wab said:CT and CD, let me simply suggest that you get yourselves to a library and check out a copy of the book (called the China Study, in case you missed the original post), and then make your own call.
Well, chances are good that I won't get around to reading a long book on a topic where even if I'm technically wrong I would consider the opportunity cost of eating "right" far too high for any health benefits. If you can show me a Wikipedia page, though...
1) Consumers are confused about the health effects of diet. There's lots of blame to spread around, and he does a pretty good job. He also points out flaws in the studies that "prove" how various things are good or bad for you (the root of much of our confusion).
Yes, I think it's pretty well established that any "conclusively proven" health effect of a diet is complete bunk.
2) We're brainwashed to believe that drugs and modern medicine will provide a short-cut to health. He stresses whole foods rather than the traditional reductionist approach to isolated compounds, drugs, and brute-force surgeries.
Why should "whole foods" provide a short-cut to health? That's pretty brute-force, and without any causal explanation, and as far as I know without any compelling statistical or other reasons to believe it.
Medicine, on the other hand, is done fairly rigorously and is continuing to evolve at an ever-faster rate. Medicine in twenty years will look nothing like medicine today. If they can do imaging down to a bazillionth of the width of a human hair and create custom molecules on-the-spot that hunt down and kill any bad guys, that makes the whole "nature's way" thing look kind of pointless, doesn't it?
If you have something shorter than a big, fat book, I'd be interested in looking it over (I still work -- the only time I have for serious reading I'll use for things that I'm really dying to read!). I'm open to new views, and generally eager to learn about new things, but so far I haven't heard of anything convincing about diets, and on top of that it'd have to be mega-convincing because I'd rather have some medical problems later on than spend my whole life not enjoying awesome food.
On that note, I'm going to see if I can find some good, delicious food....