Last week I had the chance to view the latest ground breaking documentary entitled “A Delicate Balance: The Truth.” This film was released in December 2008, and it is one of the most important films for our times.
A Delicate Balance: The Truth is a film that invites us to look at ourselves, our health, what we eat and how we treat our Earth from a very conscious standpoint. For the past few decades we have been hearing about various disease rates climbing and climate change getting worse and worse. This film is not about to tell you more of that. This film is the loudest alarm bell that we have yet to hear to truly wake up and stop treating these incidences, where our health and that of the Earth is concerned, as some natural phenomenon of life. If you are a typical meat eater, expect this movie to disturb you as you see how closely our ill health is linked to animal products.
In terms of health documentaries, “A Delicate Balance: The Truth” has topped my list as one of the all time best documentaries where our diet, health, and the state of the Earth are concerned. I am sure you can sense the urgency in my tone as I write this, but it comes from a deep passion of knowing within. Knowing that if we do not increase our consciousness and start making some serious lifestyle changes, we will not be building a pretty picture for our future where our existence and quality of life is concerned.
As part of this film review, I will share with you some highlights from “A Delicate Balance” and invite you to see a film that will not entertain you, but make you think perhaps harder and deeper than you ever have before about your health and that of the Earth.
The Background
A Delicate Balance is an Aaron Scheibner Film, who is an Australian movie producer and is narrated by Dr. Adriana Scheibner. This film took three years in the making and has more than 50 years of research behind it.
This documentary will leave each person fully informed as to some of the causes of chronic illnesses, and it offers ways of improving human health. This documentary predominantly explores the effects of animal protein on the human body and the environment.
Aaron Scheibner
The film features some of the most respected and world renowned, leading health experts including:
Dr. T. Colin Campbell (of the China Study)
Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn (internationally known surgeon, researcher and clinician)
Dr. Neal Bernard MD (author of many books including “Turn off the fat genes”)
Dr. Walter Willett from Harvard
Dr. John A. McDougall
Dr. Michael Greger
Maneka Gandhi (Minister of Environment in India)
The purpose and mission statement for this film is as follows:
Our aim is to raise awareness and help to educate people on how human, animal and planetary health are affected by the consumption of meat and dairy and industrial animal agriculture.
Beyond what the producer says, the motivation and purpose for this film is obvious. It does not sell a new diet. It does not sell an unrealistic solution to our health and environmental crisis. It is simply hoping to spread the message of love, compassion and wisdom where our health and environment is concerned. It is trying to inspire us to wake up out of a deep sleep that has lasted hundreds of years where man was taught to dominate nature at any will and cost he chose. It is such a deeply moving film because it forces us to face ourselves and the decisions we are each making on a daily basis.
The Content
This film features interviews from some of the best health experts in the world today, who are well respected individuals and who do not conform to what the masses are doing and saying. If you are familiar with the famous China Study, you will that much more appreciate this film as it brings to light all of the undeniable research where animal products and our health, as well as that of the Earth’s is concerned.
Although some will see it as such, it is not some orchestrated ploy to push veganism, but rather an exposé of what our society refuses to acknowledge and talk about. The film presents a hard and raw look at how things are, how they got this way, and what the consequences of that are for us and the Earth.
The film begins brilliantly by discussing the origins of how our world became so protein and animal product obsessed. It then begins its slew of academic research behind the clear link between animal protein and most of the diseases we are seeing skyrocketing in today’s society. Again, this is not the kind of information that you can expect to be on the news, given how our media is owned and controlled by some of the biggest corporations that are connected to pharmaceuticals and animal food industries. Sadly, we live in a world that revolves around money and the economy prevails above all else, to the point of sacrificing human health and social justice. It is understandable why animal food and pharmaceutical corporations do not want this information becoming mainstream. Despite the suppression of information that promotes human health and environmental sustainability, the positive news is that films like this are being made and more books are being written about what is really going on and why. This at least gives us a choice to choose the best course of action for ourselves and no longer be pawns in someone else’s game.
