excerpt from New York Times Health Blog

by Tara Parker-Pope
 

Six years ago, a small Texas publisher released an obscure book written by a father-son research team. The work, based on a series of studies conducted in rural China and Taiwan, challenged the conventional wisdom about health and nutrition by espousing the benefits of a plant-based diet. To everyone's surprise, the book, called "The China Study," has since sold 500,000 copies, making it one of the country's best-selling nutrition titles. The book focuses on the knowledge gained from the China Study, a 20-year partnership of Cornell University, Oxford University and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine that showed high consumption of animal-based foods is associated with more chronic disease, while those who ate primarily a plant-based diet were the healthiest.

Last fall, former President Bill Clinton even cited the book in explaining how he lost 24 pounds by converting to a plant-based diet in hopes of improving his heart health. The president gave up dairy, switching to almond milk, and says he lives primarily on beans and other legumes, vegetables and fruit, although he will, on rare occasions, eat fish.

Recently, I spoke with T. Colin Campbell, a co-author of the book and professor emeritus at Cornell University, about the success of the book, the research behind it, and why he thinks the nation's health woes can be solved by plant-based eating.
Here's our conversation.

 

The Gerson Institute receives many requests for referrals to Gerson trained practitioners to guide them on the therapy in an out-patient basis. There is an especially high demand for Gerson practitioners in the United States. We offer yearly training courses, to trainand officialy certify doctors in the Gerson Therapy. If you know of anyone who is a naturopathic doctor (ND), doctor of osteopathy (DO), medical doctor (MD) doctor of chiropractic (DC), physician assistant (PA) or nurse practitioner (NP) who is seriously interested in becoming a Gerson Practitioner, tell them about the next annual Gerson Institute Module I Practitioner Training.

Date: May 15-19, 2011

Location: Downtown San Diego, California

Fee: $2,000

for more information and to download the screening application visit: gerson.org/Programs/professionals.htm

Some years ago, while living in London, Faye Hueston became mysteriously ill. Unable to find a cause for her peculiar symptoms, doctors dismissed them as psychosomatic. Eventually, tests by a clinical ecology doctor proved the cause to be pesticide poisoning. Silent Enemy refers to the chemicals that pollute our bodies as well as the environment. Based on the diaries Faye Hueston kept at the time, it chronicles her experience with environmental illness, and her long, often frustrating search for a cure.

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Gerson Potato Salad

• 5 potatoes baked preferably or boiled and cut into small cubes when cooled
• 1 cup flax seed oil
• 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon honey
• about 3 cloves garlic chopped fine
• 1 scallion sliced thin
• 1/2 red onion diced small
• 1/2 red bell pepper diced
• 1 carrot shredded
• 2 celery sticks diced fine

1. Puree 1 potato and a small portion of the oil and lemon juice in a food processor.
2. Add the pureed mixture to a large bowl with the remaining potato cubes.
3. Mix in the rest of the ingredients, adding the vegetables last. 

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