A friend recently gave me a copy of T.Colin Campbell’s national bestseller, The China Study: Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-Term Health. It’s an amazing compilation of information about how diet affects human health — from heart disease to obesity, diabetes to breast cancer, auto-immune deficiencies to bone, kidney, eye and brain diseases. The premise of the book is that what you eat can have profound negative or positive affects on the likelihood and extent of such ailments.
In the general sense, this will not come as news to most people. But this book goes beyond the general sense, which is what made it interesting. The major conclusions, while based soundly on many decades of research by numerous researchers around the world, would nevertheless be considered daring by mainstream media:
First, on the basis of the effects of animal products on health (not to mention the environment), he advocates eliminating animal products from the diet. Of course, those of us with veg leanings won’t feel surprised by this, but many people in western cultures will.
This brought to mind the book Hungry World (Faith D’Aluiso and Peter Menzel, 2007), a photodocumentary comparing a week’s groceries for 30 families in 24 countries, including recipes for meals. Even for those who anticipate large differences between the wealthy and the poor, it is startling. Not only the great disparities, but also the difference in proportion of processed vs. whole foods. While I don’t mean to make less of the degree of poverty, it is interesting how much fresh food many of the families in less wealthy countries eat compared to the diets of average folks in wealthy countries. It’s disgusting, really, to see all that packaging. Anyway, to bring it back around to the China Study, of course the obesity rates are higher in “developed” countries, and one would expect that other diet related illnesses might also be. I’d love to see more China Study-type statistics correlated with the Hungry World profiles.
Second, he explains that in his view, there are powerful corporate forces that have kept this conclusion from the People. It’s fascinating stuff, reminiscent of the kinds of conspiracy revealed in Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation.
The best part is knowing that there are so many nutritious, whole foods out there to eat, and even if you don’t entirely eliminate meat from your diet, you can eat better. — And it can be truly delicious!
