“What the Health” is a 2017 Netflix documentary that makes a passionate case for veganism, but it stretches the science so far in places that many of its central claims don’t hold up to scrutiny. Co-directed by Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn (the team behind “Cowspiracy”) and co-produced by Joaquin Phoenix, the film follows Andersen as he investigates links between animal products and chronic disease. The result is a polished, emotionally compelling film that mixes legitimate nutritional research with exaggerated conclusions and misleading comparisons.
What the Film Gets Right
The documentary isn’t wrong about everything. Its core premise, that plant-heavy diets can dramatically improve heart health, has real clinical support. In the well-known Lifestyle Heart Trial, 82% of patients with diagnosed heart disease who followed a plant-based diet program saw some reversal of artery plaque buildup, and 91% experienced fewer chest pain episodes. A separate long-term study tracked 18 patients with severe coronary artery disease on a plant-based diet for 12 years. Of the 17 who stuck with it, none experienced a single cardiac event during that period.
The film also correctly notes that the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified processed meat as a carcinogen in 2015, based on evidence linking it to colorectal cancer. That classification is real. An analysis of data from 10 studies found that every 50-gram daily portion of processed meat (roughly two slices of bacon) increases colorectal cancer risk by about 18%.
These are meaningful findings, and “What the Health” deserves some credit for bringing them to a wide audience. The problem is what the film does with those findings.
The Eggs and Cigarettes Comparison
One of the documentary’s most viral claims is that eating one egg a day is as bad for your life expectancy as smoking five cigarettes a day, due to cholesterol-driven plaque buildup in your arteries. This comparison is based on outdated research. The scientific understanding of dietary cholesterol has shifted significantly in recent years. For most people, eating cholesterol-rich foods like eggs does not raise blood cholesterol levels the way scientists once assumed, because the body adjusts its own cholesterol production in response. Eggs and cigarettes are not remotely comparable health risks, and presenting them as equivalent is one of the film’s most widely criticized moments.
Processed Meat: Carcinogen Doesn’t Mean Equally Dangerous
The film leans heavily on the WHO’s classification of processed meat as a Group 1 carcinogen, the same category that includes tobacco smoking. But the documentary implies this means eating processed meat is as dangerous as smoking. That’s a fundamental misreading of how the classification system works. Group 1 means there is strong evidence that something can cause cancer. It says nothing about how much cancer it causes. Smoking causes roughly 1 million lung cancer deaths globally per year. Processed meat is estimated to contribute to about 34,000 cancer deaths. They are in the same evidence category but not in the same risk universe.
Sugar, Fat, and Diabetes
Perhaps the film’s most misleading section involves diabetes. Several nutrition experts featured in the documentary downplay the role of sugar in health problems and instead point to animal protein and fat as the primary drivers of type 2 diabetes. This runs counter to a large body of research. Type 2 diabetes involves insulin resistance across multiple organs combined with a decline in the pancreas’s ability to produce insulin. Excess body fat, particularly around the midsection, is the strongest modifiable risk factor. Sugar, refined carbohydrates, and excess calories all contribute to weight gain and metabolic dysfunction. Framing animal fat as the sole villain while dismissing sugar’s role is not supported by mainstream nutrition science.
The Dairy and Cancer Question
“What the Health” highlights studies linking dairy consumption to higher cancer risk. The reality is more nuanced. A large meta-analysis looking specifically at dairy and prostate cancer found that high intakes of total dairy products were associated with a very small increase in prostate cancer risk, on the order of 1 to 3% per daily serving depending on the type of dairy. Interestingly, whole milk consumption was actually associated with a slightly decreased risk. The researchers noted that many of the studies they reviewed were affected by screening bias, making firm conclusions difficult. Other prominent studies have found no link between dairy and certain cancers at all. The film presents only the studies that support its thesis and ignores the rest.
Cherry-Picking as a Strategy
This selective presentation of evidence is the film’s defining flaw. Nutrition researchers at Colorado State University described the documentary’s approach as aligned with “the definition of propaganda,” noting that films like “What the Health” use fear-based strategies, are highly selective about the information they present, and cherry-pick the health professionals they feature to push a specific agenda.
The documentary interviews a handful of physicians who support its vegan message while framing mainstream health organizations as corrupted by industry money. Andersen confronts representatives from groups like the American Diabetes Association and the American Cancer Society on camera, implying they hide the truth about diet because of ties to the meat and dairy industries. These are dramatic moments that make for good filmmaking, but they substitute confrontation for evidence. The film never seriously engages with the large number of nutrition researchers who hold more moderate positions.
What Plant-Based Diets Can Actually Do
Strip away the exaggeration and there is a genuine, well-supported message buried in this film. Plant-based diets, when well planned, offer real health benefits. A collaborative analysis of five large prospective studies found that vegetarians had a 24% reduction in death rates from heart disease compared to non-vegetarians. In one lifestyle intervention program, switching to a plant-based diet reduced the prevalence of high blood pressure from 41% to 17% within a year. Obesity rates in the same group dropped from 60% to 37%, and abnormal cholesterol levels fell from 54% to 37%.
Plant-based diets also produced LDL cholesterol reductions of about 37% in clinical trials, a drop comparable to what cholesterol-lowering medications achieve. These are impressive results. You don’t need to believe that eggs are as bad as cigarettes to recognize that eating more plants and less processed meat is a solid health strategy for most people.
The Bottom Line on “What the Health”
The documentary works as activism but fails as journalism. It takes real, important findings about the benefits of plant-rich eating and inflates them into absolute claims that most nutrition scientists reject. If the film motivates you to eat more vegetables, cook more meals at home, and cut back on processed meat, those are genuinely positive outcomes. But if you walk away believing that sugar doesn’t cause diabetes, that an egg is equivalent to a handful of cigarettes, or that a vegan diet is a guaranteed cure for chronic disease, the film has done you a disservice. The strongest version of its own argument didn’t require the exaggeration.