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Finally the Truth About Diet – The China Study Review

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It’s no wonder so many people are confused about diet and nutrition. There are books that support just about any opinion anyone might have about this important subject. Many are based on conjecture, marketing hype, wishful thinking, or hidden agendas.

Finally, here’s an authoritative diet and nutrition book based on hard science and exhaustive research. The author has authored hundreds of scientific papers, sat on numerous government expert panels, and helped shape national and international diet and health organizations. As a prominent research scientist, his numerous experiments are repeatable, peer-reviewed and conclusive.

This revealing book is written by one of the world’s most respected authorities in the field of nutrition. In his own words, he has been “in the system for almost fifty years, at the very highest levels, designing and directing large research projects, deciding which research gets funded and translating massive amounts of scientific data into national expert panel reports.”

My Highest Recommendation

There is so much useful information in this book, I consider it one of the most important books I have ever read.

Through the years, I have read many books on diet and nutrition, but this is, by far, the best. It is truly one-of-a-kind, simply because of the scientific nature of the information presented and the unique life experiences of the author. Never before has anyone had such a clear view of the facts of the relation of diet to disease, and never before has anyone written with such authority and candor about how the game of food is played these days.

The End of Dietary Confusion

The science of nutrition is relatively new, and there has been conflicting information for many years. The author invested his lifetime getting to the bottom of the hard questions of how diet is related to health and disease. His dedication to truth allowed the scientific method to settle the debate once and for all.

“The science is clear. The results are unmistakable. Change your diet and dramatically reduce your risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity.” – from the back cover of “The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health” by T. Colin Campbell, PhD and Thomas M Campbell II.

“The China Study” is quite simply the most comprehensive study of nutrition ever conducted. It presents a clear and concise message of hope as it dispels a multitude of health myths and misinformation. It details how and why we are inundated with so many exaggerations and outright lies in the field of diet, health and health care.

Many of us have suspected for years that the food industry, government regulatory agencies, and health care industry doesn’t have our best interests at heart. This enlightening book shines a glimmer of hope as it discloses the straight scoop on what really goes on behind the scenes.

The author pulls no punches but does a fine job of reporting on the facts without sensationalizing the story. He strikes me as a man of integrity who has been able to walk that fine line of working within a system of questionable integrity while serving the public’s interest with his involvement at the very highest levels of scientific research and government policy-making.

The science and the research conclusions have been accumulating through the years, but the average person rarely gets the real information because it has been “buried beneath a clutter of irrelevant or even harmful information – junk science, fad diets and food industry propaganda.”

This landmark book not only discloses the real information but also reveals why and how misinformation dominates our society. As you have probably already noticed, it’s all based on the Golden Rule – he who has the most gold makes the rules.

The Author’s Early Career

Dr. Campbell got his PhD at Cornell and spent some his early career at MIT where he helped discover dioxin, arguably the most toxic chemical ever found. (It’s an ingredient of Agent Orange – a defoliant used in the Viet Nam war.) In early experiments, he showed that nutrition consistently trumped chemical carcinogens. Lab animals that were given mega doses of this nasty carcinogen recovered when given good nutrition. The results were unmistakable.

One group of test animals was given aflatoxin, another carcinogen, and a diet of 20% protein, similar to the Western diet. Another group was given a diet of 5% protein. Every animal with the 20% protein diet had evidence of liver cancer and every single animal with the 5% protein diet avoided cancer. The score was 100 to 0. It doesn’t get any more conclusive than that.

Further experimentation proved that the cancer producing effects of these nasty carcinogens could be rendered insignificant by a low-protein diet.

“In fact, dietary protein proved to be so powerful in its effect that we could turn on and off cancer growth simply by changing the level consumed . . . Not all proteins had this effect. Casien, which makes up 87% of cow’s milk protein, promoted all stages of the cancer process . . . The safe proteins were from plants.” – Dr. Colin Campbell in “The China Study“

This early discovery launched Dr. Campbell into a lifetime career of scientific research of how nutrition relates to disease. What he discovered was a big surprise, even to him. (He was born on a dairy farm, believing his family was one of the privileged few enjoying the best diet known in the world. Milk was central to his early life, and like most of us, he was taught that dairy foods made strong bones and teeth.) Later research proved that this was absolutely wrong!

