For those of you who’ve arrived here on a quest for China Study information, welcome! I realize that some visitors may be solely interested in China Study posts and not want to wade through other entries in search of them—so make it easier to find what you’re looking for, here are the links to all the posts I have on Raw Food SOS pertaining to T. Colin Campbell’s “The China Study.”
The China Study: Fact or Fallacy? (My original critique of “The China Study” by T. Colin Campbell.)
Forks Over Knives: Is the Science Legit? (A critique of the science behind “Forks Over Knives,” a documentary heavily featuring Campbell and his work.)
The China Study: A Formal Analysis and Response (A referenced, uber-long, and cleaned-up collection of all my criticisms pertaining to “The China Study”—more academic and less colloquial, for anyone who prefers the former.)
The China Study: My Response to Campbell (My response to Campbell’s first reply to my critique.)
One Year Later: The China Study, Revisited and Re-Bashed (A collection of peer-reviewed studies based on the China Study data that contradict Campbell’s interpretations and claims.)
Tuoli: China’s Mysterious Milk Drinkers (Information on the health of a Chinese county that eats nearly two pounds of dairy, ample fat, and 134 grams of animal protein per day.)
A Closer Look at the China Study: Meat and Disease (Associations the “meat” variable has with various diseases in China.)
A Closer Look at the China Study: Fish and Disease (Associations the “fish” variable has with various diseases in China.)
A Closer Look at the China Study: Eggs and Disease (Associations the “eggs” variable has with various diseases in China.)
A Closer Look at the China Study: Dairy and Disease (Associations the “dairy” variable has with various diseases in China.)
[...] her 9000+ word summary conclusion. And if you want even more detailed analysis, take a look at the complete series of articles she’s posted over the past month as she’s dissected both the raw data and the famed [...]
[...] Meta link: The China Study [...]
[...] Meta link: The China Study [...]
[...] word summary conclusion. And if you want even more detailed analysis, take a look at the complete series of articles she’s posted over the past month as she’s dissected both the raw data and the famed [...]
This is curious to me. I keep thinking why would someone write a book that could be discredited so easily and tarnish their own credibility?
For fame or fortune. Probably both.
cda, I’m also curious. What about this analysis by Ms. Minger makes you think it was easy?
LynneC, not that it was ‘easy’, wrong word, but that it ‘could be’ discredited.
I know someone that is meeting with Mr. Campbell in a few weeks and will be discussing this with him.
the unquestioned scientists of the day not so long ago also wrote (extensively) that the world was flat and the heavens revolved around the earth….
human thought and egotistic declarations of “correctness” are actually de rigueur in the sadly short “history” of our species (said claimed “history” hardly resembling what actually is behind us)
Campbell is just another – and a rather boring another- old man who has dug himself a deeply entrenched path of thinking that he cannot afford to stray from – either philosophically or practically – writing a book misleading people is probably the least of his “sins” when you consider the ultimate damage he does to science by distorting, misleading or blatantly mid-interpreting what is some potentially valuable data to fit his (and his along) agenda.
Take yourselves out of your own confirmation bias, vegans, and just for a few moments consider – unemotionally, that you may not be correct–
^^AMEN.
The scientific community never believed the world to be flat.
They did before Pythogoras (6th Century BC) came about.
We’re you there
something interesting, maybe ..
http://www.jaqm.ro/issues/volume-3,issue-1/pdfs/herteliu.pdf
[...] I would leave it to others to comment on the study design and the statistical analysis, and now someone has done just that. Denise Minger devoted a month and a half to examining the raw data to see how closely [...]
This goes out to all of you who think China Study is wrong in any way.Prove it to your self.All you have to do is eliminate MEAT and DAIRY from your diet for a month and see what happens.You can not injure your self with this in any way,but the benefit may be what you are looking for.I dare you.If you don’t than shut up as you have no clue what you are talking about.
My self.Vegan for a year now and counting.After a life of feeling like crap and being overweight most of my adult years even on Weston Price diet I am feeling and looking better than ever.Results speak for them selves.Denise you may even cure your allergy.
I DARE YOU TO TRY IT.
Hmm, I wonder if Branko cured some long standing allergies by eliminating some foods. Cause and effect. Correlation mistaken for cause? I don’t know. Who does?
Well, guess what? I did just that. Started three year ago after two heart attacks after a life-long diet of “healthy” food. Cut out three quarters of the carbs, all the vegetables oils except olive oil, and pretty much all wheat products. And replaced all this stuff with real food: butter in stead of margarine, lard in stead of vegetable oils. We eat two eggs per day and we leave the fat on the meat, because it is the best part.
I have never felt better, my blood pressure is within better range, I am not on any drugs, no statin drugs and blood pressure drugs. My cardiologist thought I was crazy and that became angry when I did not go for a by-pass and Lipitor.
I admit I do not support the meat industry. We get locally produced, grass fed beef, and grass fed pork, and we have our own chickens.
After Ancel Keyes and Fredrick Stare, I think Colin Campbell is just another fraud with credentials. It should be possible to sue these people for the immense pain and damages they have done with their irresponsible behaviour.
Yep!
Branko, I was vegan for two years. I ended up with the beginnings of arthritis at 26. I blame books like the China Study for misleading me into this “healthy” way of eating. All of the grain and sugars I was eating while vegan made me sick; left me with gluten intolerance. I did try it. It made me miserable and made my reproductive system stop functioning. B-shots and ample supplementation and avoiding processed crap and everything. Eating meat and dairy cured the arthritis that the doctor “could not figure out” and just prescribed a massive painkiller for. Eating meat and dairy has allowed me to very energetically drop the 15 sluggish pounds I gained as a vegan. If you are still doing great as a vegan, more power to you, it would be great to be something so morally sound and not have it kill your body in the process.
Where in the China Study does it say you should eat lots of grain and sugars? Who are those evil vegans that are promoting this? Your way of expressing yourself sounds serious and emotional. Yet I can not imagine an even remotely intelligent person thinking that being vegan makes is ok to eat too much sugar or letting her health deteriorate without thinking that there is something wrong in the way she eats. That it is possible to be vegan without wrecking your body seems obvious.
It is a known thing among most vegans that you want to keep your grains to a minimum, especially wheat. Many vegans I know today don’t eat wheat. There is even a part of a chapter in the China Study that mentions some links between wheat and disease. When I first became vegan, I acquired celiac disease and my MS went haywire. I was low in iron, potassium and b-12, and I was also pretty clumsy at first because I noticed small bruises everywhere because I kept bumping into things. But after a couple years of doing some heavy research for myself (and learning that even some vegan scientists I met personally don’t entirely agree with what some well-known vegan authors and doctors that are promoting the vegan diet), I absorbed myself in as much science and molecular biology as I could, made several changes in my vegan diet, and I was able to slowly but surely relieve my MS again. I have not had any celiac flare ups since and eat small amounts of varieties of non-wheat grains, my iron, b-12 and potassium are normal again, and I’m not clumsy anymore!
I’ve been vegan 10 years now, better than ever and have raised two vegan girls (10 years ago I was also told I’d not be able to have kids, for reproductive reasons, before my vegan diet I had 3 miscarriages). I’m not here to bash anyone’s diet (especially because in my opinion, if anything, at least those who follow paleo are much more aware of what happens to our food than the average american I would talk to).
I have tried a vegan diet and as a result my health deteriorated. Short term as a kind of cleansing fast from the horrendous SAD one typically sees good results, but long term the vegan diet for most people leads to degeneration of health. A diet only of grains, legumes and vegs is not only nutrient deficient, but loaded with anti-nutrients. It is not a natural diet for man. If it was we would historically see many traditional vegan cultures. There are NONE. This should tell you something. The vegan lifestyle involves continuous animal abuse and cruelty. One has to ignore and override the 911 calls from the animal most intimate to us, our own body. Eating the nutrient dense red meat of ruminants is what made us large brained humans. Eating a diet that is contrary to our biochemistry and evolutionary history, is loaded with toxins anti nutrients for some generally abstract concepts leads me to regard the vegan lifestlye as a mental illness
The vegan lifestyle involves continuous animal abuse and cruelty…..
bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Read the next few lines, and develop a sense of context
I did try a vegetarian diet, completely excluding meat, fish, dairy, and I gained 33 lbs of weight in one year. I then went on a low carb, high in fat and high in protein diet and lost all of that gained weight. In addition, I am a diabetic and I cut my daily consumption of fast acting insulin from 130 units to 10 units by the low carb diet. My books of inspiration were the two by Gary Taubes: Why we are fat… and Good Calories, Bad Calories along with Dr. Richard Bernstein’s Diabetic Solution.
I consider the China Study to be the rantings of a lunatic.
Branko,
Like Denise, I’m a former vegan. Many paleos are. You’ll never convince people like me that the diet that caused my teeth to rot and my hair to fall out is healthy.
Please read The Vegetarian Myth. She was a vegan for 20 years and it almost killed her. By the way you can’t grow healthy veggies without animal products fertilizing the soil. Where do you think the calcium comes from that makes plants thrive?
@ Karin — (who wrote: “By the way you can’t grow healthy veggies without animal products fertilizing the soil.”) True vegetarians and vegans don’t care if animals fertilise the soil, so why would you brag about that?
A vegan is someone who eats only fruits and veggies but doesn’t eat animal products –but whether or not the fruits/veggies are fertilised is of no import -and, as you say, fertilising the crops DOES help them grow better & make healthier food.
No, Lierre Keith who wrote the fairy tale book called The Vegetarian Myth was not vegan for 20 years.
She admitted in a radio interview Terre Verde that she binged weekly on “eggs and dairy every opportunity she could”. She even went on to claim that vegans “universally” cheat and eat steak once a week.
The woman has mental problems. Her book is not based in reality. She has no qualifications in the area. Given some of the erroneous and contradictory statements she makes, everything she writes – and the intentions for them – is suspect.
From what she writes, I suspect the attention seeker was on a strict macrobiotic type diet and the book title merely a cynical ploy to sell more.
The industrial meat industry she claims to be against must love her.
Where is the clinical, scientific data to back up your claims? Sorry,but I have tried both Vegan diet and all out Meat-Fest diets. I felt the same with both. Also how can you make statements like “All you have to do is eliminate MEAT and DAIRY from your diet for a month and see what happens.You can not injure your self with this in any way”. Can you prove that no one could be injured by following your course of action? If so, please post the data to back it up.
The key to anything in life is balance and moderation. Try that for a month and see what happens…
Hi,
I believe each of us is a laboratory in which we should acquaint ourselves with our own bodies. What works for you may not work for others. I was hard core vegan for 5 years driven there by cancer scares related to red meat and being earth friendly, etc. During that time I found my digestive system not to work well, and the structural integrity of my body to be degrading to the point it was poor. I am a rancher/ farmer and having a weak back, which I did, was a real problem. Being flat out after lifiting a hay bale or two is not conducive to a sustainable situation. After giving up my vegan habits and going back to grassfed beef and pasture raised chicken, both of which are completely different than the industrial variety sold in stores, I regained my structural integrity and the health in my gut. I focus a lot on crockpot meals slow cooked with lots of beef and chicken broth so healthy for the digestive system. I recently became acquainted with the GAPS diet and have followed that to a degree. I am happy to report that my health is far superior to what it was as a vegan. That is my take and what worked for me.
I am really intrigued by the GAPS diet and how it is helping so many. Google it and be intrigued yourself.
John
aka DeyDey
Living the good life at 64
@Branko Personal anecdotes are just that, anecdotes. Just because you feel better by following a Vegan diet proves nothing about its suitability to everyone.
Have you ever considered what you might be experiencing could be a placebo effect, since Veganism is not just a diet, it’s an ideology to which its adherents commit a lot of personal expectations?
Veganism is not an ideology, although many meat-eaters often characterize it as such, for some bewildering reason.
Being a health fanatic in general could be considered an ideology. Veganism is just a word that means you don’t eat meat or dairy. There is no inherent ideology beyond that simple definition.
And I am curious why Denise has not published her work in peer-reviewed journals, and instead posts to online blogs. I have not computed the data myself independently so I don’t know, but what I DO know is that 99% of the people who agree with Denise, just looked at all the statistics and assumed it was legitimate.
When it comes to diet, as Smilodon’s and other comments clearly reveal, many times our subconscious biases override one’s waking attempt to find objective truth. Take everything with a grain of salt. Many times I’ve seen “debunkers” being themselves debunked, so be careful.
