For years, I would spend my free time watching (and rewatching) tv shows and filling up my time refreshing my facebook and instagram feeds on the daily. But lately, i’ve been trying to fill my time up productively, and learn as much as I can, whenever I can. I’ve started listening to more and more podcasts (which i’m kind of obsessed with) and I’ve been watching documentaries whenever I have an hour or two to spare.

I used to think documentaries were boring. Maybe it’s because I thought of the documentaries of the past, all black and white, with annoying voice overs and too many facts with not enough visuals… But documentaries made in this decade are usually FAR from boring. Today we’ve got the technology and the information to make some resourceful, educational AND entertaining documentaries. Want to learn more about something but can’t be bothered to do the research? There’s probably a documentary about it! All you need to do is sit back and enjoy the variety of documentaries available to you on the internet!

I’ve been watching documentaries for a few years now, and I thought I’d share the Powerful Documentaries that have impacted my life.

Fed Up – Available on Netflix

A few months after I started eating healthy, I started seeing a lot of buzz about this documentary. I decided to watch it and maaan was I shocked. It was a huge eye opener and i’ve been recommending it ever since. This documentary is great because it exposes so many of the problems that lead to obesity. The documentary is mostly based on U.S.A. data but I believe most of what is said in it applies to other countries as well.

In the year and a half since I’ve watched this documentary, I’ve seen a change in how unhealthy & processed foods are viewed. I’m not saying everyone’s quit eating processed foods for good, but more people have become conscious of the health effects that junk foods have on our bodies.

I think it is up to us, the consumers, to voice our opinions. How do we do that? By purchasing BETTER foods. The first step to eating healthy is to quit drinking sodas and to eat less processed foods with unnecessary added sugars.

This is definitely a good documentary to get you started on a path to a healthier life.

Cowspiracy – available on Netflix

Ahhh, Cowspiracy. I first heard of this documentary last year, when my younger sister told me she wanted to watch it but was scared if she did, she’d become vegan. She watched it and became vegetarian for a few weeks, then quickly became vegan some time later. This made me really intrigued, but also kinda scared to watch it.

Damn. Damn this movie. As soon as I finished it, I started crying. It impacted me on a very deep level and I knew I had to change my ways. You can read more about my decision to stop eating meat here. In that blog post I write more about Cowspiracy and how it impacted my sister, my boyfriend and I.

Before The Flood

I can’t stress this enough: YOU NEED TO WATCH Before The Flood, Leonardo Dicaprio’s documentary on climate change, NOW!!
Over the past years, I’ve started trying to get more educated on the issue of climate change – and there’s a phrase that Leo says that really resonated with me: “the truth is, the more i’ve learned about this issue, and everything that contributes to the problem, the more I realise how much I don’t know about this issue.”
There are so many factors that contribute to climate change, and it baffles me that there are people that are still uninformed to the point of thinking “climate change isn’t real”.
Many of us are aware of the “big picture”, but not informed in depth about the small things that we’re unknowingly doing to contribute to climate change. This film is great in that it gives the viewers the information needed, in a clearly articulated science, to understand the urgency of (AND the solutions) to this issue.

It might seem overwhelming, but YOU can do SO MUCH, by doing so little everyday.
We can, and we must make a change if we want to save our only home 🌎🌍🌏

PS. I watched this documentary on Youtube but it isn’t available there anymore so you’ll have to browse the interwebs to find it!

Food Choices – available on Netflix

This documentary talks about 3 major areas: health, environment and animal ethics. It might seem like just another documentary that tries to convince you to go vegan, but it’s not. It combines science with real life experience, and it doesn’t really point fingers at anybody or anything.

The narrator/filmmaker, Michal Siewierski created this film to answer questions he and many others have about plant-based eating. He speaks to doctors, activists, athletes, chefs and other people about their experiences with plant-based eating, and he tackles some of the popular misconceptions about food and nutrition and gets down to the truth about plant based diets.

This film answered so many questions i’d been debating for quite some time. I now feel more prepared to take this next step that i’ve obviously been thinking about for some time.. transitioning to a plant based diet (why else would I be watching documentaries like these if I wasn’t considering going vegan right? haha). I talk more about that in my previous blog post.

I just realized 3 out of the 4 documentaries I talked about are about food. But food is seriously my passion and I’m always trying to learn as much as I can about the subject. What are some of your favorite documentaries on Food related topics? or other topics? Let me know!

I hope you guys watch at least one of these documentaries 🙂