LESSONS FROM CHINA 107significant risk for heart disease. Sadly, it's also "normal" to have heart
disease in America. Over the years, standards have been established that
are consistent with what we see in the West. We too often have come to
the view that u.s. values are "normal" because we have a tendency to
believe that the Western experience is likely to be right.
At the end of the day, the strength and consistency of the majority
of the evidence is enough to draw valid conclusions. Namely, whole,
plant-based foods are beneficial, and animal-based foods are not. Few
other dietary choices, if any, can offer the incredible benefits of looking
good, growing tall and avoiding the vast majority or premature diseases
in our culture.
The China Study was an important milestone in my thinking. Standing
alone, it does not prove that diet causes disease. Absolute proof in science
is nearly unattainable. Instead, a theory is proposed and debated until the
weight of the evidence is so overwhelming that everyone commonly ac-
cepts that the theory is most likely true. In the case of diet and disease, the
China Study adds a lot of weight to the evidence. Its experimental features
(multiple diet, disease and lifestyle characteristics, and unusual range of
dietary experience, a good means of measuring data quality) provided an
unparalleled opportunity to expand our thinking about diet and disease
in ways that previously were not available. It was a study that was like a
flashlight that illuminated a path that I had never fully seen before.
The results of this study, in addition to a mountain of supporting
research, some of it my own and some of it from other scientists, con-
vinced me to turn my dietary lifestyle around. I stopped eating meat
fifteen years ago, and I stopped eating almost all animal-based foods,
including dairy, within the past six to eight years, except on very rare
occasions. My cholesterol has dropped, even as I've aged; I am more
physically fit now than when I was twenty-five; and I am forty-five
pounds lighter now than I was when I was thirty years old. I am now at
an ideal weight for my height. My family has also adopted this way of
eating, thanks in large part to my wife Karen, who has managed to create
an entire new dietary lifestyle that is attractive, tasty and healthy. This
has all been done for health reasons, the result of my research findings
telling me to wake up. From a boyhood of drinking at least two quarts
of milk a day to an early professional career of scoffing at vegetarians, I
have taken an unusual turn in my life.
However, it has been more than my own research that has changed
my life. Over the years, I have gone well beyond our own research find-