Majority opinion is the litmus test of credibility for the uneducated.
Richard – Denise is not trying to “debunk” – she is astutely (and with the same “claimed” proper methodology) applying statistical analysis to the same data that Campbell has used to come to his conclusions. She has presented a COMPLETELY TRANSPARENT explanation of her methodology and has INVITED criticism and analysis of her work.
Campbell has exposed NONE of his statistical methodology and has commented basically that it would be a waste of his time to do so. Of course it would… for him. When Denise showed up with a dangerously relevant contradictory analysis, Campbell ran like a scared rabbit (under the guise of qualified, professional hauteur). His conclusions were made long before the China Study data was collected. He needed what he felt would be an impenetrable wall of data to solidify his dogma.
Unfortunately for Campbell, that data is published raw. People like Denise, Ned Koch and others capable of such analysis can create analytical models that can “debunk” Campbell – but not for the purpose of debunking – for the purpose of BETTER AND CLEARER TRUTH.
Dude, you don’t sound like a scientist to me. What’s with the caps and the big words like “dangerously relevant” and BIGGER AND BETTER TRUTH or whatever you were muttering. If you would understand what you are talking about you would also understand that Campbell ist correct. Apparently there are not many scientists in the paleo ghetto, otherwise her analysis could never have gotten this prominent. It is an embarrassment for the paleo movement.
I stumbled here as a person extremely interested in health and one who is sometimes plant-based and sometimes not completely, though always mostly. It’s kind of pointless getting into the back and forth here.
I’m responding to this specific comment (though it’s probably very old now) because Richard W makes a classic mistake. Veganism is not simply eschewing meat and dairy, rather it’s a complete philosophy about any animal products, whether they are ingested as food or used in other aspects of life. It’s virtually impossible to actually be a vegan, but is very restrictive in many ways.
Contrary to what Richard says, it is not simple and it is a complete lifestyle philosophy and ideology, largely based on doing no harm (or feeling that you are) and not on health.
Thank you James – any person with even rudimentary cognitive skills need only drop in on a “vegan” site and see that the textbook definition of vegan may be one “eschewing meat and dairy” – but the volatile and vociferous vegan philosophy pervades any and almost all rhetoric on these sites – and on top of that – although i heartily avoid food discussions with vegans – the many that i have ended up having do NOT only include a eschewing meat and dairy, but carry a whole essentially religious dogma in tow–
as Buddhism states – all life is suffering – it is a not-so-subtle statement of fact that something must die for something else to live–
I think you missed my point moksha. Using the Wikipedia definition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegan) the point I was making is that it IS about a full philosophy and not just about ‘eschewing meat and dairy’ – those two poles essentially are the difference between vegan and vegetarian. I believe you can have a philosophy about doing no harm while not turning it to religious dogma. I try to live a philosophy that does the least harm to animals and the environment, but as a human being I place my own health first. Am I a vegan? No, because a small amount of animal product is in my diet and is used for non-dietary purposes, but it doesn’t mean I don’t try my best to limit the effect my lifestyle has.
I purposely avoid the large discussions about veganism because so much stuff gets flung back and forth, much of it on both sides of the issue clouding pragmatic discussion. I am ‘almost’ plant-based, but I’m not a zealot. I don’t worry if occasionally some processing to a snack I choose means there’s a little casein or ‘milk product’ but I do try to avoid it. I see-saw on the fish argument, but generally haven’t been using it for some time. I can’t tolerate heavy dairy (lactose) or shellfish (allergy).
I believe nutrition should come from food, but I’m also not opposed to fortified foods or taking a vitamin – just not pill popping. It’s this point that I believe has the most rhetoric. Whether plant-based, omnivore or something in between, most people will consume, or have consumed, fortified foods or supplements.
I like what Denise is doing with these pieces. I find some things in The China Study useful, and some of it, as folks have said here, does cherry pick to suit. However, much research does that and you’ve got to read it with a critical eye. I think there are arguments for and against reductionist vs. holistic nutrition research, depending on what one is researching.
What I also find interesting in the comments here is that, and this is often the case, many folks who condemn vegan or vegetarians as dogmatic, demonstrate a dogmatism equal to, if not greater than those they criticize. No lifestyle is perfect and everyone should be open to new information and adjusting their perspectives.
yo – i get it – and yes, dogma is dogma – it’s definition is not specific to vegans! i think i did understand you – and i see that you take a “balanced” approach to your almost-plant-based nutrition – this is a most reasonable and you alone can judge it that diet serves you over time.
it is hard to refute the “i am right you are wrong” arguments of ANY dogma without somehow stating “no, i am right that you are wrong” about being all right or wrong – kinda endless turtles all the way down sort of thing-
even as i lean rather heavily towards the paleo/primal diet ideas, i too create my own variations according to taste/quality of lie/personal observations. My partner – a life-long bread eating european – is trying the soured rye bread thing as we speak and the chocolate, rice, potatoes and dairy that sneak into my diet i deem to be either not harmful (at best) or marginally physiologically sub-optimal while psychologically pleasurable (canceling each other out??)
what i appreciate most here is the almost completely civil and intelligent discussions.
… quality of LIFE of course…
(terrible keyboardist…)
Agreed. Too much of anything, be it grains, protein, fat, carbs, is not healthy. Neither is blindly accepting some point of view because it, either, feeds into naivete/faith or supports a pre-existing opinion and that may be what Campbell is guilty of with The China Study.
What I think you and I, even if we’d have a hard time eating together, are saying is that we all need to be open to new information and should base our decisions on real research and what works for each of us philosophically and physiologically.
Happy eating!
World English Dictionary
vegan (ˈviːɡən)
— n
a person who refrains from using any animal product whatever for food, clothing, or any other purpose
Collins English Dictionary – Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Sorry Veganism is an ideology, maybe not for you individually, but it comes with a set of beliefs that most vegans agree with, or they end up being told that they’re just ‘not doing it right’ by other vegans. That is an ideology. And I don’t say this as someone who has a problem with people who just can’t stomach the consumption of animals or their byproducts. To each their own I say. Whatever is best for your own conscience and health.
However, Animal abolitionism is a religion.
There is nothing that veganism does for health or the environment that a vegetarian diet that sources eggs & dairy from pasture based growers doesn’t do better.
Don’t apologize. You’re wrong on many counts, not just one.
I wouldn’t say you should bother arguing about ideology vs. philosophy. Most vegans have an approach to life that includes diet and other things. Call it an ideology, philosophy or whatever other term you like. For most, it’s about trying to live in a way that is healthier for the environment and their bodies, while reducing animal suffering.
What is it about animal abolitionism that is religious? You’re practically screaming ‘illiterate’ with that. Religion or faith is a belief in something for which there is no apparent evidence. What is it about treating animals as more than property to be butchered for our uses that has anything to do with faith or religion?
While you could make an argument that pasture raised chickens or dairy cattle have more freedom and less suffering, their waste still has to go somewhere. Any kind of large scale animal husbandry has negative environmental impacts – the more intensive, the more negative. And, if you want to talk about ‘faith’ … promoting this as viable in the face of currently realities is simply delusional. As long as animals are exploited for meat, eggs and dairy, the majority who do so will look to make the biggest profits possible. Most people will always get their animal products as a result of large-scale, intensive agri-business. We don’t ‘need’ your exploitative products so why bother making them?
Sorry, but your last paragraph is just plain stupid.
totally agree when it comes to “locally grown food” and “hand-raised animals”…
what do you say when you know, that it only takes ONE single man to “maintain” more 100.000 chicken…these animal productions sites are highly secured…being of afraid of infections of the highly sensitive content…
americans should reconsider their way of eating…there is NO need for XXXL-burgers etc…
by the way: germans are very “good” by follwoing these footsteps…
tom weidenbeck
[...] Medicine The China Study Revisited: New Analysis of Raw Data Doesn?t Support Vegetarian Ideology The China Study Raw Food SOS: Troubleshooting on the Raw Food Diet [...]
After reading the China Study book I found it to make sense, you can do a small graph (leaving out crucial data) but Dr Campbell’s study went for years! Just look around at all the diseases…far out even an idiot can work out that our diet is making us sick. I stopped eating meat 6 months ago (not because of book) but for a healthier option. Let people make up their own minds. The worst effect of people reading the “China Study” is they would become healthier and therefore probably live longer!
Basic biochemistry from early in the evolutionary milieu – carbohydrates drive insulin, insulin drives fat storage. Recent past 40 years of history, USA, diabetes type 2 increases 400% along with accompanying overweight and obesity. Same period, USA, carbohydrate consumption rises from 40% of total calories to 60% on the advice of experts and government officials. I see a correlation here, don’t you? Too bad the big money has steered far away from running the studies needed to settle as to a cause and effect. But, over a billion was spent to prove that fat causes the non-infectious diseases. Bring out the lead bell please. A billion wasted – no correlation even! Right on Denise.
The worst effect of the China Study is that the doctor, a researcher who never has treated patients in a practice attempts to make the case that animal protein is bad, cancer causing. What Denise has done is take the data that Campbell used to state his case and put his findings in doubt. In addition, Chris Masterjohn has done a great job of pointing out the fact that Campbell has done a complete backflip of his findings in the cassein studies on rats.
I’ve been over on the vegan websites to read the reasoning.. its a struggle to find any.. I mean, why would you need to rally the troops to defend an ideology if it is based on sound truth and science? I have watched B from the bananas have a conversation with Denise.
I don’t believe B made much of case against much of Denise’s points. I am happy to keep an open mind, but the way i see it right now.. veganism is an improvement over the SAD diet, but the real difference in health comes in Paleo and the variations, both in inside and out.
@just want the truth “….our diet is making us sick…”
Of course our diet is making us sick, just watch “Sugar the bitter truth”. It’s just not want you have been led to believe. Not the patty but the bun, and the soda, and the vegetable oil deep fried garbage. You want healthy fries? put them in lard. 100% healthy saturated fat. Well, not quite true, lard is at least 40% mono unsaturated (oleic acid), just like olive oil. Too many carbs, too heavy demand on the insulin factory, too many free radicals, among others through too much unstable Omega6 (oxidized, rancid).
And don’t forget all the unhealthy practices in commercial farming, the meat producing factories, instead of grass fed beef and pork.
You found the China “study” made sense?? It is one of the biggest frauds in recent years, right up there with the FDA telling us that GMO foods are completely harmless. No, you don’t have to believe me. You can Google right off the bat more than a dozen scientists who think Campbell made himself the laughing stock of scientific North America.
interesting site, you are a beautiful girl, but I wonder how you got to slice up the data on the China study without the credentials? I’ll keep checking your blog (it’s very interesting) but not sure why i should trust you more than campbell…
What has being a beautiful girl got to do with having the ability to take raw data and put meaningful analysis to it? Just because you have a few letters after your name doesn’t give you credentials. It proves you are able to pass many years worth of rote learning and indoctrination. Do these “credentials” give you the ability to think critically? Invariably, no.
If you bothered to read Denise’s paper with a critical eye, you will notice the real point of what she has uncovered and that is that Campbell has been cooking the books so to speak. Denise has pointed out to the rest of us who wouldn’t be bothered reading all the numbers, that Campbell has made assumptions and statements as truth that aren’t supported by the raw data. He also appears to have made statements on data that isn’t even in the China Study!
To me Denise has the credentials simply because she loves numbers, obviously highly intelligent. She has demonstrated that she is wiling to be corrected and can take constructive criticism without resorting to “play the man, not the ball” tactics.
There are many experts in the world, how many of them are doing it for the love of the result, rather then notoriety or power?
I think you’re missing the point. Have you checked Denise’s work yourself? How do you know it is legitimate? I’ll answer that for you – you don’t. You WANT it to be.
The rest of your post just reveals how logic can be manipulated to support a fallacy.
I wonder who is really missing the point? Denise, Anthony Colpo, Chris Masterjohn and Mike Eades have done some checking into the claims made in the book of Campbell’s. Each of them have found inconsistencies in the claims Campbell made, based on the figures that he is using to support his theories.
Perhaps you haven’t read this whole blog either. If you had, it would also lead you to other people who have crunched the numbers.. they come to the same conclusions. Are you suggesting they are all wrong or illegitimate?
How do you know her work is not legitimate? What have you done to prove anything, other than make posts that mean nothing?