Why is the Book Called “The China Study?”

I mentioned that Dr. Campbell is one of the planet’s most preeminent experts in his field. He was the director of the most comprehensive study of diet, lifestyle and disease ever done with humans in the history of biomedical research. This huge, unprecedented project was a joint venture between Cornell University, Oxford University and the Chinese Academy of Preventative Medicine. This exhaustive study produced “more than 8,000 statistically significant associations between various dietary factors and disease!”

The scope of this study was enormous. Sixty-five counties in twenty-four of the twenty-seven provinces were included. 367 variables were studied, including such things as mortality rates on 48 different kinds of diseases, 109 indicators in blood, 36 food constituents, 60 diet and lifestyle factors, and 17 geographic and climatic factors.

Dr. Campbell estimates that the Chinese contribution to the project was 5 to 6 million dollars. The U.S. contribution was 2.9 million over a period of 10 years. If a similar study was done in the U.S., it would cost at least ten times as much.

Why China?

Besides the cost, there is a more important reason such a study was done in China. Their diet is vastly different than the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.). Only by comparing such a dramatically different diet to the typical Western fare was Dr. Campbell’s team able to learn such important information. For instance, almost everyone’s diet in America is unhealthy, so it’s difficult to come to intelligent conclusions when there are so few people in the U.S. eating healthy diets for comparison.

“In America, 15-17% of our total calories is provided by protein, and upwards of 80% of this amount is animal-based. In other words, we gorge on protein and get most of it from meat and dairy products. But in rural China, they consume less protein overall (9-10% of their total calories), and only 10% of it comes from animal-based foods.” – Dr. Colin Campbell in “The China Study“

It was interesting to learn that the Chinese people in the study eat about 33% MORE calories than people in the U.S., much less fat, and almost three times as much fiber. The diseases of affluence so common in the West are virtually non-existent in rural China.

After painstakingly analyzing the more than 8,000 significant associations between various dietary factors and disease, the results were conclusive:

“. . . people who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic diseases. Even relatively small intakes of animal-based foods were associated with adverse affects. People who ate the most plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease . . .

“The findings also show that heart disease, diabetes and obesity can be reversed by a healthy diet. Other research shows that various cancers, autoimmune diseases, bone health, kidney health, vision and brain disorders in old age (like cognitive dysfunction and Alzheimer’s) are convincingly influenced by diet.

“Most importantly, the diet that has time and again been shown to reverse and/or prevent these diseases is the same whole foods, plant-based diet that I have found to promote optimal health in my laboratory research and in the China Study . . .

“The scientific basis for my views is largely empirical, obtained through observation and measurement. It is not illusionary, hypothetical, or anecdotal; it is from legitimate research findings.” - Dr. Colin Campbell in “The China Study“

Heads in the Sand

There are people who don’t want to admit the truth, no matter how scientifically documented it is. Some people’s income depends upon misinformation. In fact, entire industries are based on our reluctance to act upon what we know to be true. (The tobacco industry, for example, as well as most of the modern food industry.)

The major food conglomerates know that people in the West are easily duped by multi-million dollar advertising campaigns. They are banking on the fact that we are slow to change our eating habits, even when presented with conclusive evidence that our current diet is killing us prematurely and afflicting us with all kinds of nasty diseases.

Still, we feel it is our right, our privilege, and our reward for a successful life to eat whatever we want, whenever we want it. If there is anything worse than ignorance, it is arrogant ignorance. We have been able to excuse our responsibility for our own health by hiding behind our ignorance for quite awhile. Not anymore.

The facts are in. Our Basic American Diet is not only B.A.D., but deadly. The question remains, “How arrogant will we be about remaining stuck in our old ways, even though now, we know better?”

