What happens when you eat an apple? The answer is vastly more complex than you imagine.
Every apple contains thousands of antioxidants whose names, beyond a few like vitamin C, are unfamiliar to us, and each of these powerful chemicals has the potential to play an important role in supporting our health. They impact thousands upon thousands of metabolic reactions inside the human body. But calculating the specific influence of each of these chemicals isn't nearly sufficient to explain the effect of the apple as a whole. Because almost every chemical can affect every other chemical, there is an almost infinite number of possible biological consequences.
And that's just from an apple.
Nutritional science, long stuck in a reductionist mindset, is at the cusp of a revolution. The traditional “gold standard" of nutrition research has been to study one chemical at a time in an attempt to determine its particular impact on the human body. These sorts of studies are helpful to food companies trying to prove there is a chemical in milk or pre-packaged dinners that is “good" for us, but they provide little insight into the complexity of what actually happens in our bodies or how those chemicals contribute to our health.
In The China Study, T. Colin Campbell (alongside his son, Thomas M. Campbell) revolutionized the way we think about our food with the evidence that a whole food, plant-based diet is the healthiest way to eat. Now, in Whole, he explains the science behind that evidence, the ways our current scientific paradigm ignores the fascinating complexity of the human body, and why, if we have such overwhelming evidence that everything we think we know about nutrition is wrong, our eating habits haven't changed.
Whole is an eye-opening, paradigm-changing journey through cutting-edge thinking on nutrition, a scientific tour de force with powerful implications for our health and for our world.
What happens when you eat an apple? The answer is vastly more complex than you imagine.
Every apple contains thousands of antioxidants whose names, beyond a few like vitamin C, are unfamiliar to us, and each of these powerful chemicals has the potential to play an important role in supporting our health. They impact thousands upon thousands of metabolic reactions inside the human body. But calculating the specific influence of each of these chemicals isn't nearly sufficient to explain the effect of the apple as a whole. Because almost every chemical can affect every other chemical, there is an almost infinite number of possible biological consequences.
And that's just from an apple.
Nutritional science, long stuck in a reductionist mindset, is at the cusp of a revolution. The traditional “gold standard" of nutrition research has been to study one chemical at a time in an attempt to determine its particular impact on the human body. These sorts of studies are helpful to food companies trying to prove there is a chemical in milk or pre-packaged dinners that is “good" for us, but they provide little insight into the complexity of what actually happens in our bodies or how those chemicals contribute to our health.
In The China Study, T. Colin Campbell (alongside his son, Thomas M. Campbell) revolutionized the way we think about our food with the evidence that a whole food, plant-based diet is the healthiest way to eat. Now, in Whole, he explains the science behind that evidence, the ways our current scientific paradigm ignores the fascinating complexity of the human body, and why, if we have such overwhelming evidence that everything we think we know about nutrition is wrong, our eating habits haven't changed.
Whole is an eye-opening, paradigm-changing journey through cutting-edge thinking on nutrition, a scientific tour de force with powerful implications for our health and for our world.
