Little Fighter 2 Data Changer
Irmgard Rossie
Methods of food reporting include single day dietary recall interviews, food frequency questionnaires (most common), and even 7 day dietary recall interviews where they ask specific questions about foods consumed several days prior. The biggest limitation of observational nutrition studies is the inaccuracy of diet reporting. People under estimate, over estimate, forget, and even consciously leave out what they eat.
The Game Changers is a sleek new documentary that advocates for the plant based lifestyle by highlighting the heath and performance benefits of veganism over a traditional omnivore diet. It is lead and narrated by James Wilks, a UFC fighter and elite special forces combat trainer.
When you get funding for a research study and that study is published in a peer reviewed journal, there are laws in place that require the author and journal to disclose what organizations are involved in the design and funding of the study. This is so any potential conflicts of interests or bias are disclosed.
The thing about documentaries, which are more easily digested by the general public than peer reviewed science, is that there is no such law in place. Producers of documentaries are going to tell you whatever story they want. They might use anecdotal evidence and even flash some studies across the screen to bolster those claims (even if those studies are taken far out of context). But there is nothing that requires them to tell you where the money is coming from.
Growing up, James idolized Bruce Lee, in part because he was able to combine multiple disciplines of martial arts to create his signature (and effective) style of fighting. There is a quote from Bruce Lee at the very beginning of the film that is extremely important. It goes like this:
For the record, the strontium flame test has its own set of issues. For example, if it is used to analyze populations that ate mollusks or other shellfish, which, like plants, are known to have high levels of strontium, the flame test will burn red despite it being a meat eating population. *
They start off by highlighting the Connor McGregor vs Nate Diaz fight from 2016 in which Connor (meat eater) is defeated by Nate (plant eater). Frankly, it seems as though (because they provide no actual data on macronutrient ratio) Connor eats too much meat and probably not enough carbs. He brags about this, saying he routinely eats steak for breakfast, steak for lunch, and steak for dinner. Nate eats a plant based diet, which is also known as a diet that is VERY high in carbohydrates.
Ultra running, sprinting, and cycling all require massive amounts of carbs. There is no mention from any of these athletes about what they were doing before. They could be (and probably are) simply eating more carbs.
Again, not much mention of what diet and training looked like before except that Bryant and Derrick both admit to having a fondness for fried chicken. What a revolution, when you replace low quality fast food with a diet full of whole foods you start to feel and perform better.
Interestingly, Ilya Ilyin (Kazakhstan) is also a vegan and a much more successful weightlifter than Kendrick (2x Olympic champion in the same weight class) but he was later stripped of his titles after his samples were retested positive for anabolic steroids. Probably not the narrative they want here.
**Edit, it has been pointed out that the bread in the sandwich would also contain protein, which is true. Assuming 2.5g protein per slice of bread (sandwich bread), that would reduce the required amount of peanut butter from 5 tablespoons to 4 tablespoons brining the total to 510 calories, 20g protein, 34g fat, and 39g carbs.
James suggests that he has found a large body of research showing that plants have the opposite effect as meat on endothelial function. The filmmakers flash approximately 20 journal article references across the screen while touting the benefits of plants on endothelial function in contrast to the harm of animal protein with absolutely no mention of the proposed mechanism of action. I am including all of those studies in this review, but the main takeaway is that the ingestion of grape juice, blueberries, chokeberries, black tea, green tea, spinach, apples, dark chocolate, boysenberry, raspberries, and similar foods can improve endothelial function, increase phenolic metabolites, improve vessel function, lower blood pressure, and improve platelet function. In none of these studies is it suggested that meat should be removed from the diet. These studies simply suggest what we already know, and that is the inclusion of a variety of fruits and vegetables can improve many health markers.
