For more than 2,800 years, the concept of eating plants in their whole-food form has struggled to be heard and adopted as a way of life. However, recent evidence shows that more than ever a plant-based diet is not something to be ignored. In fact, eating a plant-based diet has become an urgent matter from several perspectives. Not only will it improve your health -- and the evidence behind this claim is now overwhelming -- but it will also dramatically reduce health care costs, as well as reduce violence to our environment and to other sentient beings.
The fact is our nation's economic stability, already crumbling due to the repeated bursting of bubbles such as technology and housing, has been hard hit by spiraling health costs that seem to have no end in sight. Despite this, as a nation, we are sicker and fatter than we have ever been. The epidemic of obesity and diabetes, especially in the young, forecasts an economically unsustainable public health challenge with the gloomy prophecy that today's children may not outlive their parents.
Who will protect the public? Not our government: The U.S. Department of Agriculture's nutrition pyramid is laden with food that will guarantee millions will suffer ill health. Not the American Dietetic Association, which is controlled by food corporations. Not the insurance industry, which profits by selling plans to the sick. Not the pharmaceutical industry, which pockets billions from chronic illnesses. And not the medical profession, in which doctors and nurses receive virtually no training in nutrition or behavioral modification, and are handsomely rewarded for administrating drugs and employing technical expertise.
What can save America is a plant-based diet, which will help individuals recover their good health, and which in turn will set our health care system right (as well as our economy). However, for this plant-based diet to take hold, the public must be endowed with nutritional literacy, the kind of knowledge that is portrayed in the new documentary, "Forks Over Knives."
"Forks Over Knives" focuses not just on the research that both of us have been engaged in over the last four decades, whether in China and Cornell or at the Cleveland Clinic; it also traces the journey of several Americans as they move from a lifetime of eating mostly animal-based and processed foods to a whole food plant-based diet, and the extraordinary medical results that follow. It is educational, entertaining, and literally life-saving.
Please see "Forks Over Knives." It could transform your life in ways you never thought possible. And it may just help start the seismic revolution in health care this country so badly needs.
T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D.
Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr., M.D.
After one month of this, had her Hemoglobin A1C checked. It was reduced to 5.9, normal. She has lost 10 pounds in a month and feels much better--especially her energy levels and her sleep. Food can either be your medicine or poison...............
I was born & lived overseas for years where we got virtually NO processed or boxed foods, no additives or preservatives. I had NO weight issues until I returned to the United States 33 yrs ago. My weight crept up over the years & over the last couple of yrs I've experienced chronic pain which seems to be related to gluten consumption. I recently purchased a very efficient blender for daily smoothies which include mostly veggies, almond milk (higher in calcium than cow's & without all the hormones & chemicals), and some berries (strawberries & blueberries).
I can tell you that after going gluten-free & drinking smoothies, the difference is stark! No more joint pain (which had become debilitating in its level), no more ongoing chiropractic bills, no more issues with trying to control my weight. I look better, my face isn't so puffy, and moreover -I feel fantastic!
Can't wait for your diet guidance to come out, but in the meantime am employing recipes from my own vegetarian cookbook. Bon appetit, America, and thank you to the good doctors, you're my kinda guys!
I notice you did not offer additional info on this Denise Minger, or how she would be qualified to refute any of Campbell's or Esselstyn's advisories regarding nutrition.
Make sure if you do eat a lot of soy that you are aware of what chemicals may be present in it, and -if you're a woman- the effect soy has on our endocrine systems. You'd be surprised at what you find. My only guess is the gas results from our digestive systems being ill-equipped to breakdown tofu products.
What will it take for people to understand that because the Plant Based Diet helps the sickest among us it proves that it will benefit everyone? Please contribute to the http://www.pcrm.org/ lobbying group to challenge the meat, egg, and dairy industry and end this addiction.
