‘You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment’ Review
Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
On a quest to determine how diets and lifestyle affect a person, researchers enlist identical twins to take part in a unique eight-weeks long study. In this 4-part Netflix documentary, titled ‘You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment,’ the twins are made to adopt two vastly different food habits for eight weeks while maintaining the same fitness regime.
Episode one introduces some of the twins participating in the research, showcasing them cooking and discussing their relationship with food. “Everybody knows that the average American diet is not very healthy. We sometimes call it the Standard American Diet, or S-A-D for SAD,” says Christopher Gardner, a Nutritionist scientist from Stanford University. He goes on to explain how most studies on diets face a primary challenge – everybody is unique. That’s why studying identical twins is a fantastic way to move forward, as they share the same genetic composition. Putting a pair of twins on different diets will help researchers draw more conclusive results on how food affects the body.
Each episode lasts about 40-50 minutes, and episode one is a good hook to draw audiences in, as it introduces 4 pairs of twins (among 21 who participated in the study) and also has a whole bunch of different experts taking the participants and audiences on the parameters that are going to be measured through the eight weeks. In each pair, one is put on a vegan diet, while the other is on a meat-based diet, however, each diet is designed to be as healthy as it can be.
The findings from the study are obviously fascinating and provide viewers with a lot of food for thought. However, given the documentary’s title, ‘You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment,’ I expected more focus on the twins and their journeys in adopting a whole new diet, including their training and exercise experiences. Instead, the documentary often meanders away from the twins, concentrating on different people who aren’t part of the study but have their own unique stories about ditching meat and going vegan.
For instance, the show features Daniel Humm, a famous chef who owns “Eleven Madison Park,” a restaurant that was ranked as the world’s best in 2017. Humm decided to make the restaurant completely vegan in 2021, drawing several headlines and harsh critique even before it reopened with a vegan menu. While the “Eleven Madison Park” story is excellent and could have been a separate one-hour documentary, it’s somehow intertwined with the twins’ experiment, along with other stories about people who believe in the vegan way of life.
Visually, the documentary is engaging, featuring colorful food shots and interviews with experts and individuals for whom food is not only personal consumption but also a part of their livelihood. From a farmer who owned a chicken farm that’s housed millions of hens over the years to small food business owners and students studying food science, ‘You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment’ packs in quite a range of perspectives.
While Episodes 2 and 3 are slower and feel somewhat fragmented, as the focus shifts away from the twins and their new diets to other individuals, Episode 4 brings the show to a compelling conclusion. The results from the studies serve as a big eye-opener for most participants, prompting them to question their body’s relationship with what they eat. If you hadn’t considered that most aspects of your health are directly connected to what you put in your mouth, ‘You Are What You Eat’ will likely make you rethink that perspective.
Rating: 7 on 10. You can watch the series on Netflix.
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