I watched the documentary Forks over Knives online this weekend, which promotes the views of Dr. Cambpell, based on his long-term nutritional study in China.  His book on the subject is called The China Study.  If this had been first time I was exposed to Campbell and the China Study, I would have found it a bit unsettling, but I read about the China Study some time ago.  It appears to be the latest salvo in the vegan vs meateaters debate.  Some of the guys in the documentary, like McDougal and Barnard, have been promoting this view for years.  I first read a book by McDougal 20 years ago where he made all of the same points.  Nathan Pritikin and Dean Ornish are on the same track. 

These vegan guys are very good at throwing data around to support their position, but there are a lot of researchers who question their methods, and accuse them of simply throwing out data that does not support their conclusion.  There was another very famous nutritional study done in the sixties by a researcher name Ancel Keys which led to the original government food pyramid and the low-fat, high carbohydrate diets that most Americans believe in.  Most of Keys’ conclusions are now questioned or rejected by informed nutritionists, because he did the same thing with his data.  He just threw out what he didn’t like.

Campbell was on the Dr. Oz show a few months ago.  Oz was slobbering all over him for saving peoples’ lives.  Oz had a guest on at another time who told him he was full of crap.  This guest is named Gary Taubes.  It is worth looking him up on the internet.  There is also a great internet site called Mark’s Daily Apple that counters much of the China Study.  I am told there is a documentary called Fat Head that does the same thing.  I haven’t seen it yet, but I intend to.

I will admit that I have no nutritional credentials at all, but I am trying to apply some common sense to this without the hype.  I have studied the subject enough to take issue with some things in Forks over Knives.  Campbell is down on animal protein because he claims that the casein protein in milk increase cancer rates.  He may be right about casein, but I don’t see how that necessarily relates to all animal protein. 

Also, the people he used as examples of vast health improvement from a plant-based diet did not say anything about eating lots of animal protein before their conversion.  They said they ate donuts and chocolate and fast food crap.  Once again, I don’t see how that leads us to believe animal protein is the culprit.   

The doctors kept talking about how unhealthy the modern Western diet is.  I agree completely, but I don’t think it is because it contains too much meat.  It is because it contains too much sugary breakfast cereal, donuts, energy drinks, cookies, white bread, soda pop, fruit roll ups, snacks in a bag, and soy protein bars.  Most of that stuff is not even food.  It is just a mass of chemicals that food companies have made tasty enough and cheap enough that people will eat it instead of grass-fed beef and broccoli.  Our bodies know what to do with fat meat or ripe tomatoes.  I don’t think our systems even recognize most of the crap on the supermarket shelves.  It’s no wonder we get heart disease and cancer.

Campbell and friends ignore studies about the Maasai tribe in Africa.  The Maasai subsist mostly on meat, cow’s milk, and blood.  You don’t get much more animal protein than that, and yet they are very healthy and have very little heart disease.  The same is true of Eskimos, who eat a high protein, high fat, animal based diet.  How would Campbell explain that, if animal protein is so deadly?  I have also heard that stomach cancer rates are higher in China, where Campbell did his study, than most other places in the world.  It seems odd that Campbell ignored that fact.

I actually think Campbell may be right about eating dairy, but there is considerable controversy about that topic.  There is a good book out there called The Paleo Diet that discusses the negative aspects of dairy.  There is a more entertaining book called The Paleo Solution which does the same thing.  I recommend it, particularly if you suffer from Celiac disease.  

My view is that nutrition is a bit like religion.  We should look for what the factions have in common rather than their disagreements.  The vegans and the Paleo guys agree on some very important points.  Eat lots of vegetables.  Eat a reasonable amount of fruit.  Do not eat modern processed foods.  Reduce your sodium intake.  Take a walk once in a while.  Or pick up something heavy.  Or hit a tennis ball. 

There is a book I read recently that is probably one of the best I have read about nutrition, food processing, and food marketing.  It sounds dull, but it is anything but that.  It is by Michael Pollan, and is called In Defense of Food. 

Watching Forks over Knives can upset you.  Calm down.  It is not as bad as they made it sound.  Check out Mark’s Daily Apple and a couple of the books I mentioned.  You will find out that in nutrition, as in most things, moderation is a virtue.

Please take a look at my book God and Other Things: Conversations that Defend Faith, Question Evolution, and Search for Truth.  You can find it on in paperback and Kindle version on Amazon.com by clicking on the Buy the Book tab on the home page menu bar.