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If you’re like everyone else that’s been working remotely at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, you’ve probably gone through all of the Hollywood blockbuster movies. We’ve put together our favorite keto documentaries on Amazon Prime Video.
If you’re new to the ketogenic diet then these keto documentary films are helpful for explaining the science and history of the ketogenic diet. These documentaries will also explain how the current low-fat guidelines came to be. It’s an interesting look into how sometimes politics and personal agendas can overcome science.
Keto Documentaries on Amazon and Amazon Prime
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Over the last 5 to 6 years, the film documentary industry has focused its attention on the benefits of a ketogenic diet and has looked at the flawed public health policies in the United States that had demonized fat as the source of all health problems from heart disease to cancer to the obesity epidemic.
These “keto-friendly” documentaries pull back the curtain on how a low-fat nutrition recommendation became the rallying cry for nutritionists and the American Heart Association without the hard science and research to back up those claims. If you’ve been concerned if animal fat and saturated fat are unhealthy compared to a low-fat diet, this keto documentary will put you at ease.
Keto Documentary #1 – Fat Fiction (2020)
One of the newer documentaries on the low-carb, high-fat ketogenic diet, Fat Fiction looks at how misguided public health and nutrition policy in the United States over the past 50 years has led to a misguided “conviction” of fat as the enemy of health. Directed by Jennifer Isenhart, the documentary features commentary from Dr. Mark Hyman and investigative science writers Nina Teicholz and Gary Taubes. Fat Fiction also features the South African low-carb diet advocate Dr. Tim Noakes, intermittent fasting expert Dr. Jason Fung as well as appearances by Dr. Robert Lustig, Dr. Eric Westerman, and Dr. Sarah Hallberg.
Fat Fiction does an excellent job walking viewers thru some of the confusion that science has placed on a well-formulated ketogenic diet and why healthy fats do not deserve the blame for the many ills heaped upon it.
Fat Fiction has a current Amazon Prime Video rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars.
Keto Documentary #2 Fat: A Documentary (2019)
Fat: A Documentary premiered in 2019 and is the work of long-time personal trainer, health advocate, and best-selling author Vinnie Tortorich and filmmaker Peter Curtis Pardini. The documentary reviews the surprising origin of veganism in the United States as well as research early in the 20th century on high-fat diets that remained ignored for nearly 100 years before diving into how competing scientific, corporate and political interests combined to push an unproven low-fat diet onto an unsuspecting public in the U.S. as the solution for rising heart disease. Tortorich’s documentary includes insight from scientific writers Gary Taubes and Nina Teicholz as well as a strong supporting cast of scientific experts.
Watch the trailer for Fat: A Documentary
Keto Documentary #3 – That Sugar Film (2015)
Following in the footsteps of other dietary experimentation films like Supersize Me with Morgan Spurlock, That Sugar Film, starring Damon Gameau, documents his 6-week self-experimentation of adding 40 teaspoons of sugar a day to his diet to replace the healthy fats in his diet. The documentary also points out how the sugar industry has worked to confuse the health implications of highly refined carbohydrates (i.e. added sugar) diet on the American people. This nutrition documentary demonstrates how much “hidden” sugar there is in a typical American diet.
Keto Documentary #4 – Fed Up (2014)
Produced by Katie Couric, directed by Stephanie Soechtig, and featuring appearances by former President Bill Clinton, TV personality Katie Couric and Michelle Simon, the documentary Fed Up looks at the pseudo-science behind the low-fat movement in the United States led by the food industry in an apparent aim to put profits above the health of the American people.
Keto Documentary #5 – Carb-Loaded: A Culture Dying To Eat (2019)
Carb-Loaded: A Culture Dying to Eat is the 2019 documentary that explores the explosion of the high-carbohydrate, refined foods in the United States which parallel the obesity and diabetes epidemics. Written and directed by Lathe Poland, the film looks at how “low-fat” foods were promoted as “healthy” to the American public and how these beliefs of “low fat = good” and “fat = bad” have permeated American food culture at the detriment of our health.
Want to learn more about a low-carb ketogenic lifestyle? Check out our Ketogenic Diet Guide for Beginners.