Man!……If you are a practitioner and advocate of Paleolithic eating, this book will just keep coming back at you like a bad habit:
The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted
The China Study
Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long Term Health
T. Colin Campbell. PhD and Thomas M. Campbell
If you are expressive about the benefits of eating an evolutionary diet (like many of us tend to be); the veracity of this diet may be questioned by people who often use this book as a reference. I find this happens quite often.
If you have never read this book, I strongly suggest you get a copy. I have had a copy for years. I recommend it all the time. Great work! The message this book asserts is that if you want to remain in optimal health and avoid many chronic diseases, including cancer, then…
DO NOT EAT MEAT!…or any animal foods for that matter!
Believe it or not, I use this book primarily to promote a Paleolithic diet to help ensure optimal, permanent fat loss and exceedingly good health. But…the Paleolithic diet strongly suggests eating as much meat as you like, or any animal food for that matter!
Contradictory you say! On the surface only I rebut!
This book actually provides great research which strongly reinforces the veracity of eating Paleolithic era foods for optimal good health. Now, let me state from the outset that compared to all these great Phd’s and clinical experts who write books like this, I’m just a dumbass. I am though, a humble follower of evolutionary science in relation to anthropology and diet. I can read. I can also connect really big dots. I strongly contend this book is, on the surface, highly misrepresentative.
Nonetheless, just beneath its superficial message, one can find fantastic evidence supporting our human evolutionary diet for optimal health and well being. Ironically, this evidence also contradicts the book’s own superficial message, which is patronizingly repeated throughout its pages. With the facts revealed, that misrepresentation is exposed as sophomoric and perhaps mischievous at best. If you are aware of the truth, and take a more critical view, this book’s apparent message may be recognized as insulting to your intelligence. Either way, it is exposed as simply untrue.
One needs only to pay careful attention to a few spindly, barely mentioned little details or obvious omissions that unfortunately support the weak but grand facade that this book creates. As soon as these weak points are identified and removed, that facade quickly falls into a pile of rubble. What remains though, is of great value. When uncompromised by ideology, the research and findings of this book elegantly match those of evolutionary science.
Most critics of this book attack it directly. The most common criticism I have read states: “Observational studies, no matter how long or comprehensive do not prove cause” or “Correlation is not cause”. I think they miss the point – that is, the research in this book actually supports eating evolutionary foods – it just purposely obfuscates which ones.
I believe this was done because of the author’s strong philosophical and ideological beliefs. The opinions of the author are of course not science, yet they are strongly immersed and intermingled with the facts of the study.
Here is one of the most important little details that you need to be aware of regarding the massive study undertaken in this book:
(Pg 59, Paragraph 3)
“Controlling cancer through nutrition was, and still is, a radical idea. But as if this weren’t enough, one more issue would yield explosive information: did it make any difference what type of protein was used in these experiments? For all of these experiments we were using casein, which makes up 87% of cow’s milk protein.”
Now, is casein present in naturally raised animal foods, wild game, or any other Paleolithic era foods?
NOPE!
The plot thickens though, because casein is commonly added too, and found in the following foods:
• Processed meats – deli/lunch meats, sausages, hot dogs, etc.
• Processed foods
• Fast foods
• Baked goods
I can say with certainty that these foods ARE NOT on the Paleolithic “eat this” list! Cow’s milk and similar dairy products are most definitely NOT on the list of foods that humans consumed over approximately 6 million years of evolution.
Milk and dairy foods are of course where “milk protein” – that would be…uhmmm, CASEIN – is found.
Now, on to the fact that naturally raised meats have a different nutritional constituency than milk and processed or modern/industrially raised meats. This would represent a pesky little issue for the author in delivering his dire conclusions regarding the consumption of animal foods.
This difference though, is manifest scientifically in a large and growing-larger body of evidence; experimental, observational and practical. This evidence strongly suggests that the former (naturally raised/pastured animal foods) will deliver robust health and the latter (highly processed, industrially raised animal foods) will cause disease and ill-health. These are the sparse few words the authors use to discreetly dispense (erroneously) with this serious difference.