Yes, they are all wrong. Just look at their credentials. The people you are quoting all have in common that they are not scientists. Crunching numbers does no good if you do not understand what the numbers mean. The response of the scientific community to the China Study has been overwhelmingly positive, something you would not know if you spent all your time in the paleo ghetto.
Hi Lyle, hope you read it. i would like to know on this scientist who welcoming the china study. Im still figuring out what is the point.
And we all know that scientists are always right.
Aren’t they?
How about people named Lyle who ALSO do not back up what they say with hard data?
Have you checked Campbell’s work yourself? How do you know it is legitimate? If you have checked his work, please expound on what exactly Denise did wrong in her analysis. My hunch, though, is that you don’t know and simply WANT Campbell to be right.
Yes, I checked the work. It’s in the book. I can read and understand what’s in there. I know some of his scientific papers. Even if you don’t trust me, and why would you, just google his name and check Wikipedia or something. He is a respected scientist, loads of published, peer-reviewed work. The response to the China Study has been overwhelmingly positive. The response to Denise outside the paleo ghetto and some similarly weird raw food web forums? Zero.
“Yes, I checked the work. It’s in the book. I can read and understand what’s in there”
Then you’d have shown us where Denise was wrong. You haven’t because you can’t.
Well, if the letters after your name are Ph.D. or MD or something, they do give you credentials. That is kind of the point of those letters being there. Think about it: if you need surgery, would you go to a beautiful girl with a blog that has credentials simply because she loves slicing things up or would you go to a hospital and look for a person with letters after their name? Doh.
I don’t claim to KNOW what’s ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in nutrition. The only difference between many of you and me is that I’m willing to admit that! LOL
Too much “alphabet soup” behind one’s name tends to cause ARROGANCE. Seriously….. is it necessary to be so concescending in the process of discussing a point? Just saying…. they should really teach a person how NOT to be a wanker when they hand out all those oh-so-impressive credentials.
Farah. While i agree with you that credentials are important, they are not everything. Many people go to their doctors, and take what they tell them as correct as they have ‘credentials’. Take statins, insulin, need open heart surgery. If they only did their own research in to a little science, a lay person with no credentials could probably save their own life better than most local MDs following the guidance of their pretty pharma reps. There are many that i would listen to and read for myself to see if they are on to something, WAYYYY before i would trust most doctors and their offices.
Rose,
You are definitely on to something. Our 10 minutes of allotted time with our personal physicians isn’t likely to produce a well informed diagnosis. The only hope a person has these days is to inform themselves as scientifically as possible about their medical concerns before they go to their doctor and hope that in 10 minutes they can convince the Dr. that they actually know what is wrong with themselves and what their treatment options should be. In most cases we only need the doc for his prescription pad. Sad but true. Then, if you have to hospitalized we can discuss the increased risks you will experience and how you better have someone medically competent staying with you in the hospital to prevent med and procedural errors that are now at all time highs in our best hospitals.
Quote:
“…a lay person with no credentials could probably save their own life better than most local MDs …”
No.
I am from Hungary, and at the moment our very president is one who copied most of his PhD paper from a less known other scientist. (Its being a huge scandal here.)
So you never know what is the real knowledge beyond some oddly capital letters. They could indicate that one has read and learned a lot indeed, but they could also say he just learned everything for the exams and forgot then the day after, wrote some boring paper and got the title.
Just the facts madam! If you’re only half serious about your remark you can check off her conclusions by going to the origin. The China study is available on line
gawd help us if we leave the analysis of these things to the “properly educated, properly credentialed” school-trained of our modern world (anyone heard of the medical prof at harvard teaching students while on the take from no less than 10 big pharma companies?…)
kudos and double kudos to you Denise for using your abundant curiosity and intelligence for this – you have served your fellow humans well!
yeah Rob, i agree kudos!
[...] helpfully Denise set up a post which serves as an index to the many China Study posts on her blog. It’s far more useful than me linking to all the [...]
[...] Learn more here! Raw Food SOS [...]
[...] highly suggest that you look at Denise Minger’s awesome analysis of the China Study data at http://rawfoodsos.com/the-china-study/ . Although she spent a decade as a raw food vegan, her dedication to objective science causes her [...]
This is intesting, what are your thoughts Denise?
http://cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2010/09/21/intv.clinton.blitzer.weight.loss.cnn
[...] IN EPISODE 405 – Sign up for The 4th Annual Low-Carb Cruise to Jamaica – Denise Minger bio – Denise’s China Study posts – Denise’s “Raw Food SOS” [...]
[...] surprised to see the new reluctance in promoting The China Study! I guess blogger Denise Minger's analyses of the original study numbers is really making a dent. Speaking of which, one of the major claims [...]
Dr Campbell is a clown, but he is no fool. In the absence of any actual ability to make money (eg, fix a sewing machine, shingle a roof, etc) he did what needs to be done in order to imagineer a ricebowl.
To my knowledge, the China Study book wasn’t exactly a sizzler down at the Barnes&Nobles before Minger attacked it. Directly as a result of having made up ==more== lies in order to support a quarrel with Minger, he is now the darling of the vegan cult and hopefully, he has been able to pay his monthly bills by selling books, speaking fees, contributions, etc. Might even be getting into some hot young panties. After all, Mick Jagger proved that even the most decrepit and grotesque senior citizen can have groupies throwing their underwear at him.
And on both of thoses, i am not in a position to throw moralistic stones….i’m just less successful.
Ms Minger is a slightly more interesting case. Her statistical-analysis efforts are really just basic numeracy that college graduates are =supposed= to be able to do. If she was actual outstanding in measuring contingent risks, she’d be too busy underwriting and studying for her next actual actuary exam, to be blogging for the benefit of those too lazy to run the numbers themselves. And I certainly haven’t seen any of her adoring fans even allude to have tried it.
Any average semi-vegetarian (= non overweight) female is gonna be eye-catching when she’s 23. So please folks, let’s not exagerate that aspect, either. Although I hope that it helps her cash in on her new fame. If the only other credentials she has are an English degree, she’s BETTER learn to entertain her niche audience as well as Dr Campbell has. After all, in her future career as a new-wave dietician, she’s not going to be telling any patient anything that isn’t easily found on the Net
Nothing sells as well as a good fight. Both Campbell and Minger have found their ricebowl in quarreling with each other. If Campbell died tomorrow, it wouldn’t help Minger’s bank account; and vice versa.
Amusing and intermittently insightful Alan, but perhaps a bit cynical?
“Average” college students nowadays don’t even understand their checking account much less basic stat analysis – and of course we are charmed by Denise’s youth, wit, and intellect, but aren’t these the very things that, combined with a healthy irreverence, open up new paths for us all?
I mucked through college years ago happily oblivious of such mathematical calisthenics so it’s not laziness, but rather lack of knowledge and/or interest in such contortions that leads me to greatly appreciate Ms. Mingers enthusiasm and efforts.
Finally, seems clear to me that Denise has substantially moved on from focusing on the ol’ fart – there are much more interesting things to pull from this data and this subject – and BTW – re-hashing and/or insight-fully combining available info to create new possibilities – well – that’s kinda what most of us do, yes? (short of being another Nikolas Tesla)
… oh and also, I’d say one of Denise’s contributors, Ned Koch is kinda-sorta qualified to run numbers on this – which he has – (but then maybe you just overlooked him…)
Nicely put moksha.. seems Alan’s knowledge is not too broad on this subject.
The point is also not how many books he sells, but how revered the veggie bible is within the vegan/vegetarian environment.
Actually, the more i have read of Alan’s post, he’s pretty much proved he doesn’t know much about the subject at all.
Lol, are you crazy? Mingers blog post as the reason why the China Study sold well? You need to get out more. If you spend too much time among paleo people (or vegans, for that matter) you start to way over-inflate the importance of what’s happening in here.
Hmm, so the self-educated hot babe with a calculator is considered an expert at “crunching numbers”? There is a reason to study statistics, especially when analyzing things particularly dependent upon risk factors, which are a statistical construct. You don’t add things up, you use complex mathematical tools and algorithms. Without a thorough training in these skills, she is just a kid playing with numbers– can be entertaining, but I wouldn’t risk your health on it.
A scientist with many letters after her name.
Mister smartypants show where she made a mathematical error in her analysis, calculations and show where Campbells scientific principle violating mumbo jumbo is the right thing, good luck with that. Anything else is just childish innuendo from people who have no argument. I know enough people with a lot of letters in their title to know that these letters are no guarantee for “superior minds”.
@smartypants
“..You don’t add things up, you use complex mathematical tools and algorithms…”
Right!! Well, it sure doesn’t add up and I definitely cannot possibly understand why you would need complex mathematical tools and algorithms to figure this one out. Just connect the dots Ma’m. That is if you bother to read the original.
“..a scientist with many letters(sic)…” lol, are we in the letter game now? What else is it supposed to mean?
….”her” name huh? – a jealous competitive female with fancy letters after her name, no doubt… :-0
is it not charming how Denise has all us infatuated guys to “defend her honor” when someone leaves a cutting little post?
and hey, Denise, BTW – where’s that next wheat post, kiddo?
[...] printre care vegetariană de la 7 ani, și a ajuns acum la mâncare omnivoră fără foc. Singură semnalează și diseminează erori ale Dr. Campbell din cartea care ar putea fi numită biblia vegetariană, Studiul China. Îmi plac criticile aduse [...]
[...] and dairy products entirely. Critics have questioned whether the data support his conclusions and a re-examination of his raw data found serious flaws in his methodology and his [...]
[...] and dairy products entirely. Critics have questioned whether the data support his conclusions and a re-examination of his raw data found serious flaws in his methodology and his [...]
[...] Denise Minger. Despite having written an excellent series of critiques on T. Colin Campbell's The China Study, she still remains mostly a raw vegan dieter. Even though she thinks Dr. Colon is wrong on pretty [...]
Interesting comments, but I wonder ” would not
‘billion dollar’ industries hire intelligent debaters
to discredit information that could reek havoc
on their sales”? I for one will take the test and
let the proof be in the pudding.
[...] Lots of reactions to yesterday’s post on The China Study. Some people sent along skeptical and detailed posts about the conclusions in the China Study – which I read along with some thoughtful rebuttals – [...]
How difficult is it to raise a baby on a vegan diet? What natural foods would you give him/her to eat?…
Alright, let’s go in stepwise order: 1) First and foremost: my sincere apologies; I’ve become increasingly averse to The China Study, and I’ll admit I reacted too strongly with poor choice of words. Honestly, the link was not at all meant to patroni…
[...] crossed my radar when she published a colossal analysis of T. Colin Campbell’s China Study, dissecting his claims with the kind of exhaustive [...]
[...] very issue in depth. “Denise Minger… runs a blog called RawFoodSOS.Com. She made a far more extensive critique of Dr. Campbell’s The China Study than I have ever made,” Chris [...]
[...] The China Study [...]
[...] The China Study: Fact or Fallacy? Minger makes a number of great points. She provides an excellent preliminary analysis showing that schistosomiasis, a parasitic infection, confounds many of Dr. Campbell’s conclusions. Minger, herself a lover of green vegetables, makes an excellent argument showing that frequency of green vegetable consumption is often inversely correlated with a disease when total green vegetable consumption is not — a phenomenon she calls “The Green Veggie Paradox” — because the “frequency” variable is just a marker for a warmer climate. She also devoted an entire section to the Tuoli people, the “outliers” among the rural Chinese who consumed almost two pounds of dairy every day. These “mysterious milk drinkers” defy the central theme of The China Study by possessing excellent health. [...]
Nice analysis. BUT, there are better ways to deal with confounding variables. Let’s look at an example. Campbell (actually his team of many professional statisticians) claims that high cholesterol is a risk factor for cancer. Minger claims that a lurking variable (for the sake of argument Benzene Exposure) is causative of both high cholesterol and high cancer incidence, and that high cholesterol and high cancer incidence are possibly unrelated. They only appear to be so because of the presence of benzene exposure. Her solution is to look at counties with lower exposure rates and to compare cholestoral and cancer only there. This is a good solution, but there is a better one, at least hypothetically. Lets assume it is known how benzene effects cholesterol and cancer. That is, for a given amount of benzene exposure we have an expected level of cholestoral and an expected amount of cancer. We can use this knowledge to then compare, not cholesterol and cancer, but rather how far above or below expected (according to benzene exposure) the cholestoral and cancer data happen to be. In this way we “control (or adjust)” for the presence of benzene. This has the advantage of not throwing out data points. It has the drawback of relying heavily on past medical knowledge. I’m presuming that Campbell’s team did their analysis in the way I described, because that’s how the computer programs do it. In fact, they probably did things in an even more complicated way. This might explain why Campbell can’t totally explain the statistical procedures. Better answers might come directly from his statisticians. Keep in mind: Campbell wrote the book. He is a biologist. Biologists in general are not rigorous. Even statisticians aren’t that rigorous. There is no straight-line logic from the data to the conclusion that animal protein causes cancer.