That’s one of the wonderful aspects of freedom – we are free even to ignore the facts, make ourselves sick and kill ourselves prematurely. We are free to have bacon and eggs for breakfast, a McLunch, and beef for dinner while trying to compensate by taking anti-cholesterol medications. In fact, the entire health-care industry, the pharmaceutical conglomerates, and most of the food industry is counting on our arrogance to continue the huge profits made possible by our ignorance and willingness to swallow whatever hogwash their propaganda departments cook up.

The Distasteful Truth

Part four of “The China Study” goes behind the scenes to finally reveal how it all works at the highest levels of science, industry, government and big medicine. This information was eye-opening and enlightening, even though it was disturbing. This book provides a good way to take a peak in the dark corners and learn how all this really works.

Dr. Campbell has been involved at the highest levels throughout his lifetime, striving to remain dedicated to the truth as revealed by science. I am so grateful and impressed at his dedication to make the truth known, even though he’s spent a lifetime surrounded by powerful people whose personal fortunes depend on the status quo. He recognizes that average people like you and I have been bamboozled by these giant profit-making machines our entire lifetime, and he took it upon himself to tell it like it is. Throughout the book, I was repeatedly impressed with his integrity and candor.

“As far as I know, they do not pay scientists to ‘cook the data.’ They do not bribe elected officials or make sorid underhanded deals.

“The situation is much worse.

“The entire system – government, science, medicine, industry and media – promotes profits over health, technology over food, and confusion over clarity . . . My experiences within the scientific community illustrate how the entire system generates confusing information and why you haven’t heard the message of this book before.” – Dr. Campbell in “The China Study“

This refreshing book is like having your own translator. Dr. Campbell analyzes various research projects and brings to light where and how someone with their hidden agenda was able to put their own spin on the results. He has many helpful insights about some of the giants of the food industry, including The National Dairy Council, American Meat Institute, The United Egg Producers and many others. You will learn how these behemoths wield significant influence as they throw around their yearly budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars. You will learn how this money is spent to make sure you believe their product – whatever it is – is “good for you.” In the process, it will dawn on you how their unique spin on the “science” of nutrition becomes the “business” of marketing.

Q: What Builds Strong Teeth and Bones?
A: Cow Milk or Bull Shit?

One of the more appalling examples of abuse involves the dairy industry and America’s school lunch program. Imagine the audacity of subjecting innocent children to inaccurate information with no regard to their health, all in the name of creating lifelong customers.

“The dairy industry has enlisted the public education system as the primary vehicle for increasing demand for its products . . . America is entrusting the important task of educating our children about nutrition and health to the dairy industry . . . Based on the information in previous chapters, you know that if this is what our children are learning about nutrition and health then we are in for a painful journey, courtesy of Dairy Management, Inc. Obviously neither kids or their parents are learning about how milk has been linked to Type I diabetes, prostate cancer, osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis or other autoimmune diseases, and how casein, the main protein in dairy foods, has been shown to experimentally promote cancer and increase blood cholesterol and atherosclerotic plaque . . . The dairy industry truly is teaching its version of nutrition to the next generations of Americans. The industry has been doing this for decades, and it has been successful. I have encountered many people who, when they hear about the potential adverse effects of dairy foods, immediately say, ‘Milk can’t be bad.’ Usually these people don’t have any evidence to support their position; they just have a feeling that milk is good. They’ve always known it to be that way. You can trace some of their opinions back to their school days, when they learned there are seven continents, two plus two equals four, and milk is healthy. If you think about it this way, you will understand why the dairy industry has had such exceptional influence in this country by using education for its marketing purposes.” – Dr. Colin Campbell in “The China Study“

Maybe we should form a grassroots movement to modify and clarify their famous advertising campaign. Maybe instead of showing beautiful and famous people wearing a white milk mustache, we should offer a peek at what’s going on inside the body of milk drinkers. Instead of “Got Milk?” . . . how about something like this:

Got Phlegm?
Got Mucus?
Got Allergies?
Got Fat?
Got Casein Overload?
Got Cancer?
Got Duped?
Got Drowned in a Sea of Udder Seepage from the Mammary Glands of Barnyard Bovines?
Got Slow and Stupid Like Baby Cows from Drinking Food Nature Intended for Them -Not Humans?
Got a Problem with That?

