Part III
THE GOOD NUTRITION GUIDE
100% of the following blog is totally, fully, word-for-word quoted or plagiarized or cited (except for cited references, font type & font size) from the book called The China Study (from page 223 - 224) authored by Dr. T. Colin Campbell, PhD & co-authored by Tomas M. Campbell II (his son). Reason for doing this is in my individual benefits so that I will be able to remember the very important parts of the book. Anyone reading this will share in this knowledge but in no way am I intending to denounce or promote any doctors included in the blog.
I was in a restaurant recently, looking at the menu, when I noticed a very peculiar “low-carb” meal option: a massive plate of pasta topped with vegetables, otherwise known as pasta primavera. The vast majority of calories in the meal clearly came from carbohydrates. How could it be “low-carb”? Was it a misprint? I didn’t think so. At various other times I’ve noted that salads, breads and even cinnamon buns are labelled “low-carb,” even though their ingredient lists demonstrate that, in fact, the bulk of calories are provided by carbohydrates. What’s going on?
This “carb” mania is largely the results of the late Dr. Atkins and his dietary message. But recently Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution has been toppled and replaced by The South Beach Diet as the kind of the diet books. The South Beach Diet is pitched as being more moderate, easier to follow and safer than Atkins, but from what I can tell, the weight-loss “wolf” has just put on a different set of sheep’s clothing. Both of the diets are divided into three stages, both diets severely limit carbohydrate intake during the first phase, and both diets are heavily based on meat, dairy and eggs. The South Beach Diet, for example, prohibits bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, baked goods, sugar and even fruit during the first two weeks. After that, you can be weaned back onto carbohydrates until you are eating what appears to me to be a fairly typical American diet. Perhaps this is why The South Beach Diet is such a hot seller. According to The South Beach Diet Web site, Newsweek wrote, “the real value of the book is its sounds nutritional advice. It retains the best part of the Atkins regime – meat – while losing the tenet that all carbs should be avoided.”
Who at Newsweek reviewed the literature to know whether this is sound nutritional advice or not? And if you have the Atkins Diet plus some “carbs,” how different is this diet from the standard American diet, the toxic diet that has been shown to make us fat, give us heart disease, destroy our kidneys, make us blind and lead us to Alzheimer’s, cancer and a host of other medical problems?
These are merely examples of the current state of nutrition awareness in the United States. Every day I am reminded that Americans are drowning in a flood of horrible nutrition information. I remember the adage told several decades ago: Americans love hogwash.. Another one: Americans love to hear good things about their bad habits. It would appear from a quick glance that these two sayings are true. Or are they?
I have more faith in the average American. It’s not true that Americans love hogwash – it’s that hogwash inundates Americans, whether they want it or not! I know that some Americans want the truth, and just haven’t been able to find it because it is drowned out by the hogwash. Very little of the nutrition information that makes it to the public consciousness is soundly based in science, and we pay a grave price. One day olive oil is terrible, the next it is heart healthy. One day eggs will clog your arteries, the next they are a good source of protein. One day potatoes and rice are great, the next they are the gravest threats to your weight you will ever face.
At the beginning of the book I said my goal was to redefine how we think of nutrition information – eliminate confusion, make health simple and base my claims on the evidence generated by peer-reviewed nutrition research published in peer-reviewed, professional publications. So far, you have seen a broad sample – and it’s only a sample -- of that evidence. You have seen that there is overwhelming scientific support for one, simple optimal diet – a whole foods, plant-based diet.
I want to condense the nutritional lessons learned from this broad range of evidence and from my experiences over the past forty-plus years into a simple guide to good nutrition. I have whittled my knowledge down to several core principles, principles that will illuminate how nutrition and health truly operate. Furthermore, I have translated the science into dietary recommendations that you can begin to incorporate into your own life. Now only will you gain a new understand of nutrition and health, but you will also see exactly which foods you should eat and which foods you should avoid. What you decide to do with this information is up to you, but you can at least know that you, as a reader and a person, have finally been told something other than hogwash.
