T. Colin Campbell · 419 pages
Rating: (20.2K votes)
“Americans love to hear good things about their bad habits.”
“Everything in food works together to create health or disease. The more we think that a single chemical characterizes a whole food, the more we stray into idiocy.”
“I have heard one doctor call high-protein, high-fat, low-carbohydrate diets “make-yourself-sick” diets, and I think that’s an appropriate moniker. You can also lose weight by undergoing chemotherapy or starting a heroin addiction, but I wouldn’t recommend those, either.”
“How did we forget these lessons from the past? How did we go from knowing that the best athletes in the ancient Greek Olympics must consume a plant-based diet to fearing that vegetarians don’t get enough protein? How did we get to a place where the healers of our society, our doctors, know little, if anything, about nutrition; where our medical institutions denigrate the subject; where using prescription drugs and going to hospitals is the third leading cause of death? How did we get to a place where advocating a plant-based diet can jeopardize a professional career, where scientists spend more time mastering nature than respecting it? How did we get to a place where the companies that profit from our sickness are the ones telling us how to be healthy; where the companies that profit from our food choices are the ones telling us what to eat; where the public’s hard-earned money is being spent by the government to boost the drug industry’s profits; and where there is more distrust than trust of our government’s policies on foods, drugs and health? How did we get to a place where Americans are so confused about what is healthy that they no longer care?”
“Furthermore, a pattern was beginning to emerge: nutrients from animal-based foods increased tumor development while nutrients from plant-based foods decreased tumor development.”
“Good health is about being able to fully enjoy the time we do have. It is about being as functional as possible throughout our entire lives and avoiding crippling, painful and lengthy battles with disease. There are many better ways to die, and to live.”
“Much of my early career was spent working with two of the most toxic chemicals ever discovered, dioxin and aflatoxin. I initially worked at MIT, where I was assigned a chicken feed puzzle. Millions of chicks a year were dying from an unknown toxic chemical in their feed, and I had the responsibility of isolating and determining the structure of this chemical. After two and a half years, I helped discover dioxin, arguably the most toxic chemical ever found. This chemical has since received widespread attention, especially because it was part of the herbicide 2,4,5-T, or Agent Orange, then being used to defoliate forests in the Vietnam War."
T.Colin Campbell”
“Perhaps it is a testament to the power of modern marketing savvy that an obese man with heart disease and high blood pressure became one of the richest snake oil salesmen ever to live, selling a diet that promises to help you lose weight, to keep your heart healthy and to normalize your blood pressure.”
“We now had impressive evidence that low protein intake could markedly decrease enzyme activity and prevent dangerous carcinogen binding to DNA.”
“Foci development was almost entirely dependent on how much protein was consumed, regardless of how much aflatoxin was consumed!”
“The distinction between government, industry, science and medicine have become blurred.”
“Protein during promotion trumps the carcinogen, regardless of initial exposure.”
“dairy intake is “one of the most consistent dietary predictors for prostate cancer in the published literature,” and those who consume the most dairy have double to quadruple the risk.”
“I don’t care if you eat worms and cardboard; if you eat 35% fewer calories, you will lose weight and your cholesterol levels will improve50 in the short run, but that is not to say that worms and cardboard form a healthy diet.”
“There’s only one thing that we have to do in life, and that is to die.”
“The health care establishment is structured to profit from chemical and surgical intervention. Diet still takes the back seat to drugs and surgery. One criticism that is constantly leveled at the dietary argument is that patients will not make such fundamental changes. One doctor charges that Dr. Esselstyn’s patients change their eating habits simply because of Esselstyn’s “zealous belief.”47 This criticism is not only wrong and insulting to patients; it is also self-fulfilling. If doctors do not believe that patients will change their diets, they will neglect to talk about diet, or will do it in an off-handed, disparaging way.”
“physicians, Drs. Bill Castelli, Bill Roberts and Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr., that in their long careers they had never seen a heart disease fatality among their patients who had blood cholesterol levels below 150 mg/dL. Dr. Castelli was the long-time director of the famous Framingham Heart Study of NIH; Dr. Esselstyn was a renowned surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic who did a remarkable study reversing heart disease (chapter five); Dr. Roberts has long been editor of the prestigious medical journal Cardiology. BLOOD CHOLESTEROL AND DIET”
“Costs have so consistently outpaced inflation that we now spend one out of every seven dollars the economy produces on health care”
“Other countries spend, on average, only about one-half of what the U.S. spends per capita on health care. Isn’t it reasonable, therefore, for us to expect our system to rank above theirs? Unfortunately, among these twelve countries, the U.S. system is consistently among the worst performers.”
“If you flip a coin three times and it lands on heads each time, it’s probably chance. If you flip it a hundred times and it lands on heads each time, you can be pretty sure the coin has heads on both sides. That’s the concept behind statistical significance—it’s the odds that the correlation (or other finding) is real, that it isn’t just random chance.”
“The process of eating is perhaps the most intimate encounter we have with our world; it is a process in which what we eat becomes part of our body.”
“The most significant finding of this experiment was this: foci developed only when the animals met or exceeded the amount of dietary protein (12%) needed to satisfy their body growth rate.39 That is, when the animals met and surpassed their requirement for protein, disease onset began.”