Oh. I read further and saw that you might be doing this already. Great. I’ll be on the lookout. Also, I used to live in Xinjiang China. I taught English at a Chinese private school and danced at night with the local Uygher people. In my opinion, the data from this study should be thrown out. End of story! Different language, different DNA, different everything. Including this county is like including a county in Afghanistan. Not relevant. This was a study about han Chinese.
Whoops, should say:
“In my opinion, the data from this county should be thrown out.”
Sorry, my English skills suck. I’m a mathematician.
PS – if you want help with multivariate regression, etc, I can help
Hej Brian, you make a real point. i understand nearly what you saying. You lived in Ximjiamg China and there is the local ethnicty of Uygher. Why you wanna throw out this dat? Which data you wanna throw out? I question myself realy if it is possible in a comunist china to make a neutral study. Cause the comunist regime wanna be in healthy cloth. You understand. The comunist china is attack for cruelty in human right and against humainty. And is having death penality and torutre. If someone make a china study and it is positive it has a whitewashing effect for the inhuman chinese goverment. And how you realy wanna know if this study is made equal and in real fact. Al lot people in china get torutred some live isoleted. a lot people get injured in factories. or die in other condition. Or they get died by goverment and the death penality. I realy doubt that china is interested in real neutral facts. Traditonal medicine in chana shows that china has some health benefits and deep wisedom on healthy living. still, like in japan where the goverment cheated with the number of over hundret year old people. I realy doubt it is possible in a nearly facist regime to make a neutral study. In a land with the most death penalities and a lot torture and violence of the police it natural that only the fittest surive. Or the riches. Did cambell also made a study on the rich class in china who now get improoved lifestyle. the whole new chinese capitalists. And did cambell made a study on the effects of macdonalds and new life style to to chinese people?
Western Price also show that traditonal culture have good health. this is also what cambel show. Still i see that out of a 4000page study to make a small pocketbook. It probably another point which makes people curious.
But why always go to the number. better to look how this healthy chinese live. and look what we can learn from them. instead on blaming each other. if you like blaming and improving each other doit otherwise, the health benefit of others can be your secret healing. And i point out for real chinese living healthy.
[...] concerns about the carcinogenic effect of casein, milk’s predominant protein, thanks to the well-debunked China Study. More recently, I learned that dairy is insulinogenic (causing a greater insulin [...]
[...] http://rawfoodsos.com/the-china-study/ [...]
[...] Denise Minger a créé une section spéciale China Study sur son blog : http://rawfoodsos.com/the-china-study/ [...]
[...] Denise Meniger has applied thorough scientific scrutiny to, “The China Study” [...]
this is on fire like Charlie Sheen
Oh dearie me – wot a lot of hot air! The pros and the cons fighting it out, fascinating. Most of us choose to believe what suits our argument (and behaviour) of the moment and many will defend it to the extreme.
Surely the main conclusion to be drawn from The China Study is that Dr. Campbell’s argument seeks to explain the rise in Diabetes, Heart Disease and Cancer in the Western World. It’s my view that this is due to a variety of factors, diet being one of the main reasons followed by environment and stress and a wee dose of genetic inheritance.
After a certain age (say 60) you begin to wake up to the death possibility and perhaps it is then when you decide (if you have half a brain, that is) that a healthy diet is a good idea. Personally I love animals and do not believe they are here for us to exploit, so I don’t eat them. I also think it’s rather odd that we consume the milk, in various forms, of other species and long after we’ve been weaned. Whether it’s good or bad for us, who really knows. I know what I think and I feel great, physically and spiritually and it’s comforting to know that my integrity is intact – what I do is in line with what I believe. I gave up trying to get others to agree with me ages ago. Someone once said ‘Take what you want out of life and pay for it’. Maybe the same applies to diet.
That’s it really – I’m off downstairs now to do the washing up.
Some people grow up and some just grow old. If this is considered a lot of hot air I am not sure if you are really interested in your health other than “feeling great” at the moment. And giving up trying to get others to agree with you??? I don’t think the point is to get others to agree with you, but to come to the discussion with good arguments, preferably built on good science
A useful dialog might be priced at appraise. Anways, i do suspect that you wish to creative endeavor added at this point distinction, it certainly won’t be contemplated a great taboo joyful having said that , in most cases residents are available typically are not a satisfactory amount of to chat associated with them topics. Yet again. Xox. Please go to me personally upon : Anakin Skywalker Lightsaber
Vaughn it would definitely help if you’d get some assistance in putting in words what you mean to say. This looks like Google translator unedited. Absolutely no idea what you’re talking about
Who are you to discredit The China Study. You’re just a blogger. T. Colin Campbell is a respected scientist far more credentialed than yourself.
Only on the Internet……..
ROFL!! respected scientist? HA!! I find that very difficult to believe, considering the blatant untruths he’s perpetuated over the years. It seems he’s got amnesia over time. ..
It seems T. Colin Campbell just can’t make up his mind. If your game, go and have a read
http://www.westonaprice.org/blogs/2010/09/22/the-curious-case-of-campbells-rats-does-protein-deficiency-prevent-cancer/
Please come back again, but next time bring back something to back those outrageous statements. They just have no basis from what i can see.
You also mentioned in the next post that no cardiologist would agree with what “you” promote. Really?
Without even trying i can name at least 3 cardiologist/heart surgeons who think you might be economical with the truth.
Let me see.. Dr William Davis is one, Dr. Steven Gundry is two, Dr. Dwight Lundell is three.
I’m sure i could find more if you like.
Are you seriously quoting the Weston A. Price Foundation in trying to discredit a scientist? This is getting comical.
Ho Hum.. another day another goose. Your reply says it all about you Lyle
You think it says all about me that I do not take the Weston A. Price Foundation serious. I think it says enough about you that you do.
Actually i do Lyle. I suspect that you just saw Weston A Price in the link and thought the worst. I am also supposing that you didn’t go and see who the author of the article was. I also suspect you haven’t read any of the author’s previous articles either. If you had, it might have given you pause to ponder some of your assumptions.
I’m a little bemused by your firebombing comments in the last hour. I especially like this one:
“Well, if the letters after your name are Ph.D. or MD or something, they do give you credentials. That is kind of the point of those letters being there. Think about it: if you need surgery, would you go to a beautiful girl with a blog that has credentials simply because she loves slicing things up or would you go to a hospital and look for a person with letters after their name? Doh.”
Thinking about it once again Lyle, i go to a GP, MD, any other name you think of.. you are as only as good as the information you take in. A scientist is only as good as the neutrality they display. eg. conflicted interests, personal bias. The same applies to an everyday GP, MD whose only continuing education is the drug company rep, educating those same MDs. The drug company rep is often a beautiful girl who loves parroting statistics supplied to them, by the machine within the pharmaceutical companies. For the most part, the doctor is only there to monitor for any contraindications their drug filled patients are taking.
Many people here, for some reason or another have been touched by the failings of allopathic advice, others are here to achieve optimal health or to save themselves or their loved ones life by learning what is truthful behind those studies.
Why are you here Lyle? Do you have anything useful to add? Have you learnt anything or are you just wandering by after reading a cherry picked article from your local tabloid? I suppose you think your government is honest and has your best interests at heart..
You use nice words like “bemused”. I appreciate that.
You are only as good as the information you take in, I can agree with that. Those letters after your name, though, they show that you have taken in a lot of information regarding the field you got the letters for. Bias is everywhere, that’s why there is the concept of peer-reviewed studies in science. Campbell has done lots of those.
Is Chris Masterjohn somehow a reference for you? Why? What credentials does he have, other than having a blog and you agreeing with him? Is he still pursuing a PhD? Do you know what credentials Campbell has? You talk about bias, you should watch out for your own.
I think government is about as honest as society is as a whole. What do you think? That they are all out to screw you and only a cute girl with a blog speaks the truth?
I second that. Why ARE you here?
How ironic that a person self-labelled as DurianRiderFan would be complaining that Denise has no credentials.
Good luck with your future angina pain with your meat heavy nonsense diet. No cardiologist would agree with what you promote. They all say vegetarianism is healthiest.
Well, have I got news for you sweetie! I did have angina pain, was scheduled for a double by-pass, and my arteries were all clogged. Guess what? I did not follow the cardiologist’s advice, did not take Lipitor, but switched from a heavy grain diet and way too many vegetable oil based Omega 6′s to a modified paleo diet with lots of animal protein and saturated as well as mono unsaturated fat, still lots of veggies and fruit, but meat at least 5 times per week. And my angina completely disappeared, I bike 10 miles [per day] and row a mile a couple of times per week.
I don’t know who the “they all say” is, but you’re not with it . Study in the UK listed vegetarians as having more health problems and in the end a shorter life span. That is when everything was taken into account.
As far as the China Study is concerned, I doubt if you ever read it, because it is not really a study at all. Just a compilation of facts from which Campbell seems have drawn conclusions at random. Some that don’t even jive with some of his real studies of years previous. But I don’t have to defend one of the brightest minds in this whole discussion, Denise can more than fend for herself.
Time for you to admit the truth Denise to your readers. WAPF loves to lie to people about Dr. William Castelli. I have video proof right here that Dr. William Castelli does NOT at all support the nonsense of Sisson and WAPF.
He said emphatically “The vegertarian diet is the best diet you can eat. Listen at 39: 00 and on. Video proof exposing you frauds. http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/5373
How does it feel to be lied to James? Nice anecdotal nonsense story by the way…….. Your story is COMPLETE bollocks and MADE UP.
Ooooops! huh? Own up to this !
Can you imagine the WAPF , Mark Sisson et al and their quacks treating Bill Clinton’s coronary disease? He would not be here.
Can you imagine Dr. William Davis (http://trackyourplaque.com/blog/) treating Clinton’s coronary disease? He would be cured.
Dr. William Davis is a QUACK and not at all in the same league as Dr. Esselstyn and the others treating Clinton. He has access to the BEST care .
Dr. Esselstyn is peer reviewed , and has proven he can reverse plaque with his diet and lifestyle recommendations.
He has access to the MORE EXPENSIVE care, he does not use the best one.
Peer reviewed? Not that important, but since some may appreciate it: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Davis%20%2B%20Rockway
Those willing to open their minds: http://www.thelivinlowcarbshow.com/shownotes/447/dr-william-davis-atkins-nutritionals-presents-best-of-2008-%E2%80%98encore-week%E2%80%99-episode-214/
Calcium score is the straighter measure of the disease: http://www.trackyourplaque.com/blog/2009/11/what-goes-up-cant-come-down.html
“In Framingham, Massachusetts, the more saturated fat one ate, the more cholesterol one ate, the more calories one ate, the lower people’s serum cholesterol…we found that the people who ate the most cholesterol, ate the most saturated fat, ate the most calories weighed the least and were the most physically active.” Dr William Castelli 1992 (Director of the Framingham study)
http://www.becomehealthynow.com/ebookprint.php?id=1112
You mean this William Castelli? Hmm, wonder why he would say something like that? Thanks for dropping by and sharing pearls of wisdom from the loopy church of Durianrider.
Bill Clinton isn’t worth a comment, so I’ll leave that one.
YES, THAT Dr. William Castelli. And he NEVER said the above qoute that you link to from an UNREPUTABLE source and site .
Now you have video proof of his real philosophy. He is AGAINST saturated fat – very much so. He is a believer in the lipid hypothesis and ACKNOWLEDGES elevated cholesterol puts you at major risk. You people are such phonies.
Even when you are shown with video proof that WAPF is misrepresenting Dr. William Castelli you still are in DENIAL.
The Internet forums are FULL of misinformation.