11
Eating Right: Eight Principles of Food and Health
100% of the following blog is totally, fully, word-for-word quoted or plagiarized or cited (except for cited references, font type & font size) from the book called The China Study (from page 225 - 240) authored by Dr. T. Colin Campbell, PhD & co-authored by Tomas M. Campbell II (his son). Reason for doing this is in my individual benefits so that I will be able to remember the very important parts of the book. Anyone reading this will share in this knowledge but in no way am I intending to denounce or promote any doctors included in the blog.
[The benefits of a healthy lifestyle are enormous. I want you to know that you can:
- Live longer
- Look and feel younger
- Have more energy
- Lose weight
- Lower your blood cholesterol
- Prevent and even reverse heart disease
- Lower your risk of prostate, breast and other cancers
- Preserve your eyesight in your later years
- Prevent and treat diabetes
- Avoid surgery in many instances
- Vastly decrease the need for pharmaceutical drugs
- Keep your bones strong
- Avoid impotence
- Avoid stroke
- Prevent kidney stones
- Keep your baby from getting Type 1 diabetes
- Alleviate constipation
- Lower your blood pressure
- Avoid Alzheimer’s
- Beat arthritis
- And more…
These are only some of the benefits, and all of them can be yours. The price? Simply changing your diet. I don’t know that it has ever been so easy or so relatively effortless to achieve such profound benefits.
I have given you a sampling of the evidence and told you the journey that I have taken to come to my conclusions. Now I want to summarize the lessons about food, healthy and disease that I have learned along the way in the following eight principles. These principles should inform the way we do science, the way we treat the sick, the way we feed ourselves, the way we think about health and the way we perceive the world.
PRINCIPLE #1
Nutrition represents the combined activities of countless food substances.
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
| CHART 11.1: NUTRIENTS IN SPINACH |
| Macronutrients |
| Water | Fat (many kinds) |
| Calories | Carbohydrate |
| Protein (many kinds) | Fiber |
| Minerals |
| Calcium | Sodium |
| Iron | Zinc |
| Magnesium | Copper |
| Phosphorus | Manganese |
| Potassium | Selenium |
| Vitamins |
| C (Ascorbic Acid) | B-6 (Pyridoxine) |
| B-1 (Thiamin) | Folate |
| B-2 (Riboflavin) | A (as carotenoids) |
| B-3 (Niacin) | E (tocopherols) |
| Pantothenic acid | |
| Fatty Acids |
| 14:0 (Myristic acid) | 18:1 (Oleic acid) |
| 16:0 (Palmitic acid) | 20:1 (Eicosenoic acid) |
| 18:0 (Stearic acid) | 18:2 (Linoleic acid) |
| 16:1 (Palmitoleic acid) | 18:3 (Linolenic acid) |
| Amino acids |
| Tryptophan | Valine |
| Threonine | Arginine |
| Isoleucine | Histidine |
| Leucine | Alanine |
| Lysine | Aspartic acid |
| Methionine | Glutamic acid |
| Cystine | Glycine |
| Phenylalanine | Proline |
| Tyrosine | Serine |
| Phytosterols (many kinds) |
To illustrate this principle I only need to take you through the biochemical perspective of a meal. Let’s say you prepare sautéed spinach with ginger and whole grain ravioli shells stuffed with butternut squash and spices, topped with a walnut tomato sauce.
The spinach alone is a cornucopia of various chemical components. Chart 11.1 is only a partial list of what you might find in your mouth after a bite of spinach.
As you can see, you’ve just introduced a bundle of nutrients into your body. In addition to this extremely complex mix, when you take a bite of that ravioli with its tomato sauce and squash filling, you get thousands and thousands of additional chemicals, all connected in different ways in each different food – truly a biochemical bonanza.
