like before the briefly outlined intervention. The changes in values may also be due to the sharp increase in the proportion of vegetables.
However, no reputable ecotrophologist would claim that the general absence of vegetables and fruit would be healthy. Quite the opposite.
Of course, a documentary against meat consumption should not omit the correlation between (red) meat and “cancer.”
We are neither oncologists nor do we have in-depth insight into the treatment or pathogenesis of the various types of cancer.
What we can say, however, is, on the one hand, that one type of cancer (because unfortunately there are many different types) does not exist and, on the other hand, that the development of a cancer is always multimodal/multicausal.
We have now outlined in detail the problem of filmmakers dealing with false causalities and the difference between absolute and relative risks. Yet:
It is claimed that the risk of developing various types of cancer would increase by around 20% as a result of meat consumption. That would be a huge increase in risk and would in fact be more than worthwhile giving up meat consumption.
But this 20% represents a relative risk. What does that mean? The relative risk describes the probability that a specific event will occur in a group compared to another group (here meat eaters vs. non-meat eaters) under certain conditions. So the difference between meat eaters and non-meat eaters is 20% (according to this one study).
In order to have an overall picture, you now need absolute risk. The absolute risk describes the likelihood that there will be a health effect under certain conditions.
The absolute risk depends on a variety of variables (age, gender, lifestyle, genetic predisposition, diet, physical activity and smoking, etc.). Let's take the risk of colorectal cancer here. This is around 5%. If the risk of colorectal cancer increases by a relative risk of 20%, this means for the individual person that the absolute risk of developing this form of cancer rises from 5 to 6%.
Individual requirements/risk factors were not included in the analysis. Based on the examples, we can see how the film's authors mainly worked. A fallacy about “science” is that it constantly provides groundbreaking findings.
An almost twenty percent increase in the risk of colorectal cancer would indeed be an absolute sensation, but above all it is a headline. On the other hand, an increase in risk of just under 1% is not worth reporting.
The difference between science and pseudo-science, however, is that the twenty percent relative risk is not simply dismissed simply because it has marginal influence in absolute risk assessment criteria.
Conclusion: As already described, the data points collected through epidemiological studies are transferred into further hypotheses and, if necessary, these are subject to further verification.
At the end of the day, the scientific process is therefore twofold. On the one hand, it can be dry and boring for laymen and, on the other hand, it is an extremely lengthy and sometimes difficult process to understand. What he is not roughly 99% of the time: A box-office hit.
In summary, we can therefore say that this documentary is more likely to be attributed to sensationalism. To be honest, I didn't have any other expectations based on the reviews I've already read, unfortunately.
Because this documentary misses a great opportunity to provide standard consumers with good and valuable information about (plant-based) nutrition.
It is another good example of how you can emotionalize people with pseudo-information for or against something, as you give them no opportunity to differentiate.
I have not taken a position on some issues (ethics, environment) because I can't say much about them, particularly with regard to the ethical and moral issue of meat and animal product consumption. This criterion is also a motivation for me to reconsider (mass) meat consumption. At least when it comes to the origin of the respective product.
But what are the quintessences for readers who want to find out more about vegan (sports) nutrition? Or for people interested in nutrition in general? Should you still eat meat from a health point of view?
The short version of the answer would be yes.
But of course, this is subject to conditions. It should be clearly defined beforehand what exactly meat is for the individual. For my part, when I eat meat, I certainly don't mean Cervelat sausage for 0.49 cents. Furthermore, my understanding of omnivorous nutrition does not include eating 3 frozen pizzas and 4 curry sausage with fries in a week.
A healthy lifestyle is a contextual framework for action. Moderate meat consumption with lots of vegetables and legumes, sufficient variable protein sources and intensive exercise at least 3 times a week would probably be a good start.
Do I have to completely forego my bratwurst after the soccer game? No, not if you don't want to. But if you want it, try it out. There are a variety of good sources of information about vegan nutrition that neither represent dogmas nor promote black and white thinking, which this film is not part of.
It is important to know that there is no “perfect” diet and just because Serge Gnabry was able to increase his performance with a vegan diet does not allow conclusions to be drawn about the general public.
As many bloggers and scientists before me discovered: Eat your vegetables, eat your proteins and work out hard. — Only THAT changed your game!
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Lasse Ahl — Sports Scientist (M.A.)
Our author Lasse Ahl (33) has been playing soccer actively since the age of 11 and also does additive strength training as well as cycling, running and skiing. He is a sports scientist (M.A.) at the University of Göttingen and has worked in the university sports gym and in university sports for several years. Since 2017, as Academy Education Director, he has also been responsible for the training and continuing education of instructors at the University of Göttingen in the areas of training science and the basics of physiology & anatomy.
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