For centuries shamans and medicine men and women have treated indigenous peoples with plants known to cure various ailments. Fifty years ago, Dr. Max Gerson used diet to combat migraine headaches, arthritis, heart disease, allergies, and many other degenerative diseases. He called it a whole body approach to healing. The Gerson Therapy consists of cleansing and reactivating the body through organic foods, juicing, a salt-free diet, and coffee enemas. Writer and director Steve Kroschel has created a compelling documentary about the work of Dr. Gerson and the manifold ways in which the multi-billion dollar medical and chemical industries have tried to squelch his pioneering work in curing cancer and other degenerative diseases.

After the death of his wife, Kroschel decides to home-school his 15-year-old son Garrett. Sensing the boy's fascination with animals and their diet, he gives him a book by Dr. Gerson. Excited by this medical story, the teenager begins his own study of this regimen and its viability. He discovers that many of neighbors in their small Alaska town are interested in his investigation. Garrett is shocked by the vehemence of some scientists and doctors who believe that the Gerson Therapy has no merit whatsoever. But on a cross-country tour, he and his father (who serves as narrator) meet with Dr. Gerson's daughter Charlotte and grandson Howard Straus who are carrying on his work much to the dismay of the medical establishment. They also meet with patients who were diagnosed with terminal cases of cancer and healed after adapting the Gerson Therapy.

This movie is scarier than the vampire movies in vogue right now. Garrett interviews three experts who discuss the causes behind the cancer epidemic sweeping America: Dr. David Kennedy, the past president of the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology, who sums up the damage done to bodies by the mercury in amalgam dental fillings; Dr. John Olney, a renowned neuroscientist and leading researcher on the links between aspartame, MSG (monosodium glutamate), and brain cancer; and Dr. Hal Higgins, a former licensed dentist, who exposes the health hazards of fluoride. Garrett also learns about the dangers of genetic food engineering, the lack of any concerted regulation by the FDA, and the FDA's crusade against alternative medicines and therapies.

The Beautiful Truth is a powerful documentary that manages to be both a chilling expose of the toxins in food that are causing so much disease and an affirmation of a plant therapy that has cured cancer in many individuals.

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