As soon as this food hits your saliva, your body begins working its magic, and the process of digestion starts. Each of these food chemicals interacts with the other food chemicals and your body’s chemicals in very specific ways. It is an infinitely complex process, and it is literally impossible to understand precisely how each chemical interacts with every other chemical. We will never discover exactly how it all fits together.
The main message I’m trying to get across is this: this chemicals we get from the foods we eat are engaged in a series of reactions that work in concert to produce good health. These chemicals are carefully orchestrated by intricate controls within our cells and all through our bodies, and these controls decide what nutrient goes where, how much of each nutrient is needed and when each reaction takes place.
Our bodies have evolved with this infinitely complex network of reactions in order to derive maximal benefit from whole foods, as they appear in nature. The misguided may trumpet the virtues of one specific nutrient or chemical, but this thinking is too simplistic. Our bodies have learned how to benefit from the chemicals in food as they are packaged together, discarding some and using others as they see fit. I cannot stress this enough, as it is the foundation of understand what good nutrition means.
PRINCIPLE #2
Vitamin supplements are not a panacea for good health.
Because nutrition operates as an infinitely complex biochemical system involving thousands of chemicals and thousands of effects on your health, it makes little or no sense that isolated nutrients taken as supplements can substitute for whole foods. Supplements will not lead to long-lasting health and may cause unforeseen side effects. Furthermore, for those relying on supplements, beneficial and sustained diet change is postponed. The dangers of a Western diet cannot be overcome by consuming nutrient pills.
As I have watched the interest in nutrient supplements explode over the past twenty to thirty years, it has become abundantly clear why such a huge nutrient supplement industry has emerged. Huge profits are an excellent incentive, and new government regulations have paved the way for an expanded market. Furthermore, consumers want to continue eating their customary foods, and popping a few supplements makes people feel better about the potentially adverse health effects caused by their diet. Embracing supplements means the media can tell people what they want to hear and doctors have something to offer their patients. As a result, a multibillion-dollar supplement industry is now part of our nutritional landscape, and the majority of consumers have been duped into believing that they are buying health. This was the late Dr. Atkins’s formula. He advocated a high-protein, high-fat diet – sacrificing long-term benefits for short-term gain – and then advocated taking his supplements to address what he called, in his own words, the “common dieters’ problems” including constipation, sugar cravings, hunger, fluid retention, fatigue, nervousness and insomnia.
This strategy of gaining and maintaining health with nutrient supplements, however, started to unravel in 1994 – 1996 with the large-scale investigation of the effects of beta-carotene (a precursor to vitamin A) supplements on lung cancer and other diseases. After four to eight years of supplement use, lung cancer had not decreased as expected; it had increased! No benefit was found from vitamins A and E for the prevention of heart disease either.
Since then, a large number of additional trials costing hundreds of millions of dollars have been conducted to determine if vitamins A, C and E prevent heart disease and cancer. Recently, two major reviews of these trials were published. The researchers, in their words, “could not determine the balance of benefits and harms of routine use of supplements of vitamins A, C or E; multivitamins with folic acid; or antioxidant combinations for the prevention of cancer or cardiovascular disease.” Indeed, they even recommended against the use of beta-carotene supplements.
It is not that these nutrients aren’t important. They are – but only when consumed as food, not as supplements. Isolating nutrients and trying to get benefits equal to those of whole foods reveals and ignorance of how nutrition operates in the body. A recent special article in the New York Times documents this failure of nutrient supplements to provide any proven health benefit. As time passes, I am confident that we will continue to “discover” that relying on the use of isolated nutrient supplements to maintain health, while consuming the usual Western diet, is not only a waste of money but is also potentially dangerous.
PRINCIPLE #3
There are virtually no nutrients in animal-based foods
that are not better provided by plants.
