| | Location: Home » Medical Reference » General » The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health | |
|
|
| 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 (45) 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
|
| Customer Comments:
 Not all relevant data included July 13, 2005
110 out of 150 found this comment useful.
I was very interested to read this book, but I was disappointed because there were omissions. There was selective reporting of the survey results to advocate a whole foods vegan diet.
We are not told what chinese people actually eat vs their cancer rate by province. The author advocates a vegan diet and uses the china study to justify this, but the chinese are not vegans. They may be ALMOST wholefoods vegan, but this is not the same as totally vegan. I would like to have seen included a percentage of animal products in the diet of the rural chinese, broken up by meat(non fish), fish, dairy, egg. I have assumed that dairy is zero due to lactose intolerance but this is just a guess.
The author believes supplements are not necessary (I agree), but then states that a B12 supplement is necessary. Of course on a vegan diet it is necessary. Doesn't this indicate humans need enough animal products in their diet to avoid a B12 deficiency (there would not be much animal product required), I believe we only need 2 mcg of B12 per day. He claims that organically grown plants would have b12 naturally, but offers no evidence of this. I do not believe this to be true, I want proof.
In summary, I do not like the incomplete reporting of data to suit someones philosophy, but I do believe that the best diet is wholefoods about 80% derived from plants, with enough meat/fish to be healthy and stave off a b12 deficiency. I ageee that dairy is not suitable for humans. In fact, our closest relatives the chimpanzee eat mostly leaves, fruits and other parts of plants, insects and meat when it is available, they don't get much meat but they will hunt smaller animals if given the opportunity.
I wish the original text of the published study had been included as part of the book, now I have to locate a copy,aarg!!!
Some Time Later ... Now I have actually read the actual Study that this book is talking about.
(...)
Cancer Mortality is not correlated to meat eating or total protein or the intake of animal fat.!!!
So the actual study doesn't support the vegan diet at all, in fact non of the people studied were vegan. In fact the longest lived people on earth (okinawans and japanese) are not vegans, but they eat heaps of vegetables and a wide variety, legumes, rice, fish, small amounts of meat, and no dairy.
One thing I noticed from the REAL China Study was that the rural chinese are more likely to die from infectious disease such as TB and Pneumonia than westerners. They do not have a life expectancy greater than ours! I think we should be looking at the japanese/okinawa diet.
A good book on this is by Bradley Wilcox
 Animal Protein and Animal Welfare: Food for Thought July 2, 2005
33 out of 55 found this comment useful.
Six years ago I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease (an inflammatory bowel disease). I've always been a healthy eater and believe in natural healing whenever possible, especially through diet and (sigh!) stress reduction. After my diagnosis, I cut out all sugar, wheat and ate even more vegetables and grains. Although I hadn't consumed red meat in 20 years, I did still consume other animal protein. While I was able to successfully control my crohn's disease this way, it was not until reading The China Study that I completely eliminated chicken, turkey, eggs, and cow's dairy. I still eat a small amount of goat yogurt and goat cheese and some fish, and I've never felt better!
It was not The China Study alone that influenced my decision to drastically reduce my animal protein consumption. While Dr. Campbell's results are compelling, worrying about contracting some disease in the future is not always enough to persuade most of us to stop eating hamburgers, chicken, eggs or ice cream. The American diet revolves around these foods and it takes a concerted effort to find satisfying alternatives.
What cinched my decision to further reduce my animal protein consumption was the information I read in other books about the effect of factory farming on our health, environment, and our collective sense of humanity.
Together with The China Study, these books make for impressive reading:
* Animal Liberation by Peter Singer
* The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and the World by John Robbins
* Plant Roots: Reasons Why the Human Diet is Rooted Exclusively in Plants by Rex Bowlby
When you consider that it takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef vs. approximately 24 gallons to produce one pound of wheat, something's wrong. In addition, my consciousness was raised when I realized how animals in factory farms (where most animals we eat are raised) are treated and killed. I was beyond horrified. All I know is that once my awareness was raised there was no going back.
Whether you choose to cut out animal protein completely or simply be more conscious in your decisions about what and when you eat it, The China Study along with these other books all give you food for thought. I can't encourage people enough to read them and come to your own conclusions.
Solid research. Concise helpful observations. July 1, 2005
25 out of 42 found this comment useful.
Dr. Campbell clearly documents the methods and findings of the prestigious China study, pointing out the relationship between a diet containing too much animal protein and disease. A chapter or two is devoted to the history of research regarding animal protein's affect on tumor growth rate, providing corroborative evidence for the findings of the China study. There is also discussion on the difficulty of making this information "heard" in Washington due to special-interest lobbies. In my opinion the book is interesting, helpful, and motivational reading.
Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics! June 29, 2005
115 out of 218 found this comment useful.
Back in the 1980s, T. Colin Campbell and a team of researchers traveled to China to survey the dietary habits of 6,500 adults in 130 rural villages. Although they gathered data on a whopping 367 food variables,they somehow neglected to note how much soy people were eating. Yet soy is widely reputed to be a "miracle food" and the reason that the Chinese have lower rates of some cancers and other chronic diseases. So it's "startling" indeed to find that ALL legume consumption came to a grand total of only 12 grams per day, which is NOT very much. However, what's truly "startling" about this book is not the researchers' failure to be "comprehensive" -- they gathered plenty of good data though readers will have to go to earlier publications to get it -- but the many ways Campbell massages, misuses and misreports that data. Although he clearly thinks that it's all for a good cause, this is a textbook case of "Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics." I recommend that the publisher follow up with a sequel -- a companion volume in which researchers without any dietary agenda take the same data and reach statistically justified conclusions. Now that would give readers food for thought!
More vegan myth June 26, 2005
75 out of 165 found this comment useful.
Just more vegan propaganda wrapped up to look like a legitimate study. Have you noticed how many of the usual culprits that are highly recommending this book have an vegetarian agenda? i.e. McDougall, Barnard, Ornish et al. What this book *can* teach you is that statistics can be presented in such a way as to prove most anything you want.
|
|
|
|  | |
|