In this part of the documentary, they point out that a head of iceberg lettuce contains more antioxidants than a piece of salmon. They may as well have said that a carrot has more fiber than a meatball. Antioxidants are far more abundant in plants than animals simply because the majority of them are vitamins and minerals. Micronutrients are degraded in the digestive tract of an animal. Yes, one of the benefits to eating plants is that you get LOADS of antioxidants. Eating meat does not negate the positive impact of those antioxidants.
While this study does show that adding fruits and vegetables to your diet decreases C-Reactive protein, it does not recommend a plant exclusive diet. The researchers also recognize that it is limited in scope at 3 weeks and there was no follow-up assessment done.
Most of the studies cited in this portion of the documentary do acknowledge the positive effect that plant intake has on heart health, specifically lowering risk factors for heart disease. They did not specifically recommend a cessation of animal product intake and acknowledged the contribution of other factors such as smoking, stress management, and exercise. It was further noted in one of the studies that large randomized intervention trials on the effects of vegetarian diet patterns are warranted in order to make meaningful recommendations.
This is a fun part of the documentary where they equate the consumption of meat to cigarette smoking. While there might be some correlation between meat consumption and cancer (or at least the conditions under which meat is consumed), there is certainly not the same causation that is now associated with cigarettes.
I would be remise not to mention that there is growing concern in the scientific community regarding the preferential exposure to pesticides for which fruits, vegetables, and cereals are the main contributors. The vegetarian population may be more exposed to pesticide residues than the general population due to specific dietary habits. Thus, this population should be considered for risk assessment of pesticide residues. Known risks of pesticide residues includes the development of cancer.
This particular factoid is from a pilot study performed on 7 men drinking milk exclusively from pregnant cows. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of drinking milk specifically from pregnant cows and not to serve as a model for dairy consumption as a whole.
This might be my favorite example of cherry picking and re-wording in the whole documentary. What the actual study has to say is that the ratio of protein and carbohydrate in the human diet has a major impact on cortisol and testosterone levels. It does not say that animal protein should be replaced with plants, but rather more carbohydrates should be consumed in relation to protein of any kind in order to decrease cortisol and increase testosterone.
The study above is actually a weight loss study that the filmmakers try to use to support the massing effects of plants. When really, the carb (plant) eating control group just had trouble losing weight as effectively as the keto group.
In another study taken out of context, the researchers actually come to the conclusion that egg consumption is not associated with the risk of cardiovascular disease and cardiac mortality in the general population. *
The irony of this is almost too much to take because if you look into funding for some of the aforementioned studies, you will find Hass Avocado and The North America Tea Trade Health Research Association. Not to mention the pea protein company that is funding this entire documentary and the lineup of medical professionals who all have a vegan agenda! Like seriously, you want to get salty here James?
However well intentioned, The Game Changers misses the mark by being a little too heavy handed with the disdain for meat and the plant based agenda. What I do agree with is that everyone would benefit from including a larger variety of vegetables and fruits in their diets. The science supporting this is sound. What I do not agree with is the idea that it has to be either/or. The fact is, there are plenty of very unhealthy vegans out there just like there are plenty of very healthy meat eaters. The real value is in finding a sustainable in-between that gets you the best of both worlds in a diet that you can live with forever.
LF2 was created by Marti Wong and Starsky Wong in 1999, and released in a long series of updates; the latest version, 2.0, was released on September 12, 2008. The game has proven to be very popular thanks to its simple gameplay, replayability, and free availability. The official web site has over 40 million hits and offers an action figure of one of the main characters via mail.
The game supports up to 4 human players on one computer and a total of 8 characters using online play or computer-controlled opponents. Characters are controlled using the keyboard or a gamepad. All keys can be set via a configuration menu.
In "Little Fighter 2", characters can be moved by pressing the respective up, down, left, and right keys. The defend, jump, and attack buttons are used to make the character perform an action. Attacking another character causes him or her to lose HP (health points), represented by a red bar on the heads-up display. Each character also has special attacks that can be activated by pressing a certain combination of keys. Most of these special attacks take up MP (mana points), represented by a blue bar on the heads-up display.
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