The China Study: Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-term Health by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell

The China Study: Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-term Health by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell offers insight into the effect the food we eat has on our health. I first learned about this book while watching the documentary, Forks Over Knives. I decided I needed to read it even though I started eating a whole-food plant based diet several years ago. Campbell and Campbell explore Dr. T. Colin Campbell's research through the years with a clarity that offers little room for argument. The China Study explains, true to its name, a long term study done on a group of healthy people living in China who eat a mostly plant-based diet where certain diseases are extremely rare. The Campbells demonstrate through an examination of eating habits and health tests how people from Asian countries develop the same health problems as Americans when they adopt a typical American diet. They also discuss the process with which our dietary guidelines are written and how they are influenced by industry including both the food and the pharmaceutical industries. Even though The China Study was published in 2006, the Campbells set an important foundation for understanding the discussion of nutrition and health through studies that have been done over several decades. The China Study provides important information regarding the policy issues as well as the misconceptions often touted with  authority regarding the food we eat and its relationship to our health.


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