Overall, it is fair to say that any plant-based food has many more similarities in terms of nutrient compositions to other plant-based foods than it does to animal-based foods. The same is true the other way around; all animal-based foods are more like other animal-based foods than they are to plan-based foods. For example, even though fish is significantly different from beef, fish has many more similarities to beef than it has to rice. Even the foods that are “exceptions” to these rules, such as nuts, seeds and processed low-fat animal products, remain in distinct plant and animal “nutrient” groups.
Eat animals is a markedly different nutritional experience from eating plants. The amounts and kinds of nutrients in these two types of foods, shown in Chart 11.2, illustrate these striking nutritional differences.
| CHART 11.2: NUTRIENT COMPOSITION OF PLANT AND |
| ANIMAL-BASED FOODS (PER 500 CALORIES OF ENERGY) |
| Nutrient | Plant-Based Foods* | Animal-Based Foods** |
| Cholesterol (mg) | -- | 137 |
| Fat (g) | 4 | 36 |
| Protein (g) | 33 | 34 |
| Beta-carotene (mcg) | 29,919 | 17 |
| Dietary Fibre (g) | 31 | -- |
| Vitamin C (mg) | 293 | 4 |
| Folate (mcg) | 1168 | 19 |
| Vitamin E (mg_ATE) | 11 | 0.5 |
| Iron (mg) | 20 | 2 |
| Magnesium (mg) | 548 | 51 |
| Calcium (mg) | 545 | 252 |
| * Equal parts of tomatoes, spinach, lima beans, peas, potatoes |
| ** Equal parts of beef, pork, chicken, whole milk |
As you can see, plant foods have dramatically more antioxidants, fibre and minerals than animal foods. In fact, animal foods are almost completely devoid of several of these nutrients. Animal foods, on the other hand, have much more cholesterol and fat. They also have slightly more protein than plant foods, along with more B12 and vitamin D, although the vitamin D is largely due to artificial fortification in milk. Of course, there are some exceptions: some nuts and seeds are high in fat and protein (e.g., peanuts, sesame seeds) while some animal-based foods are low in fat, usually because they are stripped of their fat by artificial processing (e.g., skim milk). But if one looks a little more closely, the fat and the protein of nuts and seeds are different: they are more healthful than the fat and protein of animal foods. They also are accompanied by some interesting antioxidant substances. On the other hand, processed, low-fat animal-based foods still have some cholesterol, lots of protein and very little or no antioxidants and dietary fibre, just like other animal-based foods. Since nutrients are primarily responsible for the healthful effects of foods and because of these major differences in the nutrient composition between animal- and plant-based foods, isn’t it therefore reasonable to assume that we should expect to see distinctly different effects on our bodies depending on which variety of foods we consume?
By definition, for a food chemical to be an essential nutrient, it must meet two requirements:
- The chemical is necessary for healthy human functioning
- The chemical must be something our bodies cannot make on their own, and therefore must be obtained from an outside source
One example of a chemical that is not essential is cholesterol, a component of animal-based food that is nonexistent in plant-based food. While cholesterol is essential for health, our bodies can make all that we require; so we do not need to consume any in food. Therefore, it is not an essential nutrient.
There are four nutrients which animal-based foods have that plant-based foods, for the most part, do not: cholesterol and vitamins A, D and B12. Three of these nonessential nutrients. As discussed above, cholesterol is made by our bodies naturally. Vitamin A can be readily made by our bodies from beta-carotene, and vitamin D can be readily made by our bodies simply by exposing our skin to about fifteen minutes of sunshine every couple days. Both of these vitamins are toxic if they are consumed in high amounts. This is one more indication that is better to rely on the vitamin precursors, beta-carotene and sunshine, so that our bodies can readily control the timing and quantities of vitamins A and D that are needed.
