We all know what we enjoy eating and most of us have been eating a similar diet for most of our lives unless you have tried various slimming diets or keep fit diets or other publicized diets which have promised improved health greater fitness or whatever. The choice of food we eat is one of the most profound activities we humans engage in. For 100,000 years man has eaten a diet which really derives straight from nature be it berries, leaves, roots from the land, the occasional insect or grub, the animals came his way and the fish fro the sea and rivers. Anything which in fact gave him some sustenance. One theory why humans have large brains compared with other mammals is that we were hunter-gatherers and had to have an encyclopedic knowledge of fauna and flora, when it was ready to eat, what was edible what was poisonous and where to find these sources of nutrition when they were in season, all this knowledge was essential for simple survival. The effect of this was that the environment that man lived in coped very easily with his appetite and little damage was done to it. Modern man, however, is a different matter, we have learned to farm industrially, we have learned to provide ourselves with a very rich, high calorific diet, seven days a week, 365 days a year by simply visiting our local supermarket and picking the food off the shelves.
The World's Finest Diet
Episode 1. Why Change Your Diet?
We all know what we enjoy eating and most of us have been eating a similar diet for most of our lives unless you have tried various slimming diets or keep fit diets or other publicised diets which have promised improved health greater fitness or whatever. The choice of food we eat is one of the most profound activities we humans engage in. For 100,000 years man has eaten a diet which really derives straight from nature be it berries, leaves, roots from the land, the occasional insect or grub, the animals came his way and the fish fro the sea and rivers. Anything which in fact gave him some sustenance. One theory why humans have large brains compared with other mammals is that we were hunter gatherers and had to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of fauna and flora, when it was ready to eat, what was edible what was poisonous and where to find these sources of nutrition when they were in season, all this knowledge was essential for simple survival. The effect of this was that the environment that man lived in coped very easily with his appetite and little damage was done to it.
Modern man however is a different matter, we have learned to farm industrially, we have learned to provide ourselves with a very rich, high calorific diet, seven days a week, 365 days a year by simply visiting our local supermarket and picking the food off the shelves. The effect of this change in diet choice and food provision has had two major catastrophic effects on the planet and our selves. It has led to an epidemic of ill-health principally caused by excessive eating of foods which in moderation would have been fine but in the excessive amounts now consumed and in their modified state have led to most of our chronic diseases and the second major problem is that the provision of such food has demanded massive farming on the scale never seen before which has caused huge devastation of natural forests and increased greenhouse gases to create our current existentialist problem of global warming.
This is no longer speculation, this is no longer based on a small group of people with this opinion, it is based soundly on observed research and scientific investigation. We are where we were when it was discovered that smoking could seriously damage our health; it took almost fifty years before this simple fact was accepted by the medical establishment and governments and for changes in the advice and law to discourage smoking. It may take less time, I hope, for this message about our diet to influence us all.
However, for whatever the reason you are interested in improving your diet, this podcast will lead you in the right direction with the certainty, as far as one can be certain with such complex matters, that derives from over fifty years of research and the largest epidemiological studies ever conducted in nutrition and health. As regards the facts and the research I won't bore you with this at this stage you can refer to the references at the end of this podcast.
Let me tell you my personal story. As an osteopath I practiced for a thirty years, really trying to avoid the question of dietary advice. Any patient coming to me asking for advice on diet I would refer them to a very good nutritionist who worked with me. Why was this? Mainly because over the years I had seen so much conflicting advice, and numerous books promoting the latest diet for slimming, improved fitness, this condition or that condition but all lacking adequate scientific evidence to support their claims. The nearest I got to helping people was to say “try to eat as varied diet as you can and that way you be pretty sure of getting all the nutrients you need and probably not exceeding any particular one cause to you trouble”. I based this advice on the fact that our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate a diet consisting of up to two thousand foods whereas modern western man often ate fewer than a few dozen foods.
In 2015 I happened to read a book called the China Study by Dr. T Colin Campbell, I read this book from cover to cover and I was overwhelmed by the story it was telling. Here was what I'd been looking for over the past thirty years; dietary advice built over a long period of time on thousands of hours of research and clinical trials, International observations and every source of investigation possible. I was so impressed that the following year I enrolled on an internet study course with eCornell University, called the whole plant nutrition certification course. This was an intensive course developed by a number of doctors and nutritionists based on the work of the China study. I found this course was perhaps the most rewarding educational training I had had over all my career and was so impressed that I introduced nutrition into my daily work in my practice. Obviously it's not ethical to advise people to do things you're not doing yourself, so I took on board the advice which this dietary system was giving and since then I have been keeping pretty closely to what is called a whole plant nutrition diet. Has it been good for me? The answer is decidedly, yes! I was overweight and now am a healthy normal weight, I lacked energy at times but now, heading into my 80’s I can still keep up with my younger sons in building work, and I know this diet is going to protect me from some of the worst chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease & strokes. Has it been easy following such a regime? Not really, but what is worthwhile that is does not require a little effort?
So Episode Two will introduce you to this amazing diet which will give you improved health, reduce your risk of most chronic diseases, reverse many diseases and just as a bonus will help the planet survive for a few more thousand years for our children and grandchildren?
Welcome to The Whole Plant Diet!
References:
www.Nutritionfacts.org
The China Study by Dr. T Colin Campbell ISBN 978-1-932100-66-2