Angie Weaver’s Blog from Native Foods Café in Aliso Viejo
How many people out there know someone with heart disease, cancer, or diabetes? If you asked that question to an auditorium full of people, I would guess almost everyone in attendance would raise their hands. In our great country, that is a very sad statistic. According to the book, The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, PHD all of these diseases are preventable and reversible with a plant-based, whole foods diet. In my many years working at Native Foods, the one book that has brought in the most new vegans searching for delicious, healthy cuisine is this remarkable book. I will often ask Native Newbies how they heard about our restaurant. More times than I can count guests have told me that after reading this book they were compelled to seek out alternatives to the Standard American Diet (SAD) because of a health-related issue they were seeking to cure without drugs and surgeries. This book was on my list of must-reads and I finally got around to reading it. Now I want to give it to all my friends and family, and for that matter, everyone I meet.
Unlike other pro-vegan books, this one is all about health and nutrition and how to achieve optimal well-being. There is not much, if any, animal rights issues brought up. When I first became vegetarian/vegan 17 years ago, all I cared about was not eating animals and living a life with the least amount of suffering from my food choices. I realize there are folks out there who couldn’t give two licks about animal suffering, so this is the book for them. As I read more and more books on the topic of vegan nutrition (I wanted to be a healthy example of a vegan), I learned that not only was I saving animals but I was also saving myself (or at least severely reducing my chances) from weight issues, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and autoimmune diseases.
Some of the evidence supporting a plant-based whole foods diet comes from an enormous (the biggest ever) nutrition study done in China. I’m condensing a lot of information here for space. Populations that consume a plant-based whole foods diet are much healthier than those that consume the Standard American Diet. Naysayers often point a finger at genetics, but Campbell and his team of scientists show that when these same populations move to America, for example, and start eating our traditional diet they succumb to the same terrible and preventable diseases (cancer, heart disease, diabetes) that were almost unheard of in their birthplace.
Our medical establishment, according to Campbell, is in the business to make money. When people take control of their own health and change their diet and are able to go off medication that their doctor said they would be on for life then the pharmaceutical industry loses a lot of money. Doctors make the most money when they prescribe medicines and do surgeries. In the best of circumstances, as with heart disease, medical intervention only prolongs the inevitable second and third heart attack and eventual death. There are amazing, courageous doctors who have gone against the status quo to start treatment centers where they show patients how to change their lifestyle and adopt a plant-based, whole foods diet which has been shown to reverse heart disease. One such doctor is John McDougall.
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