Vitamin B12 is more problematic. Vitamin B12 is made by micro-organisms found in the soil and by micro-organisms in the intestines of animals, including our own. The amount made in our intestines is not adequately absorbed, so it is recommended that we consume B12 in food. Research has convincingly shown that plants grown in healthy soil that has a good concentration of vitamin B12 will readily absorb this nutrient. However, plants grown in “lifeless” soil (non-organic soil) may be deficient in Vitamin B12. In the United States, most of our agriculture takes place on relatively lifeless soil, decimated from years of unnatural pesticide, herbicide and fertilizer use. So the plants grown in this soil and sold in our supermarkets lack B12. In addition, we live in such a sanitized world that we rarely come into direct contact with the soil borne micro-organisms that produce B12. At one point in our history, we got B12 from vegetables that hadn’t been scoured of all soil. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to assume that modern Americans who eat highly cleansed plant products and no animal products are unlikely to get enough Vitamin B12.
Though our society’s obsession with nutrient supplements seriously detracts from other, far more important nutrition information, this is not to say that supplements should always be avoided. It is estimated that we hold a three-year store of Vitamin B12 in our bodies. If you do not eat any animal products for three years or more, or are pregnant or breastfeeding, you should consider taking a small B12 supplement on occasion, or going to the doctor annually to check your blood levels of B vitamins and homocysteine. Likewise, if you never get sunshine exposure, especially during the winter months, you might want to take a vitamin D supplement. I would recommend taking the smallest dose you can find and making more of an effort to get outside.
I call these supplements “separation from nature pills,” because a healthy diet of fresh, organic plant-based foods grown in rich soil and a lifestyle that regularly takes you outdoors is the best answer to these issues. Returning to our natural way of life in this small way provides innumerable other benefits, as well.
PRINCIPLE #4
Genes do not determine disease on their own.
Genes function only by being activated, or expressed,
and nutrition plays a critical role in determining which genes,
good and bad, are expressed.
I can safely say that the origin of every single disease in genetic. Our genes are the code to everything in our bodies, good and bad. Without genes, there would be no cancer. Without genes, there would be no obesity, diabetes or heart disease. And without genes, there would be no life.
This might explain why we are spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to figure out which gene causes which disease and how we can silence the dangerous genes. This also explains why some perfectly healthy young women have had their breasts removed simple because they were found to carry genes that are linked to breast cancer. This explains why the bulk of resources in science and health in the past decade has shifted to genetic research. At Cornell University alone $500 million is being raised to create a “Life Sciences initiative.” This initiative promises to “forever change the way life-science research is conducted and taught at the university.” What is one of the main thrusts of the program? Integrating each scientific discipline into the all-encompassing umbrella of genetic research. It is the largest scientific effort in Cornell’s history.
Much of this focus on genes, however, misses a simple but crucial point: not all genes are fully expressed all the time. If they aren’t activated, or expressed, they remain biochemically dormant. Dormant genes do not have any effect on our health. This is obvious to most scientists, and many laypeople, but the significance of this idea is seldom understood. What happens to cause some genes to remain dormant, and others to express themselves? The answer: environment, especially diet.
To reuse a previous analogy, it is useful to think of genes as seeds. As any good gardener knows, seeds will not grow into plants unless they have nutrient-rich soil, water and sunshine. Neither will genes be expressed unless they have the proper environment. In our body, nutrition is the environmental factor that determines the activity of genes. As we saw in chapter three, the genes that cause cancer were profoundly impacted by the consumption of protein. In my research group, we learned that we could turn the bad genes on and off simply by adjusting animal protein intake.
Furthermore, our China research findings showed that people of toughly the same ethnic background have hugely varying disease rates. These are people said to have similar genes, and yet they get different diseases depending on their environment. Dozens of studies have documented that as people migrate, they assume the disease risk of the country to which they move. They do not change their genes, and yet they fall pretty to diseases and illnesses at rates that are rare in their homeland population.
Furthremore, we have seen disease rates change over time so drastically that it is biologically impossible to put the blame on genes. In twenty-five years, the percentage of our population that is obese has doubled, from 15% to 30%. In addition, diabetes, heart disease and many other diseases of affluence were rare until recent history, and our genetic code simply could not have changed significantly in the past 25, 100 or even 500 years.
