By Dr. T. Colin Campbell on December 6, 2010
These are momentous times for sharing with the public the exceptional benefits of a whole foods, plant-based diet. By now, many people have seen President Clinton’s comments on CNN and elsewhere about the dramatic turnaround in his personal health when he adopted this dietary lifestyle. Some of us have been doing research, clinical practice and writing about this dietary lifestyle for many years, sometimes having to overcome considerable skepticism (my own experience in experimental research and public policy making on food and health goes back a half-century). We all are indebted to President Clinton for his candor, indeed courage, in sharing his personal experience with the public.
Those of us in the professions have seen many times what this dietary lifestyle does – and I confess that sometimes we have been discouraged in not being able to penetrate the public mindset. But in the last two to three years the idea is definitely growing, mostly because people simply try it and see dramatic benefits for themselves. For myself, I have presented more than 300 lectures since the 2005 publication of our book, “The China Study” (co-authored with Thomas Campbell, MD), and the majority of my more recent lectures have been at medical venues and conferences. I personally have seen a very welcome adoption of this idea by an increasing number of medical practitioners, many wondering why they had not received nutrition training in medical school.
President Clinton has turned on a flashlight that will cast a very long ray of light.
One of the truly remarkable benefits of this dietary lifestyle is its ability not only to prevent future disease events, but even to treat already diagnosed diseases, an incredible opportunity to avoid expensive medical interventions, drugs and most dietary supplements. Reliable evidence exists to support this view both from the laboratory and from the clinic.
Even though the biology is complex, the message is simple. Choose a whole foods plant based diet – vegetables, legumes, fruits, cereal grains of your preference, but include lots of antioxidant-rich colored vegetables. Minimize added oil (no frying in oil), sugar and fat – none is best. Animal based foods (including dairy) and processed foods are a no-no. Use some of your favorite herbs and spices to befriend your palate and you’re on your way. Find great recipes on the Internet and in many cookbooks. After a month or two, you will eliminate your addiction for fat and, presto! – a whole new world of tastes!
The benefits of this dietary lifestyle are unusually broad, going beyond the prevention of most diseases like cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, obesity, certain autoimmune diseases and nuisance diseases (colds, flu, acne, headaches, etc.). This dietary strategy has a remarkable ability to act fast to reverse already diagnosed diseases. This is food as medicine, at its best.
President Clinton specifically named our book, “The China Study,” and I applaud his forthright mention of his not using dairy. I came from a dairy farm and started my career strongly believing in the nutritional value of this food, especially for its protein content. But, in our experiments, we documented multiple times a remarkable ability of the main protein of cow’s milk, casein, to promote cancer growth and to do so by a plethora of mechanisms. For many years, animal-based protein, like casein, has been known to increase blood cholesterol and encourage early stages of heart disease.
This is a very old story, with some of its most relevant parts beginning with the ancient Greek philosophers and medical caretakers. Important elements of this story also have been published in the scientific literature for at least the past century then, too often, left unnoticed.
But there is much yet to do, not the least of which is figuring out how best to inform the public in a way that offers a convenient, efficacious and affordable way to sustain behavior change, if they wish. This is one instance where government could help, simply informing its citizens of important information that comes into their possession, while letting them decide whether to take advantage of it. I get an equally enthusiastic response for this message from either side of the political spectrum. The last time I checked, I recall almost everyone wanting personal health. Could this be a bridge to span the political divide?
On March 11, 2011, a professionally produced documentary film, “Forks Over Knives,” will be released in theaters and offers further insight into this story. These are exciting times because this message offers an opportunity for all to benefit, regardless of political persuasions. It’s a great bridge to help resolve these contentious times.
Originally posted at HuffingtonPost.com.
