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| The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health | 
 enlarge | Authors: T. Colin Campbell, Thomas M. Campbell Ii
Creators: John Robbins, Howard Lyman
Publisher: Benbella Books
Discount Category: Book
Selling Price: $16.95
Buy Used: $6.00
Potential Savings: $10.95 (65%)
New (44) Used (19) from $6.00
Customer Ratings:  485 comments
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st BenBella Books Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 417
Shipping Weight (pounds): 1.3
Dimensions (inch): 9 x 6 x 0.9
ISBN: 1932100660
Dewey Decimal Number: 613.2
EAN: 9781932100662
Publication Date: June 1, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Cover bent. Sound Copy. Mild Reading Wear.
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| Customer Comments:
 The Book changed my family's life November 16, 2005
12 out of 18 found this comment useful.
This book is a must read for anybody wanting to change their life and begin a healthly eating trend!!!! Half way through this book I made a life changing decision for my family as well as referred three other people to read it!!!
Moderation in Persuit of Health Is No Virtue November 16, 2005
44 out of 54 found this comment useful.
This review is modified from my comments on "Carbophobia," as a response to a Hostile Reviewer. I'm afraid I might have been just a teeny little bit sarcastic, there, but I've revised it and added it here because it has a high degree of relevance. In defending "Carbophobia," I wax eloquent about my own masculine beauty:
I've been effectively vegan since the Carter era (ah, youth!), with maybe some butter once in a while. Nothing dead since Iran was our friend (thanks, Carter). I'm not hoary with years, but no longer a mere slip of a boy, and my biometrics put me in my mid-twenties. When I'm trained (last year) my resting heartrate is 43 bpm, and I run a 5 minute mile and a 3:20 marathon; I can squat 600 pounds, dip twice my body weight (180) ten times (that's, um, like, uh, 360 pounds or something!), and I've nearly got my one-armed chinup. My body fat is somewhere under 10%, and I have that delightful and intriguing masculine shape, complete with abs, pecs, lats, and even [pause for dramatic effect] delts. Gee, I'm terrific! So am I saying this (if it's true) because I want vicarious admiration? Yes, I want vicarious admiration. But also because I think I pretty much demonstrate the fact that meat is in every sense optional.
The Hostile Reviewer asserts that meat is not "unhealthy" -- I'm sure he meant "unhealthful" -- adducing carnivores as evidence. It's been years, decades, really, since I went through all this, but I still recall that the intestinal tract of carnivores is many times shorter than that of herbivores; since we are neither c. nor h., our i.t. is intermediate -- something like five times longer than comparable meat-eaters; the point being that meat doesn't sit and ferment...rot...in a cat's colon, the way it did in John Wayne's [yes, I know it's an urban legend]. Anyone can find this sort of info on the hippy-dippy veggie sites...they're not wrong, just...um...artistic. It may or may not be true that "Humans have been eating meat since time immemorial" [Anno Domini 1199?], but given the differences in GI structure between carnivores and humans, the plaintive query "If meat was so unhealthy how could carnivores ever exist?" answers itself. In any case, horses outlive lions, 28 years to 16 -- that's like, uh, twice as long or something. Upshot is, Are we carnivores? No duh. Are we dedicated herbivores? Get along with you. We *can* eat just about anything -- but what is most healthful?
As for the inadaquacy of a vegetarian diet, we need only consider the beasts of the field -- say, the bovine staple of the Troglodyte Diet -- which eat, um, grass. Maybe some grasshoppers and lady bugs that don't elude the heft of a slobbery tongue, but mostly grass, right? I don't know what the incidence of osteoporosis in wild buffalo is, but I don't think it's endemic. As for protein: "nutrients from animal-based foods increase tumor development while nutrients from plant-based foods decrease tumor development." The consistancy of lab findings "was stunningly impressive..." [The China Study, p. 66.]
