Cereal Killers Movie Review Supports the Low Carb Lifestyle

Cereal Killers Documentary Review

In the documentary Cereal Killers, Donal O’Neill is a healthy 41 year old man who has set out on a quest for answers. His father Kevin was a football star back in the 60s and was considered fit and healthy, yet he had a heart attack. Donal’s uncle was also a top athlete and ended up with type 2 diabetes. How can this be possible when they were both so healthy and fit? These are the answers Donal set out to find. He is determined to “drop dead healthy” in his old age. A philosophy I completely support.

Interested in the idea of hacking his genes, Donal set out on a 28 day plan that completely disregarded the food pyramid and standard dietary advice with the low carb / high fat lifestyle. He made a visit to see Professor Tim Noakes for information on this new adventure. Donal’s interview with Noakes was certainly interesting, but I was most fascinated to see Dr. Noakes ripping pages out of one of his old books and informing Donal that he no longer believed what he’d written there. Dr. Noakes admits that science has proven that carb-loading isn’t required for athletes to function optimally and he’s changed his views on the topic. He also later explains how he learned he was pre-diabetic and very carbohydrate resistant, and that he’s lost family members to type 2 diabetes.

We next see Donal getting a total health work up and speaking to a dietician about his new plan. This dietician didn’t seem to be opposed at all to his low carb / high fat changes, but did mention the beliefs that excess protein can damage kidneys, and too much fat raises cholesterol. His blood work all looks good, with the exception that he has higher cholesterol. He’s also only at 13.6% body fat, so Donal is already at a healthy weight.

We quickly learn that Donal has had a healthy disregard for medical advice ever since a misdiagnosis in his youth that cost him an athletic career. I think many people can identify with that skepticism.

We get to see Donal out in public, engaging with people about his new low carb / high fat diet. As you would expect, he’s met with mixed emotions. I’ll admit the looks of sheer horror made me giggle a bit. You’d think he’d just said he was embarking on a diet of gravel!

You’ll see several doctors interviewed throughout the film. One such interview is with my favorite British physician and low carb advocate, Dr. John Briffa. If you haven’t read Dr. Briffa’s blog, you are missing out on some great information.

Donal is concerned about the damage done to his knees and hips from jogging, so he spends about 8 minutes doing High Intensity Interval Training or HIIT in his first week. Let’s just say that his 7 day results astound the professionals monitoring his progress.

In one scene you see Donal walking down supermarket aisles reading food labels. I had to laugh when he picked up a package of “organic choco balls” and commented on the absurdity of such a product. (Anyone know what tree you can find organic choco balls on?) He also noted how difficult was to find some foods in their pure forms (like whey protein).

The discussion then briefly turns to advertising and public relations for these companies. The expert he interviews, talks about how advertising and public relation campaigns can trigger changes in behavior, especially a catchy headline that grabs your attention. My favorite quote of the film has to be the following:

“A lie can be half way around the world before the truth has even got its boots on.” – Paul Blanchard, Public Relations Managing Director

Other topics of discussion in this film include corn subsidies, crammed feed lots, and the expenses of ethical farming. I learned that one identifying marker of grass fed beef is the color of the fat; that grass fed beef has yellow fat, where grain fed beef has white fat. You can bet I’ll be checking that out in the near future.

One statistic that blew my mind had to do with insulin medications. Novo Norodisk is the biggest producer of insulin, and between 2009 and 2012 their share price growth out-preformed Apple. Dr. Noakes stated that if we could get all diabetics on a high fat, low carb diet, it would cut insulin requirements so drastically that it’s estimated that 6 major pharmaceutical companies would go out of business. It’s hard to argue that there may not be some conflict of interest going on here.

Toward the end of the film they discuss genetics and risk factors for heart disease, and thankfully they mention the myth of the cholesterol hypothesis, especially regarding particle size and statins. All great information supporting the low carb lifestyle.

The film concludes with 28th day of Donal’s plan when we see the results of his experiment. I’m not going to share any spoilers, but let’s just say that if you’ve been on this type of diet, you can probably guess the results.

Cereal Killers is a great film, especially if you are new to the low carb, high fat lifestyle and want to learn more about this way of life and its effects on health. I give this documentary two thumbs up!

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Cereal Killers

The film follows Donal – a lean, fit, seemingly healthy 41 year old man – on a quest to hack his genes and drop dead healthy by avoiding the heart disease and diabetes that has afflicted his family.

Donal’s father Kevin, an Irish gaelic football star from the 1960s, won the first of 2 All Ireland Championships with the Down Senior Football Team in 1960 before the biggest crowd (94,000) ever seen at an Irish sporting event.

When Kevin suffered a heart attack later in life, family and friends were shocked. How does a lean, fit and seemingly healthy man – who has sailed through cardiac stress tests – suddenly fall victim to heart disease?

Can a controversial diet consisting of 70% fat provide the answers?

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