Would you like to get a working understanding of nutrition without enrolling in a course in dietetics, reading a dry volume on metabolism, or poring over nutritional studies that seemed designed to create confusion? We’ve got you covered. Just read these five short and sweet blog essays, and you’ll gain a better understanding of nutrition than (the truth be known) most doctors in America can boast.
Start with 7 Ways a Vegan Diet Fights Cancer. The Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine is the source of this analysis, and not only is it spot-on, but you have to ask yourself: wouldn’t the same kind of diet that staves off cancer also work to stave off other diseases? Spoiler alert: yes, it would.
Next, take a look at The Definitive Benefits of a Low-Fat, Plant-
Based, Whole-Food Diet. Robby Barbaro, MPH, and Cyrus Khambatta, PhD, both were diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes more than twenty years ago and have learned all the right nutritional lessons to not only cope with the condition, but thrive. In this article, they sum up the science behind plant-based nutrition and give you very nearly all you need to know to construct a diet to boost your health and longevity, whatever your present health status may be.
Dr. John Tanner earned his PhD in computer science from CalTech. In 2009, trying to keep in shape while on a meat-heavy “weight-loss” diet, he went jogging in his neighborhood, then staggered and fell, under full cardiac arrest. He was lucky to receive life-saving care from first responders called to the scene by onlookers. Once recovered, John applied his well-trained scientific mind to a review of the research on heart disease. He discovered, to his astonishment, that all the research pointed in the same direction: to a low-fat, whole foods, vegan diet. He sums up what he learned in Heart Disease Treatment: Drugs Vs. Diet. The piece includes a simple chart on cardiac treatment efficacy that must be seen to be believed. As a bonus, read John’s memorable story here.
Dr. John McDougall is one of the first doctors in America to ever practice plant-based nutritional therapy. He remains a leader in the plant-based movement, advocating what he calls a starch-based diet. His piece: When Friends Ask: Where Do You Get Your Calcium? is vital reading not just to understand that consuming dairy is not necessary—and indeed, is even harmful—for your bones, but to explain the marketing strategies of corporate interests tied to animal agriculture, and how they work to create nutritional confusion and misinformation.
Finally, the nod goes to Dr. McDougall again, this time with an overview of nutrition and the importance of starch-based foods in the human diet. This post from Dr. McDougall recapitulates the themes of his classic book, The Starch Solution.
All the science, as John Tanner learned, points in the same direction. Read these five pieces and you’ll see a pattern emerge. Low-fat, whole plant foods are good for your health; high-fat animal foods are good for the bottom line of an industry that is wrecking our planet.
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