Alternative: We’ve been drinking Rice Dream for years. It’s a tasty substitute for the stuff that comes out of cows, and it’s made from a plant – brown rice. Hint: try the vanilla flavor. It’s great in cereal, smoothies and just for drinking. “Original” is good for cooking and whenever the vanilla flavor might conflict with the other tastes. For instance, we use original Rice Dream when making Indian mango lassis. Yum.

The Government’s Take on Food

Do you remember hearing Lincoln’s famous words about government of the people, by the people and for the people? There’s a chapter in “The China Study” making it clear that a century and a half after the Gettysburg address, that same government appears to be of the industry, by industry and for industry. Lots of details shake any confidence you may have once had that government is interested in taking care of the individual. What makes it really scary is this kind of government is business as usual. It’s just the way it’s done.

Big Medicine

It’s not earth-shattering news that the mainline healthcare system has nothing to do with curing anyone of anything. Instead, they are famous for treating symptoms with profitable drugs and expensive procedures. That’s how the medical doctors are trained, so that’s what they do.

They work long and hard going to school and their carrot for all their effort, their upscale lifestyle, is based on the expectation of a lifetime of treating lots of sick people. Curing one of them would cut into their income because they would have one less to treat.

Nutritional Ignorance

Medical doctors know nothing about nutrition – it is not taught in med school – except in the first year as part of other basic science courses.

“It gets even worse! When nutrition education is provided in relation to public health problems, guess who is providing the ‘educational’ material? The Dannon Institute, Egg Nutrition Board, National Cattleman’s Beef Association, National Dairy Council, Nestle Clinical Nutrition, Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Baxer Healthcare Corporation and others have all joined forces to produce a Nutrition in Medicine program and the Medical Nutrition Curriculum Initiative. Do you think that this all-star team of animal foods and drug industries representatives is going to objectively judge and promote optimal nutrition, which science has shown to be a whole foods, plant-based diet that minimizes the need for drugs? Or might they try to protect the meat-centered, Western diet where everyone expects to pop a pill for every sickness? . . .

“So why doesn’t the medical system take nutrition seriously? Four words: money, ego, power and control.” – Dr. Colin Campbell in “The China Study“

Many personal experiences are detailed from Dr. Campbell’s illustrious career, bringing light to just how in-the-dark-ages the medical community is when it comes to healthy diet and nutrition. Nurses know more about nutrition than doctors do, and very few have any interest in it at all. In fact, some view it as a threat and actively discourage any mention of diet because it cuts into their business as usual. Experiences are related where hospital administrators black ball nutritional awareness programs, apparently because of the conflict of interest of where the hospitals make their money – complicated procedures and expensive surgeries, for instance.

To Stay Healthy, Stay Away from the AMA for as Long as Possible

When we recognize the truth about this situation, it helps drive home the point that each one of us is personally responsible for our health. The medical doctors come in handy if a broken bone needs to be set, but don’t expect them to know how to advise you on proper nutrition and lifestyle choices to maintain optimal health. They don’t go to college for eight or ten years studying health – they study disease.

They don’t treat (or profit from) health. They treat (and profit from) the symptoms of disease.

Once that’s understood, you can get on with creating a healthy life with the minimum amount of attention required from the medical establishment.

This is Not a New Idea

The idea of nutrition’s relationship to health goes back a long way. But these days, the truth is well-hidden and confused with conflicting information by those in the business of profiting from our ignorance.