Regarding "unhealthy," as The China Study points out, a study funded by The Atkins Center revealed that subjects on that diet for half a year suffered constipation (68%), bad breath (63%), headaches (51%), hair loss (10%), and a 53% increase in calcium excreted in urine [cf. TCS, p. 96]. An Austrialian review of the data points out low-carb dangers of heart arrhythmias and contractile problems, impairment of physical activity, osteoporosis, lipid abnormalities, kidney damage, increased risk of cancer, and sudden death [TCS, p. 97]. Ouch. Atkins himself died weighing 258 lbs; even if this was fluid retention related to his coma, the 195 lbs claimed for him by a spokesman is concidered overweight, a BMI score of 26.4. His heart disease and high blood pressure may have been from insalubrious diet, or, as claimed, from a viral infection of the heart -- which hardly suggests a healthy immune system. All this cannot conceivably indicate a "health" diet -- at best, it could only be a weight-loss diet, apparently at the cost of being a health-loss diet.
The Hostile Reviewer asserts that "When people lose weight on high carbohydrate diets they always lose muscle and bone at the same time, sometimes as much as 40% ... from lean tissue..." Perhaps he's referring to the *Bonbons Seulement* Diet we've been hearing so much about? The Black Hole of Calcutta Diet? The Bataan Death March Diet? Just a hint: sensible diet and sensible exercise, together. Actually, for a sustainable diet, both animal and plant proteins are associated with greater weight, but "Greater plant protein intake [is] closely linked to greater *height* and body weight." [TCS, p. 103; emphasis added.] Third Worlders tend to be smaller not because plant protein is inferior, but because of insufficient dietary variety, quantity and quality, poor public hygiene, and prevalent childhood disease -- in other words, because of poverty.
I shall refrain from a descent into the minutia of high-carb v high-protein. But honestly, does either extreme sound sensible? How about *adequate*, or *optimal* carbs, amino acids and EFAs? It's not a "boys are better than girls" argument, after all; both are sorta necessary.
If we make the issue one of definitions, we must concider what I call "muffin vegetarians", where the issue isn't about health at all, and those people may be dropping like bloated blow-flies. Pretty much like the meat-and-no-potatoes folks. If it's only about weight (and merciful heavens, I hope it isn't), then amputation is a quick solution. But if it's about health, well didn't your grandmother ever teach you? Finish your vegetables, and don't play with dead things. If you insist on eating meat, doesn't moderation sound like a noble virtue?
In any case, and kidding aside, there's scarcely anything more emotional than food. It's our first comfort, when we come out of the womb. It's the melancholy, nostalgic feasts of childhood. It's courtship and conviviality. Great Scott, it gets a whole sense to itself! But when you concider the steep decadal rise in obesity and diabetes -- diabesity? -- and the failing fight against heart disease and cancer and the like, you know something is wrong. What's different? Is it oil prices? Is it ebola? Is it the Illuminati? Or is it what we're eating. The solution is certainly not fad diets, high-this and low-that. The word "diet" comes eventually from the Latin, meaning "a way of life," or "lifestyle." Hmm. Why, that's another hint! We should eat in a manner that we can sustain, and that can sustain us, for the rest of our lives.
The muffin vegetarians think their ethical purity will protect them. The cavemen think protein should be used as energy more than as building blocks. I suggest that we stop thinking of food in terms of a diet, and instead think of it as nutrition. It's not about how fat your hips or big your belly. It's about how healthy you can be. And like grandma used to say, "Moderation in most things."
This book changed my life! November 10, 2005
15 out of 20 found this comment useful.
This is THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK that I have ever read. So much so that after reading it I bought two dozen more copies to give out to friends and loved ones. It changed their lives to.
Appreciation November 2, 2005
10 out of 15 found this comment useful.
It is the answear for all my questions concerned my health. I am very happy to have this book and I am planning to share its information with my family and most of my friends.
great information November 1, 2005
0 out of 6 found this comment useful.
This is a very informative book, I highly recommend it. I have been vegan for 2 years and I love every minute of it, anyone and everyone CAN do it, even though it may seem impossible at first. It may be HARD to give up meat and dairy, but I guarantee it is HARDER to live the rest of your life with diseases like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.
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