DurianRiderFan, are you calling the Archives of Internal Medicine and unreputable source? That was the peer reviewed journal where Castelli made that statement….. read it and weep. PS you’ll win more people to your side if you present your arguments calmly and kindly instead of spamming your sh*t everywhere like you’re in a drunken rage. Just saying.
The source is: Castelli, William, “Concerning the Possibility of a Nut. . .” Archives of Internal Medicine, Jul 1992, 152:(7):1371-1372
http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/summary/152/7/1371
Joyce: I’m one of those biased ignormasouses with letters after my name and a few years in research re lifestyle prevention of disease who happens to practice a close to vegan diet because of common sense reinforced by research results. A recent trip to the doctor elicited this response – “I would not say it is non-existent, but it is very rare for me to see patients over the age of 65 on no medications at all. You are in excellent health.” Joyce, I think your response could have been a little more like you expect from those who disagree with you i.e. less like “a drunken rage”.
Might I also add that most of us researchers recognize that knowledge is progressive and what is touted as “fact” one day is recognized as error another and perhaps what replaces the error might not yet be understood as error by later discoveries.
Wrightio and you are right that Castelli did make that statement re high saturated fat intake etc. being inversely related to cholesterol levels in a letter. However, as a thorough examiner for truth, it would be wise to see what Castelli says as the years go by – and if he changes, are you going to call him a lier, a charlatan and a fraud because he changes his opinion as science unfolds?
Take a look at this quote from a 2001 article by Castelli, and then look at yourself and your own biases and do a little self-examination of your attitudes and emotional outburst, and quality of your research. .
Improvement in myocardial perfusion: The effects of vigorous, short-term cholesterol lowering have also
been investigated in hyperlipidemic patients with coronary artery disease and $50% stenosis in a major
coronary artery.26 Subjects were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 cholesterol-reducing regimens—an extremely
low-fat diet, totally fat-free parenteral nutrition, or a moderately low-fat diet plus a lipid-lowering drug
(lovastatin). After 90 days, positron emission tomography showed that myocardial perfusion abnormalities
had improved significantly, regardless of the regimen followed. Patients also had less angina and longer times on the modified Bruce protocol.26
Making practical sense of clinical trial data in decreasing cardiovascular risk. Castelli WP.
Am J Cardiol. 2001 Aug 16;88(4A):16F-20F.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=11520482%20
Take a look at the pictures of the coronary arteries of those in Dr. Esselstyn’s study on his site. They IMPORVED. There is the proof.
No Atkins style, Paleolithic Diet ever did that. The funny thing is real anthropologists are not making any of the claims guys like Sisson do.
hehe.. You are so much fun! In you march, tongue blazing.. denials, accusations.. you have offered no proof.. no proof at all.
Dr Davis is a quack? Funny, his patients don’t seem to think so.
Who in the hell is Dr Esselstyn? Should we be impressed cos you mentioned the name of someone we don’t know? HAHA!
As we say in Australia..you are a goose, i’m happy to have a laugh at your expense whenver you come back with your rantings and ravings. I’m only interested in proof, i certainly haven’t seen you provide any..
As you said though, the internet is full of misinformation. It sounds like you have absorbed most of it. LOL
Hey you guys let this guy “ride’ off into the sunset. It’s like talking to a Jehovah’s witness. They don’t believe in facts, they believe in convictions. No sense in trying to make them see the light, they are their own light, wandering in search of their own truths.
“{…The smell of a Durian evokes reactions from deep appreciation to intense disgust, and has been described variously as almonds, rotten onions, turpentine and gym socks. The odour has led to the fruit’s banishment from certain hotels and public transportation in southeast Asia…” Wikipedia. Let’s leave it at that
The comparison with Jehovah’s witnesses is somewhat appropriate. As much for the paleo people as for the raw vegans. From an outside perspective it also looks somewhat like a nutritional bum fight. But if that’s your thing, keep it up. It sure is fun to watch.
something interesting,
Um….. lots of ‘credentials’ and arrogant statements being thrown around here (Jeeez!) but consider there may not be any such thing as a NO ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL DIET. (IMHO) Just sayin…..
Hey very cool web site!! Man .. Beautiful .. Amazing .. I’ll bookmark your website and take the feeds also…I am happy to find a lot of useful information here in the post, we need work out more techniques in this regard, thanks for sharing. . . . . .
Dear Denise, Dear others. Do you know anything on the chinas population diet. If you just pick some villages in china and explore their diets. How would they look like?
And how healthy are this villagers?
please contact me emil@@@sonnenkinder(dot)org
if there are vegan people who thrive on a vegan diet wonderful. please let me know that. i wanna learn. i dont like that someone who takes b12injections have vegan diet which works. a good vegan diet has to work over genration without lacking of nutirents. I like vegans cause its for me a very peacefull way to eat and i more like to eat fruit than meat. dairy i also like very much. especially cream. i not feel as good as eating fruits. cause fruits are very easy digestable.
Are there any vegans who are long terms with good blood test without b12 injections. If there its wonderfull. i hope you share your wisedom. i wanna learn from that.
[...] home, I quickly researched about her and she actually has a blog at Raw Food SOS. Also she posted her argument against The China Study. I haven’t got a chance to read all about it, but seems like she has lots of interesting post [...]
I have seen plenty of useful issues on your web page about computers. However, I have got the judgment that notebook computers are still more or less not powerful enough to be a sensible choice if you frequently do projects that require plenty of power, like video croping and editing. But for net surfing, word processing, and most other common computer functions they are all right, provided you do not mind the tiny screen size. Many thanks sharing your opinions.
[...] #1 AHS crush. Denise became well known in the Paleo community after her thorough (wo)man-handling of T. Colin Cambell’s pro-vegetarian diatribe, The China Study. At AHS, Denise gave the most fun, light-hearted talk (although Sisson did have beachballs at his) [...]
[...] In case you don’t know, Denise was among the first few individuals to really, really dig through T. Colin Campbell’s China Study* (as a stats-loving, ex-vegan/vegetarian no less!). What she found was a story that cherry-picked data and asserted correlative data as causative. If you’d like, head on over to her site and read her abbreviated (or unabridged) critique of the China Study. [...]
to question… amazing things one learns by questioning.
to me, data is just data, anyone with an agenda on either side can manipulate the same data endlessly. If one learns something at the end of day; cool. Nice discussion either way.
In your response, http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/08/06/final-china-study-response-html/ you’ve made some salient points, Denise, but the fact is that there is a VERY strong positive correlation between a vegan diet and lower rates of both cancer and fertility problems.
(I hope ypu don’t mind me cross-posting this here too, since this is the main China Study page -so that my reply to your response is easy to find.)
Note, if you would, the p-factor, in the graphs on MY research page, mirrors on 3 servers -in case the Internet highway has …uh,,… a ‘traffic jam!’:
http://GordonWatts.com/consumer.html
or
http://GordonWayneWatts.com/consumer.html
or even:
http://Gordon_Watts.Tripod.com/consumer.html
The p-value on the top cancer graph (relating vegan vs animal food with cancer) is SCARY! — it is 0.0000001.
Do you remember your basic statistics, Denise? That p-value answers the question: What are the chances the dots just randomly fell into this pattern like raindrops or whatever… The chances that the pattern is mere “correlation” but not causation is 1-in-10,000,000 –yes!! One in TEN Million!!
NOT done by chance… now… moving right along… look at the tight pattern and the ‘R’ (relatedness) values of each of the graphs, OK?
The translation of the various R-values means that while other factors in lifestyle may affect health, diet is a VERY strong influence.
Case closed, discussion over: The scientific evidence is OVERWHELMING that a vegan diet is a chief factor in health -and the graphs put into “picture language” what the peer-reviewed scientific papers say in plain-English.
Mind you, the key word is “peer-review” scientific studies –not tripe and urban legend force-fed by the US Government –with such nonsense is ‘Milk Does the body Good.’ — .. LOL… NOT.
The science is in, and the food pyramid is out.
Word.
PS: For further information, please follow the links and see the peer-reviewed studies which I reverence in my various blog postings linked above, including the ‘More References’ link onmy main research page above.
Gordon Wayne Watts, editor-in-chief, The Register, scientific research blog
http://www.GordonWayneWatts.com / http://www.GordonWatts.com
ALWAYS FAITHFUL – To God
BS, The Florida State University,Biological & Chemical Sciences
double major with honours
AS, United Electronics Institute, valedictorian, class of 1988
[...] about How To Win an Argument with a Vegetarian. She also destroys the lives of T. Colin Campbell China Study Minions. Eco World Content From Across The Internet. Featured on EcoPressed Study Says Sea Lice [...]
Some people here want to cling on to Campbell’s study and not believe Minger’s analysis…saying “why should I believe her?”. ….I know if someone challenged my numerical calculations and conclusions and my numbers were sound, I would have a field day shredding my challengers to pieces proving their numbers wrong. It would be so easy to do. But Campbell does not do this because he can’t. His only rebuttals are weak and vague comments.
@ Charles — I am not familiar with Campbell’s study or analyses, and we ALL agree that a healthy lifestyle (diet, exercise, sleep, and stress management) and avoiding fried fats are all good.
However, whatever Campbell’s methods or data, I agree with his conclusion as I understand it, in support of a vegan diet, and I disagree with Denise’s conclusions that meat & dairy are good.
Also, I do admit that if ‘natural’ (hormone free and/or range fed) meat are consumed, particularly by someone who is very physically active, the person can still be fairly healthy, since the exercise mitigates to a LARGE degree the unhealthy food choices, as the metabolism can burn off the toxic wastes more easily.
So, Denise and others supporting her view are NOT in total disagreement on all issues with me and my vegan peeps. And, Denise is kind enough to let my post stand (both here and also on another blog entry AND in her contact page) — If I get time, I may hope to give her positive press for this reason alone.
Nonetheless, Charles, the stark cold facts are these: NO one has directly challenged my analyses –either the studies I’ve referenced in my various blogs linked at the VERY bottom of Denise’s page (and linked in the ‘Health’ sections of my blogs, searchable under my name).
The reason is quite clear: While other factors are involved (the ‘R’ value is not 100%), still, the pattern is unambiguous and clear: The VERY, VERY small ‘p’ value links a vegan diet with many health benefits, and in case I’m not clear, let me say it: This correlation IS indicative of causation, and not by chance: There are NOT strong ‘common cause’ factors involved –possibly a few weak factors -like, someone who is vegan might also take other precautions, but with SOooo many nations surveyed in the studies I reference, the link is NOT by chance: A Vegan diet (the original diet in Genesis chapter 1:29-31) is statistically linked to MANY health benefits, and, yes, it’s quite easy to get sufficient protein and most (if not all) vitamins & minerals on a solely vegan diet.
The graph plot did not just have the correlated pattern by crazy chance, and the facts don’t lie.
PS: Reprise — NO one has challenged the studies to which I refer in MY blog entries linked in the ‘Health’ sections of my website regarding anti-cancer, vegan links. I wonder why… “Things that make you go ‘hmm…’.”
Read, re-read, and re-RE-read my post above, and follow every single link referenced therein, and then get back with me — better yet: Print out all of my pages –chose the ‘printer friendly’ link in my colour pages, if possible, and read the stuff OFF line -yes, EVERY link: Your health is hanging in the balance here –and then get back with me. OK?
G.W.
http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/journals/lex%27s-journal/
I challenge.
@ Charles — @ Denise Minger — @ misc. dear reader…
OK, my *laziness* was finally overcome by my guilty conscience (mea culpa!). I finally broke down and “busted butt: to edit my research blog:
As Editor-in-Chief, I now give full and prominent *positive* press coverage (aka: free advertisement) to Denise’s blog here, highlighting several pages to boot –a ‘hat tip’ of thanks for her having let me post my lengthy and sharply dissenting screed.
Denise & her blog are now listed as a permanent fixture at these mirrors, where I offer a dissenting view 2B ‘balanced’ & fair:
** http://GordonWatts.com/#health (hosted by GoDaddy, and paid up until 2020 or so: Unlimited Bandwidth plan here)
** http://GordonWayneWatts.com/#health (hosted by Yahoo!/GeoCities, and paid up each year -stupid Yahoo, but they’re my backup: Unlimited Bandwidth plan here too! Yahooooo…..)
