“If this country is to survive, the best-fed-nation myth had better be recognized for what it is: propaganda designed to produce wealth but not health” ~ Adelle Davis In 2011 I was tasked with writing a review of the book The China Study by T. Colin Campbell and his son Thomas M. Campbell II. This was some 6 years after the book was originally published and I remember there being a fair amount of controversy over it. Recently the book came up again for another piece I was writing. Over a decade has passed since its publication at this point and the debate only gets more heated. I set about doing research for the new piece and came across a lot of information. The book itself is turning out to be exactly as controversial as a person wants it to be. It is the nature of the content that seems to get people’s knickers in a twist. Vegetarianism, especially veganism, can be quite the hot button topic in many circles. Meat eaters and vegans alike have much to say about their dietary choices, and with a medium as vast as the internet it's hard to know what information is true and what is not. Since the underlying issue is health and quality of life people want their choices to be “right.” This sets up a “right or wrong” or “black and white” dichotomy when in truth, it really isn’t that simple. One of the first rules when gathering data for research is to always look to the source of the information, that makes it easier to take agenda into account when analyzing the data. The more information there is, the more potential there is for false or misleading versions of it, one must scrutinize with a tool like the internet at our disposal. Information can be altered, research results can be cherry picked and data can be manipulated to fit an agenda. Looking into the China Study again I found more de-bunkers than I had the first time, searches for "China Study" brought up more results for "China Study Debate." It seemed folks were taking it apart word for word, in some cases throwing context entirely out the window.
I chose sixteen articles, eight for and eight against. As it turned out, all the articles in the “against” column reference the first one I had chosen to read on that side of the debate. In fact, all of the articles I read de-bunking the book were so similar to that first 9,000 word diatribe that reading the other seven was almost a waste of time. I was struck by the blatant agendas being pushed from the two sides that had been created. What struck me most was how it had gotten so over-simplified. A multi-faceted issue being scrutinized from only two possible sides. Both sides of the debate claim that the data and its interpretation are the foundation of their opinions, not an agenda. However, I couldn't help but notice how the author of that first piece after pointedly proclaiming to have no agenda at all, didn't even feign subtly with the impossible to ignore ads and promotional links to her own book and website. So both sides were in dispute over data analysis and perception of said data’s interpretation. Both sides manipulated the data to coincide with what their point of view was. By omitting certain aspects of the data entirely, cherry picking aspects that demonstrated adherence to their agenda and presenting opinion as fact agenda's were pushed despite claims of not having them. Now I write this piece to push my own agenda which is to encourage people to think for themselves and make their own decisions. For decades I have been an advocate of people making choices for themselves and taking accountability for those choices. I cannot begin to understand why anyone would not choose to be their own expert. I am not trying to diminish the value of the data, quite the opposite, seek it out, look for it, ask questions, learn as much as possible. Meanwhile, make sure the data comes from a well-rounded pool of legitimate sources and take the time to check those sources before coming up with your own hypothesis. When it comes to a vegetarian diet it isn’t only about its proposed nutritional value. For some people, it’s about the chemicals, the hormones and the diet animals used for food are given. Often factory farms turn their animals into cannibals by feeding them leftover bits from the animals they have already slaughtered. Many people find that unacceptable. For some it is the way animals are treated, some factory farmers take pleasure in abusing their livestock as well as making death as bloody and painful as possible. Despite all the folks who claim that it isn’t true that some, not all, factory farmers abuse their animals there are copious amounts of video evidence to the contrary. Much of the video I refer to is made by the abusive farmers, proudly swaggering and chuckling while they taze and beat cows they have rendered defenseless. I can't really expound on that since I can't wrap my head around such logic defying actions. Some people are vegetarian simply because of their own physiology. They don’t care about the politics, aren’t interested in the farmers and are fairly indifferent to the suffering of the animals feeling as though there's nothing they can do about it anyway; they simply do physically better eating a vegetarian diet. There are more reasons than I can name right now why some people become vegetarians and some don't. At the end of the day there are too many variables to take into account to form a truly accurate picture of individual people based on data collected for entire populations as a whole since the data produced can't take even a fraction of the variables into account. An accurate picture of one's own health is achievable for anyone willing to take the time, do the research and trust their instincts with regard their own bodies. Since no two people have the same variables the data regarding diet and its effects on overall health become more convoluted with every single person, each representing tens of thousands of variables, added into the research. It isn't just the people that present added variables, there are the how's as well. How food is eaten makes a difference, eating animals grown for food that are pumped full of chemicals and hormones and not properly fed is a choice, so is eating meat products that are more properly raised, fed a healthy diet and are hormone and GMO free. There is also how the food is prepared to take into account. No matter the chosen diet there are healthy ways to go about it and unhealthy ways to go about it. A person living on Coca-Cola and Fritos could go around calling themselves a vegetarian. Perspective adds yet more variables, so as you can see, self accountability and responsibility is actually a lot less complicated than it can seem. Meanwhile, making decisions regarding one's diet based on convoluted data that is as pertinent to your personal health as the resting heart rate of a white toothed pygmy shrew has major limitations. There can be upsides and downsides to any diet and getting information isn’t the problem, getting information from a source that isn’t force-feeding an agenda is. Eating healthy is increasingly trendy, making it easier to find healthy choices regardless of diet, it pays to educate oneself before making those choices. It's important to remember that it's still big business, corporations can pay to manipulate outcome. For example, certification inspectors of organic foods are few and far between and often private contractors who also want to line their pockets can be paid off by these corporations. With the demand for organics ever increasing there aren’t enough people to properly enforce the rules. Labels can be misleading as well, especially with regard to genetically modified organisms and honestly the World Trade Organization, its policies and the global food trade is a GMO nut I’m not cracking right now. My suggestion is still to do the research, find the answers and draw your own conclusions. The bottom line is that there are agendas and money is a major factor. According to folks who take into account the long term results of not eating healthy there is more money to be made off of sick people than people who are healthy and everyone wants a piece of the pie. Every single article or blog I came across, every site where someone had an argument no matter what side of the debate they were on, were all selling something, taking donations for their cause or both. Most claimed to have no agenda but then the ads for their books and the giant “Donate” button would contradict that claim. Ultimately, anyone who stands to make even one red cent “helping” you to make “right” decisions about your health is pushing an agenda, even if they are doing it unwittingly. I continue to believe that the best option is to take your health into your own hands. When did people become wholly dependent on the “experts” some of whom aren’t even really experts? Consider this radical idea, the true expert on your body and what is best for it is you. Your only agenda when it comes to your health is your health, it doesn't get any more simple than that.
1 Comment
|
Author
"They made me a listener, so I hear everything. Archives
November 2023
|