Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition

by T. Colin Campbell

The foods you consume can heal you faster and more profoundly than the most expensive prescription drugs, and more dramatically than the most extreme surgical interventions, with only positive side effects.

Those food choices can prevent

cancer, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, stroke, macular degeneration, migraines, erectile dysfunction, and arthritis—and that’s only the short list.

disease, Type 2 diabetes, stroke, macular degeneration, migraines, erectile dysfunction, and arthritis—and that’s only the short list. ♦ It’s never too late to start eating well. A good diet can reverse many of those conditions as well. In short: chang...

It’s never too late to start eating well. A good diet can reverse many of those conditions as well. In short: change the way you eat and you c...

The ideal human diet looks like this: Consume plant-based foods in forms as close to their natural

Consume plant-based foods in forms as close to their natural state as possible (“whole” foods). Eat a variety of vegetables, fruits, raw nuts and seeds, beans and legumes, and whole grains. Avoid heavily processed foods and animal products. Stay away from added salt, oil, and sugar. Aim to get 80 percent of your calories from carbohydrates, 10 percent from fat, and 10 percent from protein.

state as possible (“whole” foods). Eat a variety of vegetables, fruits, raw nuts and seeds, beans and legumes, and whole grains. Avoid heavily processed foods and animal products. Stay away from added salt, oil, and sugar. Aim to get 80 percent of your calories...

If the WFPB diet were a pill, its inventor would be the wealthiest person on earth.

Since it isn’t a pill, no market forces conspire to advocate for

Since it isn’t a pill, and nobody has figured out how to get hugely wealth...

to eat it, the truth has been buried by half-truths, unverified claim...

the truth has been buried by half-truths, unverified claims, and downright lies. The concerted effort of many powerful interests to ignore, discred...

Oxidation produces something called free radicals,

which we know are responsible for encouraging aging, promoting cancer, and rupturing plaques that lead to strokes and heart attacks, among other adverse effects impacting a host of autoimmune and neurologic diseases.

Even if you munched on legumes, beans, and nuts all day, you’d be hard pressed to get more than 12–15 percent or so of your calories from protein.

To counteract that free radical production, plants have evolved a defense mechanism: a whole battery of compounds capable of preventing damage by binding to and neutralizing the free radicals. These compounds are known, not particularly poetically, as antioxidants.

It seems reasonable to assume that our bodies never went to the trouble of making antioxidants because they were so readily available in what, for most of our history, was our primary food source: plants.

It’s only when we shifted to a diet rich in animal-based food and processed food fragments that we tilted the game in favor of oxidation. The excess protein in our diet has promoted excess oxidation, and we no longer consume

enough plant-produced antioxidants to contain and neut...

It’s important to remember, however, that this is just a theory. The most important thing is not why the WFPB diet works so much as the fact that it does work. The evidence is clear about the WFPB diet’...

The most important thing is not why the WFPB diet works so much as the fact that it does work. The evidence is clear about the WFPB diet’s effectivene...

(3) as far as the evidence suggests at this point, eating the WFPB way eliminates the need to worry about the details. Just eat lots of different plant foods; your body will do all the math for you!

eating the WFPB way eliminates the need to worry about the details. Just eat lots of different plant foods; your body will do all the math for you!

I am not aware of reliable scientific evidence showing that such purity is absolutely necessary, at least in most situations.

(Exceptions would include patients with cancer,

I do believe, however, that the closer we get to a WFPB diet, the healthier we will be.

I innocently thought that the truth, by itself, could inform government policy, shape business decisions, and change the public debate on food.

The government still teaches and subsidizes the wrong things.

The fact is, it’s pathetically easy for critics to take individual data points out of context and misapply them to support opposite conclusions from mine.

Once you’re inoculated against “fad of the week” reporting, you’ll navigate health claims in general with much more savvy and confidence—and be even better equipped to judge the evidence in favor of the WFPB diet, and criticisms of it, for yourself.

None of these “breakthrough discoveries” come close to the benefits of the WFPB diet, although you wouldn’t know it from the hyped-up and ill-informed reporting of the studies upon which these claims are based.

When you hear a health claim, ask yourself three questions: Is it true? Is it the whole

truth, or just a part of it? Does it matter?

determining whether or not the studies supporting that claim were properly done—in other words, whether they were well-constructed, professionally conducted, and accurately reported enough to uncover some facet of the truth. Unfortunately, some studies are constructed and conducted so poorly that their conclusions are pure nonsense.

Reliable study results are those that, ideally, have been replicated in multiple experiments, preferably by different researchers, and definitely underwritten by different funders.

Is it the whole truth? It’s also important to look at what “they” aren’t telling you about potential side effects and other unintended consequences of a particular course of action.

If you have a headache and take a pill, you can be certain that the pill is doing a lot more in your body than just relieving your headache.

you have a headache and take a pill, you can be certain that the pill is doing a lot more in your body than just relieving your headache. Likewise, if you’re on a WFPB diet to prevent heart disease, that way of eating will have effects that reach far beyond your arteries. When you hear about a wonder pill that lowers blood pressure, always get curious about the additional (“side”) effects of the pill. In reality, there are no side effects, just effects. What is this health intervention doing beyond its stated goal?

Does it m...

One of the ways to do this (without outright lying) is to cherry-pick details, report them out of context, and imply a much greater significance than they actually possess. For example, a drug may be shown to reduce cholesterol, but to have absolutely no effect on the rate of heart attacks and strokes.

pages. However, when it comes to the third question—whether a new health claim’s implications matter—that’s something just about everyone can evaluate for themselves.

When I think about whether a health intervention matters—in other words, whether it is worth pursuing for an individual, business, or researcher—I use three

basic criteria, listed here in reverse order of importance: ♦ How quickly does it work? (Rapidity) ♦ How many health problems does it help solve? (Breadth) ♦ How much will my health improve due to the intervention? (Depth)

How quickly does it work? (Rapidity) ♦ How many health problems does it help solve? (Breadth) ♦ How much will my health impro...

Rapidity

How long does it take for a nutrient, drug, genetic modification, or whatever to actually function within the body?

Instead, I’m asking, “How long before there’s a meaningful effect, like an energy boost or reduction of disease symptoms?

Diabetics must be monitored from the very first day they adopt the diet, so their meds can be reduced as the diet takes effect.

Within one to four hours of consuming, for example, a high-fat McDonald’s meal (Egg McMuffin®, Sausage McMuffin®, two hash brown patties, non-caffeinated beverage), serum triglycerides shoot up (increasing the risk of heart disease and