Read More
By Gabriel Cousens MD on October 19, 2010
Dear Dr. Mercola,
Thank you for your excellent, thoughtful, and sensitive discussion on vegetarianism and the China Study. I have been researching and exploring the benefits of a plant-source-only diet for over 38 years (since 1973). Given the length of my practice and the scope of my experience, I have come to some working conclusions on the interrelated topics of diet, health, and longevity. I am writing this for the people who have become confused by your subtle, but clear avocation for a meat-centered diet over a plant-source-only diet, as they are tentatively inspired to shift from one paradigm of health and consciousness to a new level. Although I appreciate most of your points, my main objection is that your implication that people with higher metabolic protein requirements need to eat meat. Based on my extensive, successful, clinical experience over the course of 38 years of helping people do exactly that, with a 99.99% success rate, your position is misleading and untrue. Even former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who used to eat McDonalds hamburgers in front of the press, has turned to a plant-based diet and now drinks almond milk smoothies!
In summary based on my extensive clinical experience in supporting thousands of people becoming successful on a plant source only diet, I have found:
1. We are unique individuals for whom a consistently successful plant-source-only approach requires a thoughtful application of a constitutional approach to organizing ones diet. This includes, contrary to your subtle implication, that if someone is a fast oxidizer (i.e., needs a higher protein diet) that they need to be a meat eater. There are plenty of high protein sources in a plant-source diet, (such as spirulina, chlorella, and Klamath Lake algae – which are 60-70% protein and 40% assimilable as compared to meat, chicken, and fish, which are 14-16% assimilable). In other words, it is no problem for a fast oxidizer (high protein ratio need) to be 100% successful on a plant-source-only, live-food diet. I have had only one person in 40 years who wanted to be a vegan, not be successful using this approach; and they grew up near the Arctic Circle.
2. General health, vitality, endurance increases on the physical plane and an increased spiritual desire on a spiritual plane on a plant-source-only, 80% live-food diet. That is not to say, it is not possible to evolve spiritually on a meat-centered diet, but intense spiritual practices, such as the Tibetan monks utilize, are needed to overcome the negative impact of eating meat. As of 2005, the Dalai Lama has asked all Buddhists to return to a vegetarian way of life. Based on my clinical experience with thousands of meditators, a meat-centered diet suppresses the flow of the spiritual energy.
3. A plant-source-only, organic, at least 80% live-food, moderate fat and either low protein or carbohydrate intake, depending on constitution; low-glycemic, high-mineral, well hydrated and low caloric diet is best for general health, longevity, and spiritual life. Using these understandings and approaches 99.99% of the population can be successful, healthfully and spiritually, on a plant-source-only, organic, live-food diet.
4. Both a meat-centered and plant-source-only diet require supplementation for optimal health. It is a subliminal myth that a meat-centered diet does not require supplementation and therefore is better than a plant source only diet.
5. Eating higher on the food chain (meat, poultry, fish, and dairy) exposes one to significantly more environmental carcinogenic and neurotoxic substances which may strongly suggest that not only meat, but these toxins, increase inflammation and chronic disease associated with a flesh centered diet such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s (now seen as significantly related to environmental toxin exposure), diabetes, and heart disease, thus decreasing general health, wellbeing, and longevity in modern times. Unfortunately, to prove this with absolute scientific certainty may take thirty years or longer, as it did to prove smoking causes lung cancer. I suggest that the risk/benefit ratio encourages us to move to a safer and healthier diet now, as many may not make it another 30 years on the typical American meat-centered diet. Just like 40 years ago, I advised people to stop smoking before it was proven. As far back as 1990, in my book Conscious Eating, I cite research suggesting that animal flesh (being at the top of the food chain) contained approximately 15 times more toxins than vegetables. Root vegetables had 4 times more than leafy vegetables. Milk had about 5-6 times more toxins than leafy vegetables. This information in our rapidly increasing polluted environment becomes particularly significant in choosing the best diet for health. For example when looking at the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, statistics showed a 900% increase in perinatal mortality in the Boston area for three months after the nuclear incident. This was traced to radioactive I-131 released from the Chernobyl accident. Breastfeeding mothers were drinking cow’s milk (organic or otherwise) tainted by the I-131 landing on the grass the cows grazed on throughout the Boston area, and were passing this on to their nursing infants. Unfortunately, there have been many such incidents, secretly impacting our health and wellbeing.