If you just start paying attention to what you eat, stop stuffing yourself, and get a reasonable amount of exercise, you'll no doubt show all the improvements you listed, even without eliminating meat, eggs, or dairy (unless you don't like them or have an allergy). And don't donate to PCRM. There's a reason the AMA has called them "a fringe organization of questionable repute."
http://www.happyhealthylonglife.com/
PCRM is a great organization, the AMA is a backward-thinking sclerotic group. Listen to Marc Katz MD, and not some lay person.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icnR20Y3lSc
That opposition is not the major problem, which is the vested interests of the meat ,dairy ,sugar, and corn industries, and also the doctors who are rewarded by providing pills and procedures instead of teaching prevention.
One glimmer of hope is Humana, who provides FREE gym membership to medicare customers.They have figured out that if I go to the gym, they are better off financially. I save over $700.00 per year.Also they will fill prescriptions with generic drugs for free.
The state governments should consider doing the same thing for all Americans, and have a reward system for people. Such as giving free driving licenses to all people that qualify based on their weight, heart, and blood analysis. It would not be a perfect system, but it could lower the cost of health care in this country, We could also tax products (junk food) that we know are unhealthy) We do it with cigarettes successfully.This can be done at the local or state level much easier than the federal government initially That is based on the idea that the state would save money if its citizens are healthier.
Right. Let's forcibly control what other people eat because you're gullible and unintelligent enough to believe unscientific bunk like the "China Project".
If packaged, processed foods are so healthy, why have many ingredients that we allow in them HERE in the USA been banned in European countries?
It's not forcibly controlling what other people eat. You can do what you like, but at some point you must realize the cost to society as a whole. Diabetes & heart disease are two major killers, but they also cost us billions every year in healthcare.
Now, explain what is so unscientific about the China Project? I've seen the objections, but to my way of thinking, we have an obligation to continue studying & scrutinizing. The China Project may have its flaws, but it should not be dismissed altogether.
We must also account for observation. If we go to foreign countries where people eat diets heavy in whole, raw foods, where they eat less meat, breads, cow's milk, and packaged foods that are loaded with additives & preservatives, what do we find?
The observation about the American diet may well be that we don't exercise as much as we used to, we eat a lot of processed foods, too many starches, too much animal fat/protein, and not enough veggies, fruit, whole grains, etc. There are many culprits, chief among them being disinformation.
Do you know what's at the root of the increased incidence of certain diseases in the U.S. over the past 40 years? Not meat, because it's consumption has not increased much over that period and the consumption of red meat (usually targeted as the culprit) has decreased since it's peak in the 1970's. No, it's increased consumption of highly refined carbohydrates and ADDED fats and oils, i.e. fats and oils that don't occur naturally in food (and the increase in added fats/oils is attributable ENTIRELY to added VEGETABLE oils), all of which boosts calories consumed.
Total grain consumption increased 40% between 1970 and 2005. Added fats and oils increased 62%. Added sugar and sweeteners increased 19% (added corn sweeteners ALONE increase 387% between 1970 and 2005) . Fruit and vegetable availability also increased 19%, but meat, poultry and fish increased only 13%, and milk and products increased only 6% (most of the increase due to cheese, not milk consumption). In the meat group, beef consumption DROPPED 22% although chicken consumption increased 120%; eggs dropped 17% but nuts increased 27%. ADDED fats and oils now contribute 32% of daily calories, but added ANIMAL fats decreased 17% while added VEGETABLE oils INCREASED 91%.
The message of The China Study and the movie is wrong. Meat isn't the problem; it's all that high-calorie (and perfectly vegan) stuff that's the problem.
Other animal products, especially cheese and milk, processed foods, processed oils, HFCS, are proscribed in the diets advocated by Campbell, Esselstyn, McDougall, Barnard, Fuhrman, etc..
The figures you cite are meaningless, proving nothing and are misleading. You failed to mention per capita cheese consumption tripled between 1970 and 2003.
If added fats and oils and refined grains are major contributors to rising disease rates then you should be thanking rather than attacking Campbell and Esselstyn since they don't allow them in their diets. Read Esselstyns book then come back here and apologize. Its called: "Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease."