Vegucated (2010)

           This documentary film follows three New Yorkers who volunteered to adopt a vegan lifestyle for six weeks. Tesla is a college student with a Honduran mother and Peruvian father. Brian is an actor, and Ellen is a single mom and psychiatrist. Like other movies and books on the subject, the argument follows two main lines. First is a pragmatic argument that eating vegan (or vegetarian) is healthier. And, in fact, all three participants lost weight, and improved their blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Then there's an ethical argument about animal cruelty in factory farming, and even in organic and family farming. "If slaughterhouses had glass walls," said Paul McCartney, "everyone would be vegetarian." Human compassion should mitigate animal cruelty. The biggest challenges in going vegan are that it implicates the other people in your life, and that it's very labor intensive (and probably more expensive). This film is only 76 minutes, and I watched it on Netflix streaming.