THINQon : China Study versus Weston Price

Kitchen Nutrition China Study versus Weston Price

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Mia Vialti

China Study versus Weston Price

Latest Post: March 8, 2010 at 3:15 PM

67 followers

I've read a lot of stuff about the ideal long-term diet. It seems to me that the most credible of the theories fall into two camps, basically:

(1) Vegetarianism bordering on veganism, as exemplified by the massive China Study and all the attendant analyses, which essentially claim high correlation between consumption of animal products and "diseases of affluence" (cancer, heart attacts, etc etc).

(2) The moderate (but very definitely not vegan) omnivore, as exemplified by the works of Dr Weston Price, who felt that vegetable-rich diets supplemented with regular amounts of very high-quality animal foods (milk, butter, eggs, free-range meat...) correlated with what he considered the healthiest populations.

While there is obviously common ground -- vegetables, at least -- the two categories I've listed are otherwise pretty distinct. (1) has some nice political arguments going for it, but I think (2) could be done sustainably as well. And then there are various personal testimonies one runs across in both directions, which are both compelling and almost impossible to judge. How is a well-intentioned person to sort through such a mess and do the right thing?

Books Discussed

The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implicat
by T. Colin Campbell; Thomas M. Campbell II

Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
by Weston A. Price; DDS

Reply to:

Carl Smith

January 2009

4 followers

I don't know about an ideal diet...
But if you want to improve your diet, do it very gradually. Choose one way to improve at a time (add a fruit or two a day, or a salad; cut some of the sugar in your coffee, etc.). Something you can commit to. Not a "transitory diet", but a change in habits that you can sustain. In the long run this probably works best.

Reply to: or

Josephine Dixon

January 2009

2 followers

There's also an interesting theory in Eat Right for Your Type. The author claims that the foods your body will be healthiest on depend on your blood type. Type O's should eat meat while Type A's need little meat and lots of veggies.

This post is referenced by the following other contributors:

Arthur Mont

in "La Rochefoucauld Maxims / Maxims to live by? / Our tastes"

(Library)

Reply to: or

Solveig Wright, Where to begin?

January 2009

33 followers

OK, since the previous posts were clever enough to answer "either/or" with "and also...", I'll add one of the more interesting new theories I've come across. As a disclaimer -- I have no experience with this myself.

But there was a lot of press a year or two ago about a Berkeley psychology professor, Seth Roberts, who supposedly, after intense experimentation on himself, discovered the secret to regulating appetite -- it has to do with occasionally drinking small amounts of sugar water (or taking spoonfuls of oil). He has a whole theory around this called the "Shangri-La Diet," and a number of fervent supporters. I would be inclined to dismiss this out of hand if I knew fewer extremely skinny people who drink a lot of sugar water...