** http://Gordon_Watts.Tripod.com/#health (hosted by Tripod: ‘Free’ if u know what I mean, but eternally existent and my 2nd spare tire on the ‘Internet Highway’: NOT unlimited bandwidth, but whatever…)
Denise, I congratulate you for your front-page news placement in the coveted ‘Health’ section of The Register — you have earned it, dissenting views notwithstanding.
Gordon Wayne Watts,
Editor-in-Chief, The Register
@ Charles — @ Denise — @ misc. dear reader…
OK, my *laziness* was finally overcome by my guilty conscience (mea culpa!). I finally broke down and “busted butt: to edit my research blog:
As Editor-in-Chief, I now give full and prominent positive press coverage (AKA: ‘free advertisement’) to Denise’s blog here, highlighting several pages to boot –a ‘hat tip’ of thanks for her having let me post my lengthy and sharply dissenting screed.
Denise & her blog are now listed as a permanent fixture at these mirrors, where I offer a dissenting view 2B ‘balanced’ & fair:
** http://GordonWatts.com/#health (hosted by GoDaddy, and paid up until 2020 or so: Unlimited Bandwidth plan here)
** http://GordonWayneWatts.com/#health (hosted by Yahoo!/GeoCities, and paid up each year -stupid Yahoo, but they’re my backup: Unlimited Bandwidth plan here too! Yahooooo…..)
** http://Gordon_Watts.Tripod.com/#health (hosted by Tripod: ‘Free’ if u know what I mean, but eternally existent and my *2nd* spare tire on the ‘Internet Highway’: NOT unlimited bandwidth, but whatever…)
Denise, I congratulate you for your front-page news placement in the coveted ‘Health’ section of The Register — you have earned it, dissenting views notwithstanding.
Gordon Wayne Watts,
Editor-in-Chief, The Register
We meet some very strange people on occasion, with real wacko ideas. None of these are of course to be taken serious, however they do take up space and in trying to stay connected with what Denise is up to, they do take up space on your e-mail. I really take offense to this latest crapology by mr. Watts. A person can stand only so much untruths and twisted facts and innuendo. Is it not possible to block some of these quacks? I cannot believe myself I would ever ask such a thing but this guy is sick. Really sick. Maybe that’s what veganism in the end leads to?
@James — I double posted because I could not see my post, and you get all bent…?
Touchy aren’t we?
“”trying to stay connected with what Denise is up to,”" — eh? I don’t care for Ms. Minger in any romantic way (there is ample proof of that in very old posts in MY blog if you really care to explore your horrid assertion here -LOL), but I do care for solid science -and thus I must respond to what I perceive as quack science.
If you think *my* science is ‘crappology,’ tell us all why — if not, then refrain.
If you have something substentative to say about the topic, fine, but if all you have are ad homenium attacks on the person, I will not listen, you your post may also even get deleted.
Big people talk about topics — little people talk about people.
Comment later -if you have something relevant to say about the topic.
James, if you don’t want to receive email notifications, then in the user preferences in the email you receive, you can opt out.
Also, I took a brief look at your blog – it seems to make common sense — I am surprised that a good researcher would be so petty over dissenting views.
Yes, I agree that lifestyle is more than just diet, but diet plays a huge role.
Hoe does your daily meals look loike? what do u eat on a daily basis? do u make sport? how much? how are ure bloodtests? gordon. Do u use b12 supplement?
I eat whenever I am hungry, and usually is it vegan, oftentimes protein drinks with protein powders (Soy, Rice, etc.), and other proteins (Glutamine, and the 3 Branch-chain amino acids: Valine, Leucine, and Isoleucine).
My protein shakes MUST have these 3 things:
1) FATS (such as Flax Seed Oil, Olive Oil, Peanut Butter)
2) PROTEINS (protein powders, peanut butter)
3) CARBOHYDRATES (Sugar, Honey, Bananas, Peatnut butter, etc.)
Yes, I try to take Vitamin B-12 supplaments, because the fruits and vegetables are not as good as they were in the past, when the crops were rotated (different cropes each year), and the land had a sabbath (rested once every 7 years, so the minerals could rebuild in the soil) — Nowdays, however, they overwork the land, not letting it rest.
My blood tests are almost always within the normal guidelines.
I apologise, James, for being a little bit rude or argumentive with you — your criticism that I may have been a little too talkative is not without merit…
However, I just thought it was just a bit trivial. Remember my advice: You can adjust your email notifications in the emails you recive for this blog.
[...] Denise Minger rips apart The China Study [...]
Hey who are you going to believe – self educated Denise, age 23, or a guy like T Colin Campbell. Where did you do your learning – at the Internet University?
Easy, Denise, she has nothing to lose if she’s wrong. Campbell’s whole career would be in shatter if he admitted he was wrong, which he is, as you’d know if you judged the arguments not the persons.
It is believing now is it? Sorry bud this is science in action not a church denomination.
[...] food plant-based diet. I will not perform a thorough review of either of their bodies of work. Someone has done a way more awesomer job than I could have critiquing Campbell’s China Study. What I will do is say a few quick things specifically about how the movie was made that you should [...]
Hell, I almost went vegan after reading “The China Study”… But after reading your comments about the study I hurried to the kitchen to make myself a steak.
You did a very impressive work here.
If you ever get to my part of the world (Israel), please, let me take you out to a good steak house.
@ Boaz – While I agree with much of what Denise says (less sugar, more natural, etc.), nonetheless, did you not even see the graphs in which meat and/or milk product were linked to various diseases?
Scroll down about half-way at:
http://GordonWatts.com/consumer.html
or
http://GordonWayneWatts.com/consumer.html
or even
http://Gordon_Watts.tripod.com/consumer.html
While there may be some conflating factors (common cause, Denise mentions where vegans eat less sugar), the EXACTING pattern can NOT be by this reason alone -or by mere chance:
With p-values as low as those on the graphs (less than 1-in-1000!!), and super high R-values (showing relatedness), it’s NOT jsut by chance.
Explain THAT you meat eater! (like I said, re the pattern in the graphs … it’s NOT jsut by chance)
Gordon Wayne Watts
BS, The Florida State University, Biological & Chemical Sciences: double major with honours,
AS, United Electronics Institute, Valedictorian
Whom coments make u eat steak* hope its grassfed*
Grass-fed beef is MUCH better than corn-fed beef, and ANY beef is MUCH better than processed supermarket milk.
However, I still try to avoid animal products. Maybe, if I am desperate and hungry (or if it is FREE!), I might eat an occasional beef burger, but I HATE milk.
Nonetheless, the milk like they made in the 1940′s and 1950′s was much healtheir –less hormones in cows, less pasteurisation, less homoginistion, better treatment of cows, and cows were not in dirty uunmsanmitary conditions, and cows were NOT milks all the time — better milk than nowdays, but I still think it is not natural for one animal to drink milk from another animal, and no animal drinks milk when it is an adult.
Milk is only for mothers to give to babies during breastfeeding –NO milk from dogs, cats, pigs, cows, or ANY animal is natural.
Milk, especially processed milk, is a huge cancer risk. See my links above.
(it didn’t post as ‘Guest,’ so I’m trying again w/ FACEBOOK app -plz forgive & overlook if it double posts, my internet peeps.-GW)
@ BOAZ – While I agree with much of what Denise says (less sugar, more natural, etc.), nonetheless, did you not even see the graphs in which meat and/or milk product were linked to various diseases?
Scroll down about half-way at:
http://GordonWatts.com/consumer.html
or
http://GordonWayneWatts.com/consumer.html
or even
http://Gordon_Watts.tripod.com/consumer.html
While there may be some conflating factors (common cause, Denise mentions where vegans eat less sugar), the EXACTING pattern can NOT be by this reason alone -or by mere chance:
With p-values as low as those on the graphs (less than 1-in-1000!!), and super high R-values (showing relatedness), it’s NOT just by chance.
Explain THAT you meat eater! (like I said, re the pattern in the graphs … it’s NOT just by chance)
Gordon Wayne Watts
BS, The Florida State University, Biological & Chemical Sciences: double major with honours,
AS, United Electronics Institute, Valedictorian
schow your blood testsv mr gordon*wayne watts.?
your website is to confusing patch work. try to get clear.!!! clear ureself up. show ure bloodtests. you are a funny guy gordon.
proof that u are a healthy vegan like durianrider and other vagan athletes. or please explain what you realy want.
That’s a good point, Olof — I have copies of my physical exams, and if and when I get a chance, I may scan in images (redacting my sensitive information like social security number or exact date of birth), but for nowm you can click on my online videos: weight lifting and arm-wrestling.
http://www.youtube.com/GordonWayneWatts#p/u/23/oseUEhVPSKE
and:
http://www.youtube.com/GordonWayneWatts#p/u/18/PjaMLYtj5l0
Yes, I lost, but she is VERY strong – bench presses over 400 poinds, and deadlifts & squats close to 600 pounds. She is presently ranked #1 in the SHW division, and is thus the World’s Strongest Woman, but it still took her THREE attempts to beat me, ha hah, and I didn’t let her live it down!
I could fake my physical exams, so my testimony is no more sure, but for what it’s worth, my doctor has found me in good physical health.
What I really want? I want to share helpful information with my neighbours.
Lastly, even IF I am not healthy, Carl Lewis is a vegan, and he was the world’s fastest man there for a while, and he is healthy, showing the vegan diet is good.
What does soil quality have to do with B-12?One can only get this essential nutrient from animal sources. This is the real reasons vegans take this suppliment.
Well, Michael, the ancient Jews in Israel had a VERY GOOD practice of rotating crops AND (more importantly) letting the land REST:
Leviticus 25
1-And the LORD spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying,
2-Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the LORD.
3-Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof;
4-But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard.
5-That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land.
Although this is a “religious” book (e.g., the Bible), it has LOADS of SOLID science in it, and while I admit I don’t know the exact effect of ‘resting’ the land on the amound of Vitamin B-12 in the resultant crops, the idea is correct: Take care of the land (incl. rotate crops; ANd rest it 1 in 7 years), the the land will take care of you.
It would appear that you have a Jewish surname, and perhaps you are familiar with the issues I am discussing. I am not Jewish, but I am JudeoChristian, and cherish ALL of of religious heritage -AND the cool science that goes behind it.
All well and good but what has this to do? As YOU have stated with B-12 Content, whic h is a function of animal food?
Yes, it’s HARD I admit 2 get b12 in plant food, and thus your point is well-taken, Michael, but not impossible:
The requirement for vitamin B12 is very low. Non-animal sources include Red Star Vegetarian Support Formula or T-6635+ nutritional yeast (a little less than 1 Tablespoon supplies the adult RDA), and vitamin B12 fortified soymilk. It is especially important for pregnant and lactating women, infants, and children to have reliable sources of vitamin B12 in their diets.
http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/b12.htm
Vegan For Life
by Jack Norris, RD &
Ginny Messina, MPH, RD
B12 in Tempeh, Seaweeds, Organic Produce, and Other Plant Foods
Summary: The only plant foods which have been tested for B12 activity using the gold standard of lowering MMA levels in humans are dried and raw nori from Japan.
http://www.veganhealth.org/b12/plant
B12 Breakthrough – Missing Nutrient Found in Plants
BY: T. COLIN CAMPBELL, PHD
http://www.tcolincampbell.org/courses-resources/article/b12-breakthrough-missing-nutrient-found-in-plants/?tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=76&cHash=135f525da5
CONCLUSION: Like I said (or implied?), I suspected b12 could be found in plants, and since we can get it even now, I think B12 would be MUCH more abundant if we rotated crops, rested the land in its Sabbath, etc.
I read Campbell’s article about B-12 in plants and this is what he says about it at the end;
“This was written in 1996. Now, 12 years later, I still don’t know that this view whether this view is right. However, in the meanwhile, I have been influenced by two of my clinician colleagues, Dr. Michael Greger and Dr. Alan Goldhamer, that their understanding of the literature and their experience in the clinic suggest that B12 deficiency may be seen in vegans, thus advocate B12 supplementation. I defer to their view.”
Here is just a little of the literature questioning the science of this assertion
http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/comp-anat/comp-anat-7d.shtml
——————————————————————————–
——————————————————————————–
@ Michael – I concede the point, as I think you are right, but nonetheless, if I am faced with VERY low cancer rates with a vegan diet that must have a FEW supplaments, verses a higher cancer rate with meat and/or milk products, you know whch one *I* will chose.