So while we can say that genes are crucial to every biological process, we have some very convincing evidence that gene expression is far more important, and gene expression is controlled by environment, especially nutrition.
A further folly of this genetic research is assuming that understanding our genes is simple. It is not. Recently, for example, researchers studied genetic regulation of weight in a tiny worm species. The scientists went through 16,757 genes, turning each one off, and observed the effect on weight. They discovered 417 genes that affect weight. How these hundreds of genes interact over the long term with each other and their ever-changing environment to alter weight gain or loss is an incredibly complex mystery. Goethe once said, “We know accurately only when we know little; with knowledge doubt increases.”
Expression of our genetic code represents a universe of biochemical interactions of almost infinite complexity. This biochemical “universe” interacts with many different systems, including nutrition, which itself represents whole systems of complex biochemistry. With genetic research, I suspect we are embarking on a massive quest to shortcut nature only to end up worse off than when we started.
Does all this mean I think that genes don’t matter? Of course not. If you take two Americans living in the same environment and feed them exactly the same meaty food every day for their entire lives, I would not be surprised if one died of a heart attack at age fifty-four, and the other died of cancer at the age of eighty. What explains the difference? Genes. Genes give us our predispositions. We all have different disease risks due to our different genes. But while we will never know exactly which risks we are predisposed to, we do know how to control those risks. Regardless of our genes, we can all optimize our chances of expressing the right genes by providing our bodies with the best possible environment – that is, the best possible nutrition. Even though the two Americans in the example above succumbed to different diseases at different ages, it is entirely possible that both could have lived many more years with a higher quality of life if they would have practiced optimal nutrition.
PRINCIPLE #5
Nutrition can substantially control the adverse effects
of noxious chemicals.
Stories of cancer-causing chemicals regularly appear in the press. Acrylamide, artificial sweeteners, nitrosamines, nitrites, Alar, heterocyclic amines and aflatoxin have all been linked to cancer in experimental studies.
There is a widely held perception that cancer is caused by toxic chemicals that make their way into our bodies in a sinister way. For example, people often cite health concerns to justify their opposition to pumping antibiotics and hormones into farm animals. The assumption is that the meat would be safe to eat if it didn’t have those unnatural chemicals in it. The real danger of the meat, however, is the nutrient imbalances, regardless of the presence of those nasty chemicals. Long before modern chemicals were introduced into our food, people still began to experience more cancer and more heart disease when they started to eat more animal-based foods.
A great example of a misunderstood “public health concern” regarding chemicals is the lengthy, $30 million investigation of minimally higher rates of breast cancer in Long Island, New York, referred to in chapter eight. Here, it seemed that chemical contaminants from certain industrial sites were creating breast cancer for women who lived nearby. But this ill-conceived story has proven to have no merit.
Another chemical carcinogen concern surrounds acrylamide, which is primarily found in processed or fried foods like potato chips. The implication is that if we could effectively remove this chemical from potato chips, they would be safe to eat, even though they continue to be highly unhealthy, processed slices of potatoes drenched with fat and salt.
So many of us seem to want a scapegoat. We do not want to hear that our favourite foods are a problem simply because of their nutritional content.
In chapter three, we saw that the potential effects of alfatoxin, a chemical touted as being highly carcinogenic, could be entirely controlled by nutrition. Even with large doses of alfatoxin, rats could be healthy, active and cancer-free if they were fed low-protein diets. We also saw how small findings can make big news every time cancer is mentioned. For example, if experimental animals have an increased incidence of after gargantuan exposures, the chemical agent is trumpted as a cause of cancer, as was the case for NSAR (see chapter three) and nitrites. However, like genes, the activities of these chemical carcinogens are primarily controlled by the nutrients that we eat.
So what do these examples tell us? In practical terms, you aren’t doing yourself much good by eating organic beef instead of conventional beef that’s been pumped full of chemicals. The organic beef might be marginally healthier, but I would never say that it was a safe choice. Both types of beef have a similar nutrient profile.