Critiques-
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June 10, 2013
Campbell's follow-up to his best-selling The China Study is more of the same, in the best way. He continues his quest to convince people that "the ideal human diet looks like this: Consumer plant-based foods in forms as close to their natural state as possible...eat a variety of vegetables, fruits, raw nuts and seeds, beans and legumes, and whole grains." The entirety of the book is a passionate and convincing case for that ideal diet. Campbell has not written a book of diet tips, or even provided recipes. In fact, at times the book delves so deeply into scientific processâ for example, explaining how cancer develops or how metabolism worksâthat many may find themselves having to read slowly to understand his point. Yet he makes the case that Americans are too prone to take pills to solve health issues (and doctors too prone to prescribe them) as a result of "reductionist thinking". His years of scientific study and calm, measured tone are highly convincing, making a firm case that changing one's diet is the best way to assure good health. Readers will be inclined to put down their processed food snacks once they read what could be a life-changer of a book. -
March 15, 2013
Campbell (Emeritus, Nutritional Biochemistry/Cornell Univ.; The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, 2005) elaborates on the themes of his earlier book and the 2011 documentary film Forks Over Knives. In 1980, the author began a study with Chinese scientists to investigate how the transformation of the Chinese diet in the aftermath of the stringencies of the Cultural Revolution affected the health of a sample of 100 Chinese families living in two different rural counties. A comparison with mortality statistics 20 years earlier showed a significant increase with the introduction of more protein in their diets. While admitting that these conclusions (taken from the original China study) are based on correlations and do not establish causality, Campbell does base his dietary recommendations on those conclusions. He claims that the adoption of a whole-foods, plant-based lifestyle can prevent 95 percent of all cancers, nearly all heart attacks and strokes, and even reverse severe heart disease. The author cautions against the use of dietary supplements and multivitamins and rejects the potential of targeted drugs as well as traditional medical remedies such as chemotherapy and radiation. He attempts to buttress his conclusions by referring to experiments conducted on rats in which the incidence of cancer was significantly higher for those fed a diet high in animal protein. Campbell dismisses the failure of medical and scientific journals to publish papers that he has written over the years, attributing this to biased peer review and financial pressure from doctors, the pharmaceutical industry, and dairy and livestock producers. While his earlier book had impressive sales figures, he complains that the media has failed to showcase his work. A spirited but unconvincing defense of Campbell's earlier work.COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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Tony Gonzalez, Atlanta Falcons, 16-year National Football League player, record-setting tight end
“After reading The China Study and drastically changing my diet toward the more whole food, plant-based diet recommended by Dr. Campbell, my career numbers shot up when they were supposed to be declining. I thought to myself 'Why doesn't everyone eat this way?!' This new book, Whole, answers that question with great clarity. Never again be confused about diet and nutrition."
- Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr., MD, author of the bestselling Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease “America's premier nutritionist, T. Colin Campbell, with courage and conviction, articulates how the self-serving reductionist paradigm permeates science, medicine, media, big pharma and philanthropic groups blocking the public from the nutritional truth for optimal health."
- Dean Ornish, MD, Founder and President of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California; Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco; and author of the bestselling Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for... “T. Colin Campbell, based on his long career in experimental research and health policy-making, uncovers how and why there is so much confusion about food and health and what can be done about it. His explanation is elegant, sincere, provocative, and far-reaching, including how we can solve our health-care crisis. Read and enjoy; there's something here to inspire and offend just about everyone (sometimes the truth hurts)."
- Brian Wendel, Creator and Executive Producer of Forks Over Knives “Whole makes a convincing case that modern nutrition's focus on single nutrients has led to mass confusion with tragic health consequences. Dr. Campbell's new paradigm will change the way we think about food and, in doing so, could improve the lives of millions of people and save billions of dollars in health care costs."
- Kathy Freston, New York Times bestselling author of The Lean and Quantum Wellness “There are very few material game-changers in life, but this book is truly one of them. The information herein--backed up by extraordinary peer-reviewed science--has the power to halt and reverse disease, give you energy you've never known, and put you on a path of transformation in just about every positive way. Read it and get ready to soar."
- Neal Barnard, Founder and President of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine “Dr. Colin Campbell opened our eyes with The China Study. In Whole, Dr. Campbell boldly shows exactly how our understanding of nutrition and health has gone off track and how to get it right. Beautifully and clearly written, this empowering book will forever change the way you think about health, food and science."
- Mike Fremont, World Record Holder marathons for 88 and 90 year olds “This book is the key to understanding how to increase our natural longevity and health, it is key to slowing global warming, and all of this at no cost, rather, at immeasurable savings to society."
- Julieanna Hever, MS, RD, CPT, author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition and host of What Would Julieanna Do? “In Whole, Dr. Campbell defines a super-paradigm that elucidates a philosophy--wholism--which medicine needs to aspire to in order to attain an enlightened solution. Whole is a masterpiece of intellectual triangulation, outlining the past, the present, and the critical next steps in the future of biochemistry, human nutrition, and healthcare. This book is going to unleash a health revolution!"