Besides, this should NOT be a call to eat meat, but rather a call to return our farming to the way it was in Genesis chapter 1 of the Bible — remember in Genesis 1:29-30, it had ONLY vegan food for both humans AND animals (don’t use a KJV this time, as the word ‘meat’ does not refer to the consumed flesh in this context, but rather, it is an adjective, “for food,” e.g., ‘Brophe’ in the original Hebrew).
So, it shows NO meat or milk in the original diet — just like DIVORCE (nondietery, but mentioned for context), meat, milk, and divorce were ALL added later for the hardness of the heart of mankind, but were NOT in the original gameplan.
We can go round and round forever with this. As a former vegan and one who has even organized and run a vegan kitchen, I have seen too many people including myself, who have undermined their health on a plant only diet. If veganism was a “natural” human diet, we would see examples of it in traditional, native, or “primitive” cultures. We simply dont see this. As far as meat and dairy and cancer, doctors like Albert Schweitzer living with traditional peoples, even the heavily carnivious, Inuit and Masai, reported that they almost never saw a case of Cancer (and other degenerative diseases like arthritis and heart disease) in the natives until they started eating the higly processed refined foods of western culture, notably white flour, sugar and vegetable oils. Weston Price also documented this same pattern in his travels around the world. (You can read all of the foot-noted references in Gary taubes “Good Calories Bad calories”)
To me the Bible is an allegorical and symbolic work, written by men, that is too often taken literally with disasterous effect,
@ Michael Cohen — Regarding processing of foods, I do not disagree: This is BAD.
As far as the accuracy of the Bible, see THIS research, if u don’t mind, addressing your concern plus one other:
LAKELAND, FL (The Register) Tuesday, 09 June 2009 – SPECIAL REPORT: Exploring Reincarnation, Past Lives, and the accuracy of the Bible:
Editor’s Note: As of today, Wednesday, 20 January 2010, I have made a few additions in italics below -after having noticed I’d missed a few things.
QUESTION #1: Is Reincarnation real??
QUESTION #2: Is the Bible True??
http://GordonWatts.com/theology/reincarnation.html
or:
http://GordonWayneWatts.com/theology/reincarnation.html
Regarding the diseases linked to meat & milk, reprise:
Black & White (printer friendly) version:
http://GordonWatts.com/consumer1.html
or:
http://GordonWayneWatts.com/consumer1.html
THAT copy is in B & W, but to see it in foll colour (which some say is hard on their eyes), remove the number ’1′ right before the ‘.html’ in the URL.
Now, THIS is hard science, and when you’ve had enough of the real science, see the Bible passages, which you might also accept as valid
((your comment: “”If veganism was a “natural” human diet, we would see examples of it in traditional, native, or “primitive” cultures.”"))
my reply: -IF you accept my defense of the Bible in the 1st set of links — THESE passages show that there WAS a culture of this type -back in the day.
Genesis 1:29-31
New American Standard Bible (NASB)
29 Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the [a]surface of all the earth, and every tree [b]which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; 30 and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the [c]sky and to every thing that [d]moves on the earth [e]which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. 31 God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Footnotes:
a.Genesis 1:29 Lit face of
b.Genesis 1:29 Lit in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed
c.Genesis 1:30 Lit heavens
d.Genesis 1:30 Or creeps
e.Genesis 1:30 Lit in which is a living soul
NASB, quoted under Fair Use:
Note, if you would that there is NO mention of eating meat or drinking milk after verse 30, and it changes subjects — “Things that make you go ‘hmm…’.”
I’m not asking you believe the Bible right off the bat here, but when both Bible AND Science agree, then they effectively support one another, and MY experiences as a vegan support both of those, so you have THREE witnesses — here is MY proof of some measure of success on the vegan diet:
http://www.youtube.com/gordonwaynewatts#p/u/23/oseUEhVPSKE
and
http://www.youtube.com/gordonwaynewatts#p/u/18/PjaMLYtj5l0
Note on 1st vid: I’m about 5’10″, so the use of the box was appropriate to equal things for those in my weight class who are 5’6″ –I really should have had TWO boxes, but whatever –
Note on 2nd Vid: April bench presses over 400 pounds WITHOUT lifting shirts or gear, and she DID try to win the 1st couple tries… LOL. ha hah! She took 3 tries to beat me = cuz of my training, strength, and my vegan diet.
– Gordon
oops — I did not clarify why I should have had 2 four-inch wooden boxes to elevate the weight in the deadlift … most people in my weight class are REAL short — like 5 foot 2 or so…
my bad.
OK, I’m not super strong, but I am strong, and cancer free — and the stuff tastes good -and supplements are not cheating:
You take vitamins, I suppose, and so do I, so I’m not cheating.
We are at an impasse. I recognize peoples “biochemical individuality”. A vegan diet does not work for me. I take the bible(s) as an allegorical and symbolic work and NOT as a final authority on anything. It is a product of a very different time, with very different values, and very different ideation and very different language(s). I have stated my observations from my own experience and that is all I can do. I have no desire to change you or your opinions
Thx 4 hearing my views, Michael, even if u don’t agree with me.
2B clear, the reasons I think the Bible is correct can be summarised into 4 areas:
1 – scientific accuracy; 2 – historical/arcaeological accuracy
3 – prohetic predictions stunningly correct so far — and 4 — morally correct guide — but see my links 4 further details.
Yes, I agree genetic differences make us unique, but I think we’re more similar than different in re diet — so, what works 4u, will not be far off 4 me … but that said, I’m glad we agree on many of the issues, if not all:
Grass fed animals, WITHOUT hormones, in whcih the cows are NOT overworked to over-produce milk, etc.
Also, I’m glad that many ‘meat eaters’ are still omnivores (like fruits, veggies), and not soley carnivores.
Lastly, natural, unprocessed FOOD, — EXERCISE, SLEEP, and STRESS MANAGEMENT (caps added for clarity, not to yell), are all 4 things we probably agree on –vegan-vs-cancer areas notwithstanding where we probably disagree.
Oh, 1 other thing: Not over eating helps the body get right of toxic wastes more easily, and a (biochemically) clean body is a healthy body.
[...] Getting back to the research now. Denise is possibly most known for her analysis of the China Study which is a paper that is frequently thrown up by vegans/vegetarians as evidence for how they eat and what they believe in. You can read it here – The China Study on Raw Food SOS. [...]
[...] 3 – Denise Minger from Raw Food SOS [...]
— Если говорить о сегодняшнем дне, то я это уже делала. У меня ощущение, что я когда-то путешествовала здесь. Может быть, пустыня возвращает нам детство?, эротические знакомства + в красноярске.
your post is in Russion, and my computer peeps say that it says the following:
“-If we talk about today, I already did. I have the feeling that I was once traveled here. Maybe the desert gets us childhood?, erotic dating + in Krasnoyarsk.”
Krasnoyarsk (Russian: Красноярск, IPA: [krəsnɐˈjarsk]) is a city and the administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located on the Yenisey River. It is the third largest city in Siberia.
Questions:
#1 — why don’t you write in English, the major language of those who post here?
#2 — why are you asking people to have erotic dating in this Russian city?
[...] also read Denise Minger’s various articles debunking of the China Study by Colin [...]
[...] I think most people imagine not. The contemporary Chinese diet emphasizes the importance of ‘fan’, or staple foods such as wheat and rice. These are thought to have a neutral energetic (being neither cooling or warming) which balances the other elements of the meal – such as cai (vegetable dishes) and any proteins such as meat or fish. The typical proportions would be around half a plate of grains or root vegetables, around another half of a variety of vegetables with the rest being ‘wei’ food; wei is ‘taste’. Wei foods are said to have a dense taste and to be rich and nourishing, such as fish, meat, organ foods, egg, oils and fats and dairy products. Certainly the average Chinese takeaway meal is a high-carb, insulin spiking nightmare. Anyone who has read T. Colin Campbell’s book, “The China Study”, will have come away thinking that any benefits the Chinese diet may have are because it is an almost vegan, plant-based diet; and therefore highly rich in carbohydrates. This view-point has been aggressively debunked by Denise Minger. [...]
thank you all. what i have big problems with is this attacking each others. In the end there will be some confused readers and start eating anything cause of all this aggresion from every side. What is worth to consume this inhumane mass slaughtery and this in their own blood crying animals then mixed up with chemical coctails or is it better to eat more conscious raise meat. not always but occasionally. From hanging around on paleohacks i can understand some of this meat eating dudes are just like ballons pumped with air or helium ready to go into the air. ‘Whatever its not the job to gt all over confusion. Some people wanna have something simple what they can do in their life. Not everyone thrives on a vegan diet. Even if its good for heartdesease or diabetes. Why is there only one option. maybe this is right and the vegan fruitarian diet is the optimum when we run on glucose only in our brain. maybe it is the food of the fututre. maybe not. I think it hopefully a way to get more calm in the mind and find a way of peaceful clearing.
When people argue with all this biochemistry it sounds proffesional. Who wanna proof it has to learn biochemistry. and is all of this terms proofen?! probably not.
So anyway we need somethin what is clear. like stories and experiences of people who get well on a diet. Its not time to hate each other. cause maybe you are now on a high fat diet and the change to a low fat high carb diet will safe your mind. we have to be more open for multiple solutions and more layers in our thinking.
it will defintly change like the humankind has changed their diet by travelling through the plantet it would be foolish to think you or we have to stick to one diet cause one diet guru or a lot of them claim this. When one Mr Paleo SChulze thrives on his diet and shows shining pictures of his abs its is his life. If you see dr. cambell dr. bannard and dr. essylyn slim giving a lecture it is there benefit. everyone and everything has its own benefit.
So maybe one day you see something totally healthful on a low fat diet. why not?maybe this meat period is just a small time. i not wanna kill an animal and i wish i can find solution to give all my nutrient with plants. Still i see for teeth problems there are two ways i have seen working. one is a strong detox. with a lot living foods and detox enemas and activation of liver and givinvg of a lot superstuff. the other one which works is the western a prices style and the other following of dr. mallanby from the uk.
Whatever and im sure we will find new ways and maybe the moment you fighting against it will cost your life.
i see defintly the benefits of a vegan lifestyle also the low sodium is very good. Still it can lead to strange issues. And another thing while you argueing here …. meet some friends meet some real people meet some animals. maybe also other than home raised domestic animals. and listen to them they probably will give you a answer on how its ok to raise them. ITs time to let all this gurus speak and find out the own way. Be it the WAPF speaker or other groups of The real solutions are simple and not always explainable in biochemistry or calling out big numbers or biochemistry alphabet. thoughts. What ever it is good to be wise in this moment and listen to the own heart and find a decision in the here and now and beside the virtuell world in a daily apple, the wise traditions, RAWfood SOS Angel Hacks.com or whatever. Stay real keep real. Reality life has so much miracles and suprises. So maybe things are possible you not thought they were.
take care everyone.
To the origin auther of this site: i ish you follow your heart you also will find a way. i wish you stuck to learning piano. or something else beauty this diet wars wil not adress the real beauty of your heart. you can steppping stone it to your real inner desires.
[...] up what The China Study is and then the main arguments she made to debunk it. Visit her blog for the whole scoop on why The China Study is bad [...]
[...] Raw milk is in the news again today. This time, five people are ill in California and the finger is pointing at Organic Pastures Dairy. (Incidentally, third party testing found no contaminant in their milk.) I have no problem with recalls if milk (or any other food) causes an outbreak. But, I do have a problem with the demonizing of an entire food group when the statistics and history of its consumption don’t warrant it. That’s why I was royally ticked off when I read this article from the San Francisco Chronicle. I was even more horrified when I read the comments. Clearly, there are a lot of sheeple out there who think I should lose my happy, well adjusted, healthy, child—the one I stay home with each day, hold when she’s sick, have breastfed since she was born (she’s almost three), have sung to and read to, and have an excellent parent-child bond with—simply because I feed her raw milk instead of taking her to McDonalds or feeding her high-soy, high sugar, or vegan diet. (And perhaps because I don’t get my nutrition information from the China Study). [...]
The US eats the most meat and cheese of any place on earth (and probably sugar, too). Why then, do we have the most osteoporosis, heart attacks, and cancers? Would you make the conclusion that fruits and vegetables cause these things?
[...] The China Study [...]