It is useful to think of this principle in another way: a chronic disease like cancer takes years to develop. Those chemicals that initiate cancer are often the ones that make headlines. What does not make headlines, however, is the fact that the disease process continues long after initiation, and can be accelerated or repressed during its promotion stage by nutrition. In other words, nutrition primarily determines whether the disease will ever do its damage.
PRINCIPLE #6
The same nutrition that prevents disease in its early stages
(before diagnosis) can also halt or reverse disease
in its later stages (after diagnosis).
It is worth repeating that chronic diseases take several years to develop. For example, there is a general thought that breast cancer can be initiated in adolescence and not become detectable until after menopause! So we very well may have lots of middle-aged women walking around with breast cancer initiated during their teens that will not be detectable until after menopause. For many people this translates into the fatalistic notion that little can be done later in life. Does this mean that these women should start smoking and eating more chicken-fried steak because they’re doomed anyway? What do we do, given that many of us may already have an initiated chronic disease lurking in our bodies, waiting to explode decades from now?
As we saw in chapter three, cancer that is already initiated and growing in experimental animals can be slowed, halted or even reversed by good nutrition. Luckily for us, the same good nutrition maximizes health at every stage of a disease. In humans, we have seen research findings showing that a whole foods, plant-based diet reverses advanced heart disease, helps obsess people lose weight an helps diabetics get off their medication and return to a more normal, pre-diabetes life. Research has also shown that advanced melanoma, the deadly form of skin cancer, might be attenuated or reversed by lifestyle changes.
Some diseases, of course, appear to be irreversible. The autoimmune diseases are perhaps most frightening because once the body turns against itself, it may become unstoppable. And yet, amazingly, even some of these diseases may be slowed or attenuated by diet. Recall the research showing that even Type 1 diabetics can lower their medication requirements by eating the right food. Evidence also shows that rheumatoid arthritis can be slowed by diet, as can multiple sclerosis.
I believe that an ounce of prevention does equal a pound of cure and the earlier in life good foods are eaten, the better one’s health will be. But for those who already face the burden of disease, we must not forget that nutrition still can play a vital role.
PRINCIPLE #7
Nutrition that is truly beneficial for one chronic disease
will support health across the board.
When I was trying to get this book published, I had a meeting with an editor at a major publishing house, and described to her my intent to create disease-specific chapters that related diet to specific ailments or groups of ailments. The editor asked, in effect, “Can you make specific diet plans for each disease, so that every chapter doesn’t have the same recommendations?” In other words, could I tell people to eat a specific way for heart disease and a different way for diabetes? The implication, of course, was tat the same eating plan for multiple diseases simply wasn’t catchy enough, wasn’t sufficiently “marketable.”
Although this might be good marketing, it is not good science. As I have come to understand more about the biochemical processes of various diseases, I have also come to see how these diseases have much in common. Because of these impressive commonalities, it only makes sense that the same good nutrition will generate health and prevent diseases across the board. Even if a whole foods, plant-based diet is more effective at treating heart disease than brain cancer, you can be sure that this diet will not promote one disease while it stops another. It will never be “bad” for you. This one good diet can only help across the board.
So I’m afraid I don’t have a different, catchy formula for each disease. I only have one dietary prescription. But rather than be forlorn about its effect on my book sales, I’d prefer to remain excited about telling you how simple food and health really is. It is a chance to clear away much of the incredible public confusion. Quite simply, you can maximize health for diseases across the board with one simple diet.
PRINCIPLE #8
Good nutrition creates health in all areas of our existence.
All parts are interconnected.
Much has been made of “holistic” health in recent times. This concept can mean a variety of things to different people. Many people lump all of the “alternatives” medicines and activities into this concept, so holistic health comes to mean acupressure, acupuncture, herbal medicines, meditation, vitamin supplements, chiropractic care, yoga, aromatherapy, Feng Shui, massage and even sound therapy.