The film touches upon all this and more, where our health is concerned, and addresses the following problems and issues:
- high cholesterol and cancer risk
- current vitamin D level problems
- healthy calcium levels and sources
- the continuous rise of autoimmune diseases
- multiple sclerosis factors
- osteoporosis factors
- iron levels and sources
- the problem with fish today
- breakdown of the diet for a healthy life
- environmental impacts of our current diets
- deforestation and its effects
- methane production
- water shortage
- energy depletion
- the state of the oceans
We either behave as rational, intelligent human beings or we continue to suppress our intelligence.
The choice is in your shopping basket and in your head.
A Delicate Balance — The Truth
Personal Commentary
I have to share with you that as I watched this film, I was deeply moved, both as a human being and a health professional. The best part, I feel, was that the film confirmed most of what I learned and put into practice over the past couple of years. Thanks to our magnificent inner guidance system—our intuition, we all know when something clicks and resonates on a deeper level of our being, and when it doesn’t. For me, this film and its message is in complete alignment, and I applaud its efforts to try to wake people up as quickly as possible. After all, our quality of life and survival is dependent on us waking up and making different choices for ourselves and our Earth.
It is hard to choose a favorite part in the film, as the whole thing was very well done and every bit was highly educational. However, if I had to choose a part that stood out for me above all else it would be when the researchers and doctors talked about cancer. We all know that modern cancer rates are higher than anything we’ve ever seen before, at a staggering rate of 1 in 2.5 people getting cancer on average in North America. We have charities, donations, campaigns, and institutions all looking for or promising a cure, but we have overlooked the most obvious: we already have the cure, and it starts with what we eat and don’t eat.
Most people just accept it as normal that our bodies are unpredictable weak vessels that start falling apart after about 40 years, and become prone to all sorts of disease. This is nothing more than a faulty conditioned view, when in truth our bodies are self-healing systems that were meant to and are capable of lasting much longer than they do in perfect health. Consciousness created an incredible reality that is housed within what we understand as our Earth, and that same consciousness created so much magnificence and potential that is encompassed and expressed by the human body. The Earth, just as our body, is an intelligent system made to sustain itself given the right support, but we keep removing the support, throwing in stressors, and then wonder why things go wrong. If we lived in universal balance with ourselves and our Earth, we would not have even half of the diseases or suffering that we have today. But we do not. We live in a very disconnected and distracted way, and the consequences of this are visible all around.
This is where the following message from the film spoke to me so much and exemplifies the macro and micro, inner and outer approach that must be taken if we are to be effective: “Together we can save the Earth, but first we have to save ourselves.”
Conclusion
Since my personal awakening back in 2006, I have committed myself to living from the highest version of myself that I can be, as I cannot imagine a better way to exist in order to be of most value to myself and other. I have also committed myself to living in balance with the Self, other humans and all living beings, and nature as a whole. As part of these steps and transformations, I have removed almost all animal products from my diet, almost a year and a half ago, and have never felt better physically, mentally and emotionally. I am currently on my way to a fully vegan diet and lifestyle, and have only one last animal food to shed, this being eggs.
Through these changes I know that I am not only contributing to my own health and wellbeing, but also to that of the Earth’s. I am making the choice to no longer participate in any kind of violence against animals, because in truth there is no such thing as humane animal farming or slaughter; one imprisons a living being against their will and the other takes its life away. I now know that I have a choice and I choose a way that improves, not degrades, the quality of life for all beings. I know that I do not need to eat animals in order to survive, much less to thrive. I know that I am also exercising one less vote for the demand of animal products, which have so much destruction involved in how they are produced and processed. Today, I am aware of what the power of one can do. Now imagine what happens when one becomes two, and two becomes 4, and so on and so forth. This is how change happens, one person, one family, one community at a time, as it permeates around the world. While it would be great for massive and quick changes, may we never forget that the most powerful and sustainable changes often start with a single, small step in the right direction. We need to be the change that we want to see in the world.
Wherever you are on your journey, the most important thing that matters is not what you choose or what you do, but whether you are at peace with your choices and actions. Each of us comes into greater and greater awareness at our own pace and time, and each one of us knows when we are living out of alignment with the highest version of who we can be. We can try to suppress it, we can try to repress it, but one way or another our inner being lets us know when something is off about our thoughts, words, and actions. Either way, I hope you consider watching this important film.
You can watch the short trailer below or the longer trailer on the official site of: A Delicate Balance
Update 2014: Free Viewing
The film is available for free today on YouTube and the video is provided for you at the top of this article.