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Review: Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition

T. Colin Campbell's earlier book The China Study (2006) was a distressing, technical read with chapter after chapter filled with research on dread diseases including heart disease and cancer. But it had an uplifting note: a solution!

"Good food and good health is simple," Campbell said. A whole foods, plant-based diet staves off heart disease and cancer — diseases that are not inevitable, but can be prevented, even treated, by eating only healthy foods.  

The China Study Cookbook (2013) the "official companion to The China Study" by LeAnne Campbell, PhD (T. Colin Campbell's daughter) is filled with recipes to prepare life-giving foods accompanied by beautiful photos (by Steven Campbell Disla).

The focus of Whole (2013) is neither the silver lining nor the yummy foods although it is reiterated — "There is no healthier way to eat than a whole food, plant-based diet, without added fat, salt or refined carbohydrates."

In Whole, Campbell expresses his frustration and anger that the science of nutrition and its role in preventative health care has not affected government policy. Even as someone involved with helping set national nutrition guidelines, Campbell has not been able to affect change from a top down approach. Evidence-based nutrition, diet and preventative health measures have been largely ignored. A grassroots movement is needed, Campbell says, to change our culture of food and health.

Campbell makes a strong point. Here are just a few of his findings of his more than 50 years of nutrition research including more than 300 professional research papers from lab studies on rats to human population surveys (i.e. The China Study):
  • Cancer growth is controlled far more by nutrition than by genes or environmental hazards/carcinogens. 
  • Relatively low animal protein intake triggers cancer. 
  • Cow's milk protein (casein) promotes cancer growth. 
Campbell is frustrated and angry that: 
  • industries i,.e. dairy, egg and beef have been successful at sidelining this information; 
  • nutrition advice focuses on specific nutrients and is aimed at selling supplements when it is the complex interactions of the many nutrients (in leafy greens, for example) that provide the benefit, not individual vitamins and minerals which, isolated, can be harmful; 
  • powerful organizations meant to promote health such as the American Heart Association and American Cancer Society focus on cures that do not materialize rather than disease prevention; 
  • billions of dollars are poured into health care research, but Americans are sicker than ever; and
  • people are given confusing, misinformation about their health and aren't given information from taxpayer-funded research with, "Not a word about prevention. About empowerment. About the fact that simple changes in diet may turn off cancer progression."
It's valuable information, which, unfortunately, makes for a dry and depressing read.

Fortunately, Campbell is not alone. Others agree with him that whole-foods, plant-based eating is a key to health and there's a movement building behind it. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D., Dean Ornish M.D., John McDougall M.D., Neal Barnard M.D., and Joel Furhman M.D. have also written books on the topic.

Rip Esselstyn (Caldwell Esselsytn's son) has just published My Beef With Meat (2013), a follow up to his popular Engine 2 Diet: The Texas Firefighter's 28-Day Save-Your-Life Plan that Lowers Cholesterol and Burns Away the Pounds (2009).

Documentaries such as Forks Over Knives, Vegucated, and Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead present the information in entertaining ways.

Dr. Michael McGregor, M.D. at nutritionfacts.org creates great 2-4 minute videos about plant-based nutrition info including information on how government food/nutrition policy can help or hinder our health.

Watch: 
The McGovern Report 
Dietary Guidelines: From Dairies to Berries
Dietary Guidelines: It's All Greek to the USDA

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