(Pg. 236, Paragraph 4)
“In practical terms, you aren’t doing yourself much good by eating organic beef instead of conventional beef that’s been pumped full of chemicals. The organic beef might be marginally healthier, but I would never say that it was a safe choice. Both types of beef have a similar nutrient profile”
This is sort of like saying that Hitler and Mother Theresa are essentially the same because they are both humans. The unmistakable inference here is that ANY animal foods, organic, industrially raised or otherwise are equally bad.
The reckless audacity here is the idea that the proven difference between these two types of animal food may be neatly dismissed with these few little sentences. I am still trying to figure out how such a smart guy, a tenured PhD can make these absurd links where food and deleterious health effects are concerned:
Industrially raised Pastured or
Milk = meat and processed = otherwise naturally
animal foods raised meat
This seems beyond a fallacy or error in deductive reasoning. Logically, it’s as disappointing as “guilt by association.”
Interestingly, thanks to most “big organic”, large scale animal food producers, these animals are not naturally raised whatsoever. These confined animals are simply fed “organic” grains like corn and other “organic” feed that are not at all a part of their natural diets. So, ironically, his use of the word “organic” in most modern instances will denote mediocre, sub-standard animal food (falling demonstrably into the “industrially raised” category).
This is completely wrong though if the inference holds that “pastured” or otherwise naturally raised animal foods are a part of this misleading, bizarre, and INCORRECT “chain of equality”. In dramatic writing, I believe this lack of any true transition is termed “melodrama.”
On to likely the most condescending statement in this book:
(Pg 110, Paragraph 3)
“As you go through each chapter, you will begin to see the breadth and depth of the astonishing scientific argument favoring a whole foods, plant based diet. For me, the consistency of evidence regarding such a disparate group of diseases has been the most convincing aspect of this argument.
When a whole foods, plant based diet is demonstrably beneficial for such a wide variety of diseases, is it possible that humans were meant to consume any other diet? I say no, and I think you’ll agree.”
Right!….To hell with Darwin! To hell with evolution and the sanctity, beauty and perfection of all natural processes and their infinitely sophisticated interactions over time.
The author’s statement here is patently absurd for too many reasons to list. His stated submission is perhaps the most cursory, unscientific, flippant contradiction to evolution I have ever read.
This author obviously has a better idea. This amounts to a doctor telling the human species (us!) that we are really NOT what we in fact absolutely, unequivocally are: OMNIVOROUS! This is like communicating to all dogs (or dog owners) that dogs should no longer be eating any meats, whatsoever – utterly ridiculous.
I’ve seen ambitious before. But in the annals of human anthropology, this was new. Bold isn’t the word. Correct isn’t the word either. It makes one wonder what would make even such a really smart guy think he could suggest, beyond the confines or reason, science, logic and all things natural, what is clearly wrong.
Now the author is known to follow a Vegan diet. I really respect Vegans. I have quite a few vegetarian and Vegan friends. They sacrifice what is part of their rightful evolutionary diet for something greater.
I find this to be a higher, more spiritual choice. I also highly respect their love and respect of all animal life. I consider myself below these people in regard to their empathy for other species. They transcend a purely zoological outlook with a higher philosophy. Regardless, that has nothing to do with what scientifically represents the healthiest diet for the human species to follow.
Mixing your spiritual beliefs with observational research and statistics in some kind of a bizarre literary cocktail in this instance does nothing for human health. It does create massive confusion. This is especially true because the misinformation is so well presented by such an intelligent doctor with such remarkable credentials. He should write another book on the apparent vulnerability of humans to contradict science and nature for the sake of one’s own personal opinions and ideology.
He would be the perfect test subject.
Is the book more than a little patronizing? Absolutely….at least that’s my humble opinion. But I value it immensely because the research is summarizes, inherently suggests that…
MILK AND MODERN, PROCESSED MEAT PRODUCTS ARE REALLY, REALLY BAD FOR US!
…and THAT…. is very useful information