Films / Movies / Films & Videos / Films About Diet and Food

Vegan 2018, A Review of the Vegan Plant-Based Movement

by Jennie Richards · Published August 15, 2019 · Updated February 24, 2020

“When you eat the standard American diet, you get the standard American diseases.”

“If people are eating a debilitating diet, you are going to get debilitating diseases.”

“We are contemplating an agricultural crisis, an ecological crisis, and the climate crisis, and it’s caused by the way we produce our food.”

This is Plant Based News’s fourth in a series of annual films documenting the growth of the vegan and plant-based movement around the world. Vegan 2018 charts the impacts of the movement, the successes, the challenges, and the adversity that was faced by the movement in 2018. Enjoy this fascinating look back on 2018 and see the progress made in the last year!

Watch Vegan 2017

Watch Vegan 2016

Watch Vegan 2015

Highlights for 2018

The documentary highlights some of the major shifts that took place in 2018 regarding the vegan plant-based movement, including:

The meat industry found itself under increasing pressure as veganism and plant-based eating continued to grow.
The lies created by powerful industries were revealed.
The evidence is very clear — the future Is plant based.
A number of research studies conducted and published supporting the fact that a whole foods, plant-based diet is optimal for health.
Bill Gates and other leading investors joined Beyond Meat to inject the company with a massive investment to reduce meat consumption and increase plant-based meat.
Beyond Meat with the Beyond Burger is selling well ahead of all meat in some stores. The Beyond Burger is the top-selling burger in the meat section in many grocery stores across the U.S.
Hospitals are starting to incorporate plant-based vegan foods because the food is far healthier.
Many of the world’s top competitive athletes went vegan. These athletes all agree that a plant-based vegan diet has made them stronger and more successful.
Helsinki Fashion Week banned leather and London Fashion Week banned fur.
A big number of fashion designers banned fur in 201, including: Coach, Chanel, Jean Paul Gaultier, Gucci, Jimmy Choo, Versace, Diane Von Furstenberg, 3.1 Phillip Lim, Belstaff and Burberry.
Los Angeles became the largest city to ban the sale of fur and San Francisco followed suit in 2018.
ASOS banned silk, mohair, feather and cashmere from their lines. Burburry banned angora from their lines. Top Shop, H&M, and Marks & Spenser’s all banned mohair from their brands.
Food stores expanded meat-free offerings. And clean meat was announced that it could be brought to market by the end of 2018. Clean meat products are grown from a tiny amount of animal cells, instead of animals raised, confined and slaughtered.
Tyson Foods and other meat based companies are investing in clean meat companies and plant-based food companies. Significant capital was transferred in 2018 away from animal product companies into plant-based food companies.
The dairy industry lost so much money in 2018, that tax-payers in the U.S. and Canada had to bail them out. Canadian dairy farmers received a $250 million bailout from U.S. taxpayers.
The United Nations branded meat as the world’s most urgent problem.
Hurricane Florence killed millions of animals inside factory farm warehouses, farmers left millions of pigs, cows, birds to drown on factory farms, so they could collect insurance.
Looking back at the last 12 months, the press continually brought up veganism, vegetarianism, plant-based foods, and government institutions finally recognized the importance of a plant-based diet.

So what will you bring to 2019?

Quotes from the Film

“It has no place in civilized society. Period.”

“We are contemplating an agricultural crisis, an ecological crisis, and the climate crisis, and it’s caused by the way we produce our food.”

“80% of all the world’s antibiotics are fed to farm animals.”

“Dropping dairy by the highest-performance athletes in the world.” See www.SwitchForGood.com.

“We can produce enough protein for the world using only 2% of the Earth’s land if we did it the way Impossible Foods is with plant-based meat, instead of using 45% of world’s land that is currently being used raising animals for food.”

“100% of famine is the result of animal agriculture. This is a fact. It takes 280 pounds of grain to make one pound of meat. If you feed that grain directly to people, you end famine and starvation.”

“The only diet shown toreverseheart-disease is a plant-based diet.” (Cardiovascular Medicine)

“A plant-based diet is also shown toreverseType 2 Diabetes, hypertension and prostate cancer. And a plant-based diet is also shown to prevent 14 of the 15 leading causes of death.”

“With a plant-based diet, doctors say that people who start eating a vegan diet can heal Type 2 Diabetes completely.”

“People with hypertension that have been on multiple medications for years, have gone completely off all of their medications with a plant-based diet.”

“When you eat the standard American diet, you get the standard American diseases.”

“If people are eating a debilitating diet, you are going to get debilitating diseases.”

“Milk does a body good – is not science, it’s just marketing, it’s total nonsense.”

“When people eat a lot of animal products, particularly meat based proteins, your arteries are more likely to get clogged, your arteries will constrict, the arteries are more likely to get clogged up with plaque, you get chronic inflammation, your risk of premature death goes up correspondingly.”

“The strongest land animals all get their protein through plants.”

“It’s institutionalized torture of animals on factory farms. Systemic animal suffering is inside factory farms.”

“What we’re doing to animals is unspeakable, despicable and ignorant.”

“The meat industry is right up there with the coal industry, fossil fuel industry, the oil industry – they all stop us from thinking, from questioning – they are performing a grave service to humanity.”

“The most important message I have is that you make a difference, what you do each day, is affecting what is going on in the world each day. Use your life wisely.”

“Animal agriculture and many farmers in it are desperately trying to hang onto the status quo.”

“Ag-Gag laws prevent people from filming on factory farms – or any farms – to silence the truth about the animal cruelty involved with our food.”

“Meat and dairy are hurting families, they are creating disease, they are making kids sick – so what these animal industries are doing in their marketing is really sick and morally wrong.”

“After watching the film Dominion – “When you take a step back and look at what we do) it is so F*cked up! So F*cked up. How the Hell could I NOT know this?? I feel so stupid that I didn’t know animals were treated this way. All this F*cked up shit is thought to be normal. It’s just sick.” #DominionMovement