“So how does the plant manage these complex reactions and protect against errant electrons and free radicals? It puts up a shield around potentially dangerous reactions that sponges up these highly reactive substances. The shield is made up of antioxidants that intercept and scavenge electrons that might otherwise stray from their course.”
“So, what is my prescription for good health? In short, it is about the multiple health benefits of consuming plant-based foods, and the largely unappreciated health dangers of consuming animal-based foods, including all types of meat, dairy and eggs.”
“As you will see in this book, there is a mountain of scientific evidence to show that the healthiest diet you can possibly consume is a high-carbohydrate diet. It has been shown to reverse heart disease, reverse diabetes, prevent a plethora of chronic diseases, and yes, it has been shown many times to cause significant weight loss. But it’s not quite as simple as that. At least 99% of the carbohydrates that we”
“He who does not know food, how can he understand the diseases of man?” —Hippocrates, the father of medicine (460-357 B.C.)”
“inescapable fact is that certain people are making an awful lot of money today selling foods that are unhealthy. They want you to keep eating the foods they sell, even though doing so makes you fat, depletes your vitality and shortens and degrades your life. They want you docile, compliant and ignorant.”
“Aminotriazole (herbicide used on cranberry crops, causing the “cranberry scare’” of 1959) DDT (widely known after Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring) Nitrites (a meat preservative and color and flavor enhancer used in hot dogs and bacon) Red Dye Number 2 Artificial sweeteners (including cyclamates and saccharin) Dioxin (a contaminant of industrial processes and of Agent Orange, a defoliant used during the Vietnam War) Aflatoxin (a fungal toxin found on moldy peanuts and corn)”
“This is what scientists and food activists at Yale University call a toxic food environment. It is the environment in which most of us live today.”
“You can acquiesce to all this, you can succumb to the junk food sellers, or you can find a healthier and more life-affirming relationship with your body and the food you eat. If you want to live with radiant health, lean and clear and alive in your body, you’ll need an ally in today’s environment.”
“But won’t political involvement distract us from the main task of preaching the Gospel? At this point someone may object that while political involvement may have some benefits and may do some good, it can so easily distract us, turn unbelievers away from the church, and cause us to neglect the main task of pointing people toward personal trust in Christ. John MacArthur writes, “When the church takes a stance that emphasizes political activism and social moralizing, it always diverts energy and resources away from evangelization.”83 Yet the proper question is not, “Does political influence take resources away from evangelism?” but, “Is political influence something God has called us to do?” If God has called some of us to some political influence, then those resources would not be blessed if we diverted them to evangelism—or to the choir, or to teaching Sunday School to children, or to any other use. In this matter, as in everything else the church does, it would be healthy for Christians to realize that God may call individual Christians to different emphases in their lives. This is because God has placed in the church “varieties of gifts” (1 Cor. 12:4) and the church is an entity that has “many members” but is still “one body” (v. 12). Therefore God might call someone to devote almost all of his or her time to the choir, someone else to youth work, someone else to evangelism, someone else to preparing refreshments to welcome visitors, and someone else to work with lighting and sound systems. “But if Jim places all his attention on the sound system, won’t that distract the church from the main task of preaching the Gospel?” No, not at all. That is not what God has called Jim to emphasize (though he will certainly share the Gospel with others as he has opportunity). Jim’s exclusive focus on the church’s sound system means he is just being a faithful steward in the responsibility God has given him. In the same way, I think it is entirely possible that God called Billy Graham to emphasize evangelism and say nothing about politics and also called James Dobson to emphasize a radio ministry to families and to influencing the political world for good. Aren’t there enough Christians in the world for us to focus on more than one task? And does God not call us to thousands of different emphases, all in obedience to him? But the whole ministry of the church will include both emphases. And the teaching ministry from the pulpit should do nothing less than proclaim “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). It should teach, over the course of time, on all areas of life and all areas of Bible knowledge. That certainly must include, to some extent, what the Bible says about the purposes of civil government and how that teaching should apply to our situations today. This means that in a healthy church we will find that some people emphasize influencing the government and politics, others emphasize influencing the business world, others emphasize influencing the educational system, others entertainment and the media, others marriage and the family, and so forth. When that happens, it seems to me that we should encourage, not discourage, one another. We should adopt the attitude toward each other that Paul encouraged in the church at Rome: Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God…. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother (Rom. 14:10–13). For several different reasons, then, I think the view that says the church should just “do evangelism, not politics” is incorrect.”
“But before either of us can speak again, I feel crackle-crackle-crackle. I can't tell what's going to happen next. My seizure begins to spin slowly through me. What will my dad do? Whatever it is, in another moment I'll be flying free. Either way, whatever he does, I'll be soaring.”
“As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.”
“Bu yerlerde trenler doğudan batıya, batıdan doğuya gider gelir, gider gelirdi... Bu yerlerde demiryolunun her iki yanında ıssız, engin, sarı kumlu bozkırların özeği Sarı Özek uzar giderdi. Coğrafyada uzaklıklar nasıl Greenwich meridyeninden başlıyorsa, bu yerlerde de mesafeler demiryoluna göre hesaplanırdı. Trenler ise doğudan batıya, batıdan doğuya gider gelir, gider, gelirdi...”
“I was afraid that if I did anything at all without bartering for at least some small thing in return, he might think I enjoyed it, and not understand that I paid a huge price to myself.”
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