6. The “idyllic, pure, primal, feral, meat-centered, food dream” is an impossible reality except for an elite fraction of the population, and it still doesn’t solve the issue of concentrated environmental toxins and the environment destruction the meat industry reeks. (The 416-page report aptly titled Livestock’s Long Shadow published by the Livestock, Environment, and Development Initiative [LEAD] presents on this topic.) In short, a meat-centered diet is a certain threat to global ecology.
Thank you for your thoughtful work in general, and in the future may you be more sensitive to these deeper issues.
Blessings to your health and spirit,
Gabriel Cousens, M.D. M.D.(H), Diplomat Ayurveda , Diplomat Board of American Holistic Health
Read More
By Kathy Freston on March 8, 2010
Blessing us with hot knowledge on this Meatless Monday, health and wellness warrior Kathy Freston provides another powerful case for the plant-based diet. She offers historical, anthropological, and biological testimony to refute the idea that we evolved to consume mass quantities of meat and animal products. By now, we think you’re out of excuses: Go Meatless with us today!
I often notice the frequently stated notion that eating meat was an essential step in human evolution. While this notion may comfort the meat industry, it’s simply not true, scientifically.
Dr. T. Colin Campbell, professor emeritus at Cornell University and author of The China Study, explains that in fact, we only recently (historically speaking) began eating meat, and that the inclusion of meat in our diet came well after we became who we are today. He explains that “the birth of agriculture only started about 10,000 years ago at a time when it became considerably more convenient to herd animals. This is not nearly as long as the time [that] fashioned our basic biochemical functionality (at least tens of millions of years) and which functionality depends on the nutrient composition of plant-based foods.”
That jibes with what Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President Dr. Neal Barnard says in his book, The Power of Your Plate, in which he explains that “early humans had diets very much like other great apes, which is to say a largely plant-based diet, drawing on foods we can pick with our hands. Research suggests that meat-eating probably began by scavenging—eating the leftovers that carnivores had left behind. However, our bodies have never adapted to it. To this day, meat-eaters have a higher incidence of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and other problems.”
There is no more authoritative source on anthropological issues than paleontologist Dr. Richard Leakey, who explains what anyone who has taken an introductory physiology course might have discerned intuitively: humans are herbivores. Leakey notes that “[y]ou can’t tear flesh by hand, you can’t tear hide by hand… We wouldn’t have been able to deal with food source that required those large canines.” (Although we have teeth that are called “canines,” they bear little resemblance to the canines of carnivores).
In fact, our hands are perfect for grabbing and picking fruits and vegetables. Similarly, like the intestines of other herbivores, ours are very long (carnivores have short intestines so they can quickly get rid of all that rotting flesh they eat). We don’t have sharp claws to seize and hold down prey. And most of us (hopefully) lack the instinct that would drive us to chase and then kill animals and devour their raw carcasses. Dr. Milton Mills builds on these points and offers dozens more in his essay, “A Comparative Anatomy of Eating.”
The point is this: Thousands of years ago when we were hunter-gatherers, we may have needed a bit of meat in our diets in times of scarcity, but we don’t need it now. Says Dr. William C. Roberts, editor of the American Journal of Cardiology, “Although we think we are, and we act as if we are, human beings are not natural carnivores. When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us, because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings, who are natural herbivores.”
Sure, most of us are “behavioral omnivores”—that is, we eat meat, so that defines us as omnivorous. But our evolution and physiology are herbivorous, and ample science proves that when we choose to eat meat, it causes problems, from decreased energy and a need for more sleep up to increased risk for obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.
Old habits die hard, and it’s convenient for people who like to eat meat to think that there is evidence to support their belief that eating meat is “natural” or the cause of our evolution. For many years I, too, clung to the idea that meat and dairy were good for me; I realize now that I was probably comforted to have justification for my continued attachment to the traditions with which I grew up.
But in fact top nutritional and anthropological scientists from the most reputable institutions imaginable say categorically that humans are natural herbivores, and that we will be healthier today if we stick with our herbivorous roots. It may be inconvenient, but alas, it is the truth.
Photo Credit: Kurt Elster
Originally posted at HuffingtonPost.com
Read More