Conceptually, I believe in holistic health, but not as a catchphrase for every unconventional and oftentimes unproven medicine around. Food and nutrition, for example, are of primary importance to our health. The process of eating is perhaps the most intimate encounter we have with our world; it is a process in which what we eat becomes part of our body. But other experiences also are important, such as physical activity, emotional and mental health and the well-being of our environment. Incorporating these various spheres into our concept of health is important because they are all interconnected. Indeed, this is a holistic concept.
These expanding interconnections became apparent to me through experimentation with animals. The rats fed the low-protein diets were not only spared liver cancer, but they also had lower blood cholesterol, noticeably more energy and voluntarily exercised twice as much as the high-protein rates. The evidence regarding increased energy levels was supported by an enormous amount of anecdotal evidence I have encountered over the years: people have more energy when they eat well. This synergy between nutrition and physical activity is extremely important, and is evidence that these two parts of life are not isolated from each other. Good nutrition and regular exercise combine to offer more health per person than the sum of each part alone.
We also know that physical activity has an effect on emotional and mental well-being. Much has been said about the effect physical activity has on various chemicals in our bodies, which in turn affect our moods and our concentration. And experiencing the rewards of feeling better emotionally and being more mentally alert provides the confidence and motivation to treat ourselves to optimal nutrition, which reinforces the entire cycle. Those who feel good about themselves are more likely to respect their health by practicing good nutrition.
Sometimes people try to play these different parts of their lives against each other. People wonder if they can erase bad eating habits by being a runner. The answer to this is no. The benefits and risks of diet are crucially important, and more sizable, than the benefits and risks of other activities. Besides, why would anyone want to try and balance benefits and risks when they could have all the benefits, working together? People also wonder whether a perceived health benefit is because of the exercise or because of a good diet. In the end, that’s simply an academic question. The fact is that these two spheres of our lives are intimately interconnected, and what’s important is that it all works together to promote or derail health.
Furthermore, it turns out that if we eat the way that promotes the best health for ourselves, we promote the best health for the planet. By eating a whole foods, plant-based diet, we use less water, less land, fewer resources and produce less pollution and less suffering for our farm animals. John Robbins has done more than any other person to bring this issue to the front of American consciousness, and I strongly recommend reading his most recent book, The Food Revolution.
Our food choices have an incredible impact not only on our metabolism, but also on the initiation, promotion and even reversal of disease, on our energy, on our physical activity, on our emotional and mental well-being and on our world environment. All of these seemingly separate spheres are intimately interconnected.
I have mentioned the wisdom of nature at various points in this book, and I have come to see the power of the workings of the natural world. It is a wondrous web of health, from molecules, to people, to other animals, to forests, to oceans, to the air we breathe. This is nature at work, from the microscopic to the macroscopic.
WHO CARES, ANYWAY?
The principles outlined in this chapter began, for me, with a narrowly focused question on diet and cancer in rats, then grew into an ever-expanding universe of questions about human and societal health around the world. In large measure, the principles in this chapter are the answers to the far-reaching questions that I could not help but ask during my career.
The applicability of these principles should not be underestimated. Most importantly, they can help to reduce public confusion regarding food and health. The latest fads, the newest headlines and the most recent study results are put into a useful context. We need not leap from our seats every time a chemical is called a carcinogen, every time a new diet book hits the shelf or every time a headline screams about solving disease through genetic research.
Simply put, we can relax. We can take a much needed deep breath and sit back. Moreover, we can do science more intelligently, and ask better questions because we have a sound framework relating nutrition to health. In effect, we can interpret new findings with a broader context in mind. With these newly interpreted findings, we can enrich or modify our original framework and invest our money and resources where they matter to increase our society’s health. The benefits of understanding these principles are wide-ranging and profound for individuals, societies, our fellow animals and our planet.
