Product Details

• Actors: Charles Venezia, John Oehrle, Garnet Hall, Neal Bernard, MD
• Directors: Julia Grayer, Gage Johnston
• Format: Color, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Virgil Films and Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: July 27, 2010
• Run Time: 73 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B003ITEBFK
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #46,131 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

CHOW DOWN - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's time people were told about this, January 2, 2011

By 

Scotchguard (Lawrence, Kansas USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chow Down (DVD)

Americans and other people in industrialized countries are dying from different diseases than people in the developing world. We suffer from heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, and autoimmune diseases - "diseases of affluence" that are almost unheard of in developing countries. This long overdue film explains a little of the work of Caldwell Esselstyn and Colin Campbell(as well as that of Dean Ornish, who is not in the film). Our dependence on meat, dairy, high-fat and high-sugar foods is behind our degenerative diseases, but the health agencies we count on to advise us, such as the the USDA, the American Cancer Society, and the American Heart Association, have bowed to pressure from agribusiness and have not been willing to incorporate this information in the dietary recommendations they make to the public. The film explains that it's really not that difficult for people to prevent or even reverse these diseases - they just need to switch to a low-fat, plant-based diet. Even the medical community does not bring this up with their patients. Last year my husband suffered a condition called obstructive uropathy after having BPH (non-cancerous swelling of the prostate) for a decade. For the entire decade he took medication for BPH, neither the internist nor the urologist who treated him ever mentioned that this disease is almost unheard of in countries where meat and dairy are not consumed in large quantities. We found this out on the internet. After a $30,000 surgery, we have changed our diet and likely would have done so years ago if we'd had this information. Now with more books coming out and films like this one beginning to educate people, the information is slowly leaking out to the public. People are going to become angry that they've been misled for years, and I believe the future of medicine will be different -- especially when health insurance companies decide to balk at paying for the care of preventable diseases.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you liked In Defense of Food, July 29, 2010

By 

Pairadocs "pairadocs" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chow Down (DVD)

I've been reading a lot about food this year: Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food and Food Rules, Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and Mark Bittman's Food Matters, among others. They all seem to be telling us the same thing: Eat real food, not too much, grown locally, mainly plant-based. Now here comes a film that not only re-emphasizes that this style of eating is good for us, it shows us that it can actually reverse the heart damage caused by all those years of scarfing triple cheeseburgers and mainlining mayo.

Chow Down follows three people: Charles, the lovable family man, John, the wry, witty professor and Garnet, the professional woman whose family loves pizza. Each one has decided to try an extremely low-fat, vegetarian diet (developed at the Cleveland Clinic) to reverse their heart disease; the film provides plenty of data to back up the claims. (And yes, there are the usual "talking heads," of course--it would not be a documentary without them, right?) The upbeat, lighthearted animation keeps the style informative, never preachy, and I really found myself rooting for the three as they "eat as if their lives depended on it."

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must See !, February 5, 2011

By 

Neosoulchild - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Chow Down (DVD)

If you care about anything, care about what you eat! This was a true eye opener! A video worth sharing!