Fat Sick and Nearly Dead

Forty-one year old Australian Joe Cross has had a rare autoimmune disease for nine years from an adult life filled with bad eating, which has also made him obese. To treat his disease, he is on prednisone, a strong prescription medication with negative side effects. He decided to make a radical change to his eating life, first by going on a sixty day fresh juice fast, documenting this journey on film, and doing it in the United States, a country renowned for its unhealthy population due to bad eating; and second by then changing to a predominantly micro-nutrient based diet, which is largely comprised of plant products. He spends the first thirty days in New York under the care of Dr. Joel Fuhrman, a nutrition specialist, and the remaining thirty days on the road traveling to the west coast. Along the way, he speaks to many people about what he's doing, some who live and eat healthily, some who are bad eaters but who have not yet developed health issues, and many who are both bad eaters and have health issues, most in that latter group who refuse to change their lifestyle, stating that they would rather die young and happy than change to healthier eating. This film also follows two people who Joe meets. One is Siong Norte who agrees to try a ten day juice fast to see if it helps with her primary health issue of migraine headaches. Two is the more severe case of Phil Staples, an Iowa based trucker who has the exact same autoimmune disease as Joe, but who is carrying approximately one hundred more pounds than Joe at the start of his process. Following his own sixty day journey, Joe dedicates his time to at least the start of Phil Staples's journey.