15 Paleo Diet Friendly Documentary Films

Okay okay okay, so only one of these explicitly promotes “paleo”. There are a few general guidelines I followed when putting together this list:

• Paleo isn’t just about humans eating an evolutionarily appropriate diet, but also eating plants and animals that are being fed an evolutionarily appropriate diet. Grain fed ruminants, vegetarian fed chickens, and petroleum fed plants are off the menu.
• Government intervention in the food supply is more about money than “your safety”.
• Fat is not an evil macronutrient, but crucial to healthy humans with healthy brains.
• Industrial agriculture is generally anathema to the paleo diet (see first guideline).
• All agriculture displaces wilderness that edible animals would inhabit. These animals would be part of an optimally sustainable food system, but are precluded from existence by farmland, fences, and culling by humans who feel they compete with their bottom line.

See It (Watch free online)

Farmageddon (2011)
Synopsis: The government is doing all sorts of fascist bullshit to snuff out small farmers, and really doesn’t want you to drink raw milk. Democrats and Republicans are shills for mega industrial agriculture corporations.

Dirt! The Movie (2009)
Synopsis: Agriculture is the worst mistake in human history. The soil of our home planet is crucial to our survival, but we’re a pathological species destroying our lifeblood. Fix it or die.

A River of Waste: The Hazardous Truth About Factory Farms (2009)

Fat Head (2009)
Synopsis: Fat phobia is a communist U.S. government  plot.

Food Fight (2008)
Synopsis: Eat local and organic small-scale food. Industrial agriculture and its operatives are spawn of Satan.

The World According to Monsanto (2008)
Synopsis: Monsanto pretty much owns everything you eat, and should have its corporate charter revoked. Everyone should divest from mutual funds and organizations that support them, and their shareholders should be exiled to a penal colony with nothing but GMO soy. Upon eating their own product, they will become sterile and no longer produce devil offspring.

King Corn (2007)
Synopsis: Corn derivatives are in everything thanks to bizarro corporate-whoring policies of the U.S. government. Don’t eat corn or anything with corn in it.
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Patent for a Pig (2006)
Synopsis: Monsanto will steal your lunch and rape your children if you give them a chance.

Super Size Me (2004)
Synopsis: Fast food is for fat and lazy assholes.

See It (Paid)

In Search of the Perfect Human Diet (2012)
Synopsis: This one guy was unhealthy, tried a bunch of diets (including vegan) with no great success until stumbling on paleo. Sauron is banished from the land, The Death Star explodes, and everyone finds true love in the end.

Pros

• This is the only one of the bunch that explicitly details and recommends the paleo diet. Paleo as fuck. #PAF

Cons

• This is a marginal negative, but it’s pretty much by the book, Loren Corain “Paleo” — including the focus on lean meats. The “lean” bit is a silly thing to worry about. Also, “meat” is too often thought of as muscle tissue. Just eat animals, preferably wild animals that you’ve caught or hunted, and otherwise fed a species appropriate diet (cows eat grass, chickens are not vegetarians, etc.) — and eat the whole damn thing.
• Only available via DVD purchase. Apparently they’ve tried to stick to paleolithic movie distribution. To get your hands on it, you’ll have to shell out $24.95 + $6.95 shipping (in the U.S.). I’d rather see them make a few cents each off a few million people than a few bucks each off a thousand. I think they’d probably agree, so I’m not sure why they made it so difficult to watch this. Que sera.
• The website is out of date or they’re engaged in some sort of scarcity marketing scheme. It’s still listing the DVD as “pre-order” even though it’s been out for months.

Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution (2010-2011)
Synopsis: The food system in the United States of America is a sham, and largely beholden to political interests who don’t give a fuck that they’re making kids fat and lazy. A famous English chef that half of the women I know want to have sex with tries his damnedest to disrupt the status quo bureaucracy. I actually misted up a couple times during this.
Season 1
Season 2

Ingredients (2009)
Synopsis: The food supply is mostly tasteless garbage, and people who appreciate food should revolt. Chefs and restaurant owners discuss methods of getting around corporate garbage food.

Watch streaming on Netflix

Food, Inc. (2008) *Oscar Nominee
Synopsis: Industrial food production is evil, and the system is rigged in favor of corporations that should be wiped off the face of the earth post haste.

Watch streaming on Netflix

FrankenSteer (2006)
Synopsis: Feedlot beef purveyors are a lot like robber barons, but not all have twisty waxed mustaches.

Watch streaming on Netflix

The Future of Food (2004)
Synopsis: Evil GMO seeds will invade your farm  then the evil companies that “own” them will sue you into oblivion.

Watch streaming on Netflix

Skip it

Forks Over Knives (2011)
Pros

• Feigning interest in it may help you get a lovely veg*n girlfriend that you can then convert to paleo, at which point she’ll become even more attractive.
• Sort of in favor of whole foods which implicitly excludes grains.

Cons

• Vegan propaganda

Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead (2011)
Synopsis: I don’t remember. Probably something about some unhealthy people taking some non-paleo foods out of their diet, and crediting veg*nism for their success.

Pros

• It’s in English and a lot of people speak that language.

Chow Down (2010)
Synopsis: Three folks who eat a bunch of garbage switch to a vegetarian diet and discover that removing a bunch of non-paleo junk from your diet makes you a little healthier.

Pros

• Viewing it is optional

Cons

• Veg*n propaganda
• Cheesy (ironic vegan joke) writing
• Poor production
• Often looks like bad acting rather than documentation of real people
• Dr. T. Colin Campbell
• Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn Jr.
• Dr. Joel Fuhrman

The Beautiful Truth (2008)
Synopsis: A predominantly vegetarian  juice heavy diet, along with putting coffee up your butt, can cure cancer.

Pros

• Viewing it is optional

Cons

• Veg*n propaganda
• Dr. Max Gerson

Well you can try to add others I may have missed, but comments may not be working while I’m rebuilding the site behind the scenes. If comments aren’t working, tweet suggestions to @evolvify and I’ll add them if they fit my somewhat arbitrary guidelines. Mwah!