Chatham - China Study Diet and Cookbook: 75 Essential Plant-Based Recipes to Lose Weight & Improve Health

H ello and thank you for choosing this book to learn about the China Study and the diet that sprang forth from it. If youre reading this, youre probably interested in getting healthy or losing weight, or perhaps a little bit of both. If so, youre on the right track. Let us start with a bit of clarification: the China Study Diet isnt actually a diet. Its a lifestyle that results from the desire to be healthy. Theres not an ideology or philosophy attached to itthere are no religious connotationsand there are only a couple of set-in-stone rules. Its simply a map to better health based upon scientific research.

Public interest in health is at an all-time high but so, unfortunately, is the popularity of baseless diets that lure the eager down a path that often leads to failure. You cant turn on the TV or flip through a magazine without seeing ads that promise to make you healthier, thinner, or more attractive.

Newsflash: Most of those ads are just bunk. There is no such thing as a quick fixit takes dedication and commitment to follow a healthy lifestyle that leads to lifelong good health and weight loss. There is just so much information, both good and bad, that its hard to choose exactly which plan to follow.

Sometimes one of the easiest ways to determine the merits of a diet is to take a close look at what it promises and what it requires. If a plan promises that youll lose twenty-five pounds in three weeks or that it will eliminate disease from your body, its probably quackery or extremely dangerous.

If a diet requires a huge, restrictive change in the way that you eat, or encourages you to eat mass amounts of just a handful of foods or vitamins, chances are good that its unhealthy. In addition, youre not likely to stick to a diet that severely restricts what you can eat long-term, so youre ultimately not going to be successful.

That being said, if youre currently subsisting on donuts, pizza, and coffee, youre going to need to make massive changes in the way that you eat if you want to thrive for long. Dont worry though. Were going to show you how you can make the change that leads to lifelong health without counting calories, losing flavor, or limiting yourself to just a few foods. What you will lose is excess weight, points off of your cholesterol, and a myriad of other disease-causing conditions that are just time bombs waiting to make you sick.

The China Study, conducted by T. Colin Campbell, PhD, jointly with Cornell University and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine, is the most comprehensive, longest-running health and nutrition study in medical history. Its a thirty-plus-year-long, ongoing longitudinal study of the eating habits of 6,500 Chinese men living in 650 rural villages. The study examined the instances of forty-eight different types of cancer and other serious diseases.

The men who were the subjects of the China Study ate almost an entirely plant-based diet, with the occasional serving of fish. Instead of the malnutrition and poor health that was anticipated, the study revealed that these men were much healthier than their American counterparts. There were very few instances of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and other diseases of affluence. As a matter of fact, in the villages where the diet was entirely plant-based, these diseases were practically nonexistent.

The results of the study were startling to say the least. So startling, in fact, that Dr. Campbell was compelled to make his results public in an attempt to redefine what Western civilization considers good nutrition and healthful eating habits. One of the ways that he attempted to present and distribute his findings was via his book, The China Study.

Throughout the following chapters, well discuss how the China Study Diet can help you get healthy, and why the typical Western diet is killing us. Well also talk about why its taken so long for the concept of plant-based eating to reach the light of day. Finally, well share some great recipes that are so tasty that youll never know that youre being good.

Plant-based diets are proven disease fighters and contribute to healthy weight management and overall well-being.

PART 1

The China Study Diet Demystified