About 2500 years ago, Plato wrote a dialog between two characters, Socrates and Glaucon. Socrates says the people should subsist on simple foods like barley, wheat, olives, onions, cabbage, figs, beans, peas, nuts and berries . . . “And thus, passing their days in tranquility and sound health, they will, in all probability, live to an advanced age.”

Glaucon argues that this is a diet for swine and that the people should instead live in a civilized manner, reclining on couches eating “the usual dishes and dessert of a modern dinner.” He is referring to a luxurious diet of meat and sweets.

Socrates replies, “if you wish us also to contemplate a city that is suffering from inflation . . . we shall also need great quantities of all kinds of cattle for those who may wish to eat them, shall we not?”

Glaucon agrees. Socrates continues, “Then shall we not experience the need of medical men also to a much greater extent under this than the former regime?” Glaucon agrees again.

Socrates observes that this will require more land for raising the cattle. The demand for so much land will produce violence as people attempt to take the land of another. This situation will require a system of justice to arbitrate the disputes. Socrates explains, “When dissoluteness and diseases abound in a city, are not law courts and surgeries opened in abundance, and do not lawyers and physicians hold their heads high, when numbers of even well-born persons devote themselves with eagerness to these professions?” He is saying in such a “luxurious” city of sickness, disease, and crime, doctors and lawyers in great numbers will become necessary and common.

Plato’s dialog does a good job of painting a picture of what a city might look like when the citizens base their diet on animals and sweets. Isn’t it amazing that one of the greatest intellectual thinkers and communicators of all time anticipated the perils of rampant meat-eating and poor nutritional choices 2500 years ago?

“How did Plato predict the future so accurately? He knew that consuming animal foods would not lead to true health and prosperity. Instead, the false sense of rich luxury granted by being able to eat animals would only lead to a culture of sickness, disease, land disputes, lawyers and doctors. This is a pretty good description of some of the challenges faced by modern America! . . .

“How did we get to a place where the companies that profit from our sickness are the ones telling us how to be healthy; where the companies that profit from our food choices are the ones telling us what to eat; where the public’s hard-earned money is being spent by the government to boost the drug industry’s profits; and where there is more distrust than trust of our government’s policies on food, drugs and health? How did we get to a place where Americans are so confused about what is healthy that they no longer care?” - Dr. Colin Capmbell in “The China Study“

Truth is Good

All of this could be discouraging when you realize how corrupt and money-driven our food chain has become. However, I choose to be encouraged and inspired.

I am grateful for the freedom of the press so the truth can be told. Anytime the truth is revealed, there is hope. Before the truth is known, hope is often absent.

Ye Shall Know the Truth, and the Truth Shall Set You Free

Before knowing the truth, we were blind victims of the system. We were simply faceless drones, running through the maze like helpless rats, conditioned by the system to be lifetime consumers adding to the bottom line of several unfathomable mega-corporations. Now that the facts are in and the information is available, we can make informed choices, intelligently and deliberately.

We can choose a lifetime of health and vitality thanks to the dedication to science, truth and integrity evidenced by the author and his life-changing book, “The China Study.”

Pass It On

If you are even remotely interested in your own health and well-being, read this book. When you do, I’d be willing to bet that, like me, you’ll want everyone you care about to read it too. I decided to write this review because I think it is very important information. Also, it’s important to me to do whatever is within my power to live a life of optimum health and independence from the medical establishment.

I care about the truth and am thrilled to find it expressed so clearly and completely. I care about spreading the good news revealed in “The China Study” to everyone I care about. If these things are important to you too, feel free to pass along this article to the people you care about.

There’s an easy way to spread the word at the bottom of this article. Look for the link that says, “Email this article to a friend.” Hopefully, it will help inspire them to read the book too.

For the price of one meal in a restaurant ($16.95 U.S. retail), you can buy this moving book and benefit for the rest of your life – and it can be a longer life as well as a healthier life. This book gives us back our personal power by reminding us that we have the choice to create the quality of life we desire. We make that important choice every time we look down our noses at what’s at the end of our fork.

Here’s the Amazon link to the book:

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