Ah, eggs: Incredible and edible, as the commercial goes. A quintessential staple of American breakfasts, loaded with protein, packed with cholesterol. Bodybuilders chug ‘em down en masse, and raw foodists sometimes experiment with them—but could they raise your risk of disease, as T. Colin Campbell claims all animal foods do? Let’s take a look at the original China Study data and find out. Read the rest of this entry »
In my last post, I explored what the China Study data says about meat and disease—which turns out to be a far cry from what Campbell reports in his book of the same name. In a nutshell, meat has no statistically significant correlations with any diet-related disease, and actually has a negative correlation with death from all causes and death from all cancers. That means the populations that ate more meat generally had fewer chronic diseases than the populations that ate less of it. While it’s impossible to tell from the China Project alone whether this is because meat was protective of illness or simply corresponded with other helpful factors (like better health care), it does undermine Campbell’s assertion that animal product consumption always went hand-in-hand with disease in the China Project.
(If you’re not sure what the China Study is or why I’ve suddenly made it my life’s purpose to examine every modicum of its data, take a gander at the previous entry for an explanation.)
Of course, the “meat” category doesn’t include fish, eggs, or dairy—so these foods aren’t out of the hot seat yet. In this post, I’ll be looking at fish. Sushi lovers, listen up. Read the rest of this entry »
As promised, it’s time to unveil all this China Study business. Grab a raw, nonalcoholic drink and make yourself comfy!
Let me start by saying that this isn’t an attempt at “debunking” the China Study or discrediting T. Colin Campbell. Quite the contrary. “The China Study” book is excellent in many ways, if only to underscore the role of nutrition in health. If I ever met Mr. Campbell in person, I’d give him a jubilant high-five and thank him for fightin’ the good fight—for exposing the reality of Big Pharma, for emphasizing the lack of nutritional education most doctors receive, for censuring the use of scientific reductionism, for underlining the importance of diet in disease prevention. Campbell and I are on the same page in many ways. His scroll of accomplishments is impressive and I sincerely believe his heart is in the right place, even if I don’t agree with all of his conclusions. Read the rest of this entry »
Rub-a-dub dub, raw food in a tub.
Pop quiz time.
Say we’ve got a 2-year raw foodist—we’ll call her Betty Lou. Lately, Betty Lou hasn’t been feeling like her usual vivacious self. She’s always tired and fatigued, and even when she musters up the energy to exercise, she can’t seem to build or keep her muscle tone. Her husband Billy Bob keeps pointing out the dark crescent-moon circles under her eyes and complaining that she’s too bony to cuddle with. Poor Betty Lou! She decides she must be going through a deeper phase of detox, and decides to speed up the process by going on a two-week water fast.
What’s wrong with this scenario? Read the rest of this entry »
Does this fella offer us nutritional clues?
Part of what first led me to raw foods was a curiosity about our “optimal diet.” It seemed like such a simple concept: a combination of foods that our bodies are best adapted to, that we could easily discern by looking at our anatomy, that evolutionary history supported, and that would lead to the best health possible. It shouldn’t be rocket science, right?
Unfortunately, it kind of is. Read the rest of this entry »
Say almond cheez!
NOTE: Before reading the rest of this, please check out my more recent article at Frugivore magazine, which talks about the role of fat-soluble vitamins in dental health—particularly in the context of vegan diets. Although I still think the information below is important, I’m now convinced that an insufficiency of vitamins D, K2, and A are the main reason so many vegans and raw vegans experience declining dental health.
Ah, teeth. Everyone’s favorite subject. In the land of the raw, no topic springs up quite as often as dental woes do—everything from cavities to sensitivity to receding gums to eroding enamel. It’s a little scary. And considering raw foodists probably do more chewing than any other humans on the planet, keeping our chompers in good shape is vital.
Before raw, my own teeth were in tip-top condition: only one tiny cavity when I was 12, perfect dental checkups, never needed braces. Dentists loved me, and I loved them. All was well.
Alas, after my first year as a raw foodist, reality bit me (with its own perfectly-whittled incisors): 14 cavities in one dental visit. That’s not a typo, although I kind of wish it was. I’m still dealing with the aftermath, and will probably never have a bite that fits together perfectly due to the grinding and drilling all that dental work required.
And my experience is an unfortunately common one. Amidst a laundry list of health improvements, many raw foodists find a startling decline in their oral health when they amp up the fruits and veggies and nuts—a paradox, considering that good nutrition and avoidance of refined sugar should improve the state of your mouth, not degrade it.
So what’s going on here? Read the rest of this entry »