Shared the study. It’s never too old to bring it up again.
http://musclegeek.wordpress.com/2011/12/16/how-to-debunk-a-vegetarian/
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[...] The china study byDenise Minger [...]
your site is very interesting, i just bookmarked your site. keep up the posts
To discredit Colin Campbell’s research and decades of scientific research by scientists the world over is down right silly. To ignore their findings is your choice. Eat your yourself to an early death
If you bothered to actually read Ms Mingers and others critiques of The China Study you would see for your self that Campell’s “conclusions” don’t match up with what his raw data say. He is biased from the beginning, and this is not scientific. I was a macrobiotic vegan until my health suffered. I bought into the the ideas that grains were the “principal food” of man and that animal fats were unhealthy. This is simply not true. If a vegan lifestyle were at all viable we would see examples of it in traditional cultures. Name ONE. The nutrient dense red meat of ruminants is what made us human. My health improved when I stopped eating grains, legumes and vegetable oils. Initally the results of switching from the SAD to grains and Veggies were amazing, but the lack of nutrients took its toll. I was a cook in a Macrobiotic restaurant. One of the things that disturbed me was that the people around me just didnt look that healthy. Recently I saw Campbell, Esseltyn, and a few other vegan advocates on TV and they all looked cadaverous.
@ Michael Cohen,
I’ve heard others say similar things about “getting sick” after becoming a vegan. What exactly does the scientific literature and research say about this? I mean, have there been any studies done confirming the fact that if you’re a vegan you’ll become sick in some form or another? If so please show them to me. I don’t understand how making the majority of your diet out of whole plant foods is bad for you. This seems counter intuitive especially considering that all of the research I’ve read (including outside of Campbell/Esselstyn) show that eating a diet rich in plant foods can only be good for you. It has been shown time and again that this is the way to prevent and reverse heart disease and other illnesses. Even the American Heart Association says this.
http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/Diet-and-Lifestyle-Recommendations_UCM_305855_Article.jsp#
Please don’t site the AHA as any kind of valid authority. Their sticker of approval is on Cocoa Puffs and Pop Tarts.
The vegan doctors are only telling at best, half of the story.
Denise has shown that Campbells raw data do not reflect his conclusions
Check the results of Esselstyn’s study , see what percentage of peoples heart disease actually got worse.
.I am not against a diet “rich in plant foods”. Far from it. I probably eat more raw, cooked and fermented plants than most people.But my own observations and experience have led met to the conclusion that a vegan diet is grossly unatural for humans.
When I stopped eating all grains and legumes and added animal protien and FAT to my diet, my total cholesterol went down, My triglycerides went down, HDL went up and LDL went down. My persistent GERD and Arthritis went away. I lost 25 lbs.
What really seems to induce heart disease, and most of the “diseases of civilization” is a diet rich in refined carbohydrates and the very unsaturated vegetable oils (hydrogenated or not) that are touted as “heart healthy” . These are the variables in the modern diet that have increased the most in the last hundred years. The use of Animal fat, an ancient food, has actually declined during the same period. Gary Taubes points out in GCBC that doctors around the world, working with “primitive peoples” found time and again an absence of modern diseases like heart disease,cancer, diabeties in the native populations, eating their traditional diets, often very high in Animal fat. All of these diseases did appear when they started eating the foods imported by modern man, namely white flour and sugar.
It has been shown time and again that a ketogenic diet, induces the most improvement in the lipid blood profiles.
Please also note that the Vegetarian populations of India have some of the HIGHEST rates of heart disease and diabeties.
I have found that a Vegan diet (Plant only) is not suitable humans for a few reasons. They are also the reasons why my health eventually suffered on a plant only diet.The first is the lack of nutrient density. The second is the fact that grains and legumes contain many anti-nutrients, that eventually will wreak havoc in the body.
I dont have time to re-list all of the facts here. If you have the emotional courage and intellectual honesty, please read “The Vegetarian Myth” by Lierre keith, a twenty year vegan who ruined her health with a plant only diet. Chapter four is an excellent summary of the human nutritional needs and the scientific arguments against a plant only diet.
Also follow these links
Dr William T Jarvis
http://www.acsh.org/healthissues/newsID.760/healthissue_detail.asp
DR Mercola
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/29/why-are-vegetarians-at-risk-of-heart-disease.aspx
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2006/03/30/the-fallacy-of-vegetarian-diets.aspx
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2000/04/02/vegetarian-myths.aspx
Dr William Davis
http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/
Dr Anrdreas Eenfeldt
http://www.dietdoctor.com/lchf
Prof. David Diamond PhD
A few more If you have the courage
http://www.westonaprice.org/vegetarianism-and-plant-foods/vegetarianism-and-nutrient-deficiencies
http://www.westonaprice.org/vegetarianism-and-plant-foods/not-to-go-vegetarian
http://www.westonaprice.org/vegetarianism-and-plant-foods/science-of-vegetarianism
http://www.westonaprice.org/vegetarianism-and-plant-foods/myths-of-vegetarianism
http://www.westonaprice.org/vegetarianism-and-plant-foods/protein-building-blocks-of-the-body
[...] less heart disease. Check out the best critique of The China Study I’ve seen by Denise Minger at Raw Food SOS here. (I have to add here that most researchers do not even give Campbell’s study their attention [...]
Just gotta say…..How many of these commenters are actually DurianRider himself?? Like Olof, Lyle etc. They all have a certain ring to them (idiocy) and Durianrider does have massive mental issues. He spends like 14 hrs a day on computers doing his life work- i.e. pretending to be someone else and starting arguements on paleo and other forums/blogs.
So yeah I guess what I’m saying is don’t worry so much about replying to the crap comments he posts as they are just rubbish. ro
[...] was almost embarrassing to read, given the exhaustive nature of what that cute little smarty pants does. Red-faced & happy, I guess you could say. Relieved, [...]
[...] av statistiker, läkare och andra forskare och här är troligtvis en av de bättre genomgångarna http://rawfoodsos.com/the-china-study/. För den som orkar ta sig igenom material framgår med all tydlighet att Dr. Campells studie [...]
[...] The China Study [...]
(RE: “”http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/journals/lex%27s-journal/ I challenge.”") what u saying, GC?
That eating meat is better?
As I look at that link, it merely seems to say that less protein & more fat is better, not necessarily more animal fat, right?
I admit, I did not get a chance t ofully review your link (so ,y massessment may be incomplete).
But, in a nutshell, what are you suggesting here?
Thx,
– Gordon Wayne Watts
LAKELAND, Fla., U.S.A.
Why does Denise not answer Gordon’s critiques?
Yeah — good quuestion, Carl.
However, Denise not only approved my Facebook request, but she’s been polite to me the whole time I’ve known her.
(Perhaps, she’s just too busy?)
– Gordon
Denise, did you not think it odd that towards the end there was a shot of a traditional Chinese family sitting at the table, presumably having just eaten a traditional Chinese meal endorsed by The China Study, and there is a man smoking? Is this supposed to tell me that despite indulging in this habit he will avoid lung cancer due to being plant-strong?
[...] I think most people imagine not. The contemporary Chinese diet emphasizes the importance of ‘fan’, or staple foods such as wheat and rice. These are thought to have a neutral energetic (being neither cooling or warming) which balances the other elements of the meal – such as cai (vegetable dishes) and any proteins such as meat or fish. The typical proportions would be around half a plate of grains or root vegetables, around another half of a variety of vegetables with the rest being ‘wei’ food; wei is ‘taste’. Wei foods are said to have a dense taste and to be rich and nourishing, such as fish, meat, organ foods, egg, oils and fats and dairy products. Certainly the average Chinese takeaway meal is a high-carb, insulin spiking nightmare. Anyone who has read T. Colin Campbell’s book, “The China Study”, will have come away thinking that any benefits the Chinese diet may have are because it is an almost vegan, plant-based diet; and therefore highly rich in carbohydrates. This view-point has been aggressively debunked by Denise Minger. [...]
[...] The China Study [...]
[...] The China Study [...]
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
[...] the fact that the study is innately incapable of providing such evidence. It’s as if someone pulled a Campbell on us. Only an actual experiment, with controls and manipulated variables, could start confirming [...]
Go to China. Find out what qualifies as “meat” there. Then give “The China Study” a place at the end of the bench in your next garage sale. Worthless piece of psuedo-science.
[...] the fact that the study is innately incapable of providing such evidence. It’s as if someone pulled a Campbell on us. Only an actual experiment, with controls and manipulated variables, could start confirming [...]
[...] the famous “China Study,” please visit Denise Minger‘s awesome blog and read these articles yourself. Thank [...]
[...] the fact that the study is innately incapable of providing such evidence. It’s as if someone pulled a Campbell on us. Only an actual experiment, with controls and manipulated variables, could start [...]
[...] the fact that the study is innately incapable of providing such evidence. It’s as if someone pulled a Campbell on us. Only an actual experiment, with controls and manipulated variables, could start confirming [...]
[...] the fact that the study is innately incapable of providing such evidence. It’s as if someone pulled a Campbell on us. Only an actual experiment, with controls and manipulated variables, could start confirming [...]
[...] the fact that the study is innately incapable of providing such evidence. It’s as if someone pulled a Campbell on us. Only an actual experiment, with controls and manipulated variables, could start confirming [...]
[...] variables, could start confirming causation. ” Minger is well-known for her excellent rebuttal to Colin T. Campbell’s (author of the infamous China Study) theories on the superior health [...]
[...] the fact that the study is innately incapable of providing such evidence. It’s as if someone pulled a Campbell on us. Only an actual experiment, with controls and manipulated variables, could start confirming [...]
[...] the fact that the study is innately incapable of providing such evidence. It’s as if someone pulled a Campbell on us. Only an actual experiment, with controls and manipulated variables, could start confirming [...]
[...] the fact that the study is innately incapable of providing such evidence. It’s as if someone pulled a Campbell on us. Only an actual experiment, with controls and manipulated variables, could start confirming [...]
[...] No doubt you’ve seen or heard the recent health and nutrition headlines in the mainstream: red meat will kill you! Or will it? Check out “Will Eating Red Meat Kill You?” by super-smart, science-y, and darned good writer Denise Minger on Mark’s Daily Apple to understand the research flaws behind the headlines. While you’re at it, feel free to read some of Minger’s critques of the China Study or the recent film “Forks and Knives”. [...]
[...] as is evidenced by the work of lay enthusiast and blogger Denise Minger on the subject. And here she is, more specifically, on The China Study by T. Colin [...]
[...] unbiased facts. Check out more of her work over at Raw Food SOS, including her incredible critiques of The China Study! GD Star [...]
Having read a good portion, but not all, of these comments
I find there isn’t a any one diet that works for everybody.
The book I read, “The Metabolic Typing Diet” seems to make
sense. The premise is that depending on your family background
you are either a protein type of person of a carbohydrate type of
person. An Eskimo living in the jungle would have problems as
would a person from the jungle would have a hard time staying
healthy eating whale blubber. Or maybe it’s mixed.
Eat what suits you, just find out what’s your type.
There’s a balance in there, so experiment and find out.
[...] entitled Death by Food Pyramid is set for late 2012 and if you haven’t already read her China Study blog posts then they are an absolute MUST-READ! Denise knows all the arguments that vegans and vegetarians [...]
You don’t only have the brains but the guts as well to make us part of your thoughts. Your critical analyses are a real contribution for men’s health, if people that really have influance listen to you, of course, but if we all do they have to. And I like your taste of humour. Makes it even more digestible.
Hi. I’m doing rearch on this debate, and found Dr. Campbells response to you here (under the editorial): http://www.vegsource.com/news/2010/07/china-study-author-colin-campbell-slaps-down-critic-denise-minger.html
But, I did not see it here. Maybe I missed it? Looking for your response back to Dr. Campbell’s criticism of your analysis. Thanks.
[...] The China Study on RawFoodSOS.com – http://rawfoodsos.com/the-china-study/ [...]
[...] Her blog is one of my very favourites – please read as a way of introduction her articles on T. Colin Campbell’s The China Study (especially if you are, or have ever considered vegetarianism or veganism), and Ancel Keys/Heart [...]
Hi Denise,
I saw your article on the China Study in the Weston A. Price magazine. Thank you! I love your common sense stance!
Love, light and music to you!
Sambodhi Prem
http://bit.ly/GJf5sk
[...] Here’s Denise’s final response on the subject, and here’s her blog page that summarises all the various claims and counter-claims. [...]