If you’ve been living under a nutritional rock and haven’t heard about T. Colin Campbell or his book, The China Study, then let us start by telling you that he is considered the top figure in this country when it comes to nutrition. The China Study, an investigation that has been called “the Grand Prix of epidemiology” by the New York Times and which the book is named after, was a massive scale landmark project between China and the United States that discovered startling conclusions about the link between diet and disease. The research showed the connection between animal protein and cancer, as well as the relationship between diet and diseases like diabetes and obesity, leading Dr. Campbell to the conclusion that, “there is one diet to counteract all of these diseases: a whole foods, plant-based diet.”
T. Colin Campbell is Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University, where he taught and conducted research for over 20 years. He has received more that seventy grant-years of peer-reviewed research funding and authored more than 300 research papers. He is a true scientist and speaks with both evidence and integrity. We highly recommend The China Study if you have not read it, as well as his upcoming book, The Master and Slave State, in which he goes into information control, policy and the ideology behind the current health crisis in this country. We had a candid chat with Dr. Campbell while he was in Los Angeles lecturing and discussing his upcoming film Forks Over Knives (another ‘must’), and we talked about raw foods versus cooked, vitamin supplements, what we should really be eating, and why the majority of the population can’t seem to get it right. more …
Exercise: Poor air quality apparently affects the running times of women marathoners, according to a study. Higher levels of particles in the air were associated with slower running times for women, while men were not significantly affected. The differences, according to researcher Linsey Marr of Virginia Tech, may be due to the smaller size of women’s tracheas, which makes it easier for certain particles to deposit there and possibly cause irritation. “Although pollution levels in these marathons rarely exceeded national standards for air quality, performance was still affected,” Marr said. Her studies were conducted where major USA marathons are located, such as New York, Boston, and Los Angeles, where pollution tends to be highest. Although the regular person might not be significantly impacted by low-yet-still-acceptable air quality, marathoners typically inhale and exhale about the same amount of air as a sedentary person would over the course of two full days. This means they are exposed to much greater amounts of pollutants than under typical breathing conditions. Interestingly, the performances of female marathoners appeared to only be affected by particulate matter, and not other pollutants like carbon monoxide, ozone, nitrogen dioxide or sulfur dioxide. The research was published in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports & Exercise. more …
Healthy Whole Foods Plant-Based Diet
Dear HLife: What is the Deal with Candida?
Dear HLifer,
Candida sounds like the name of a hot girl who lives next door right? And that’s not far from reality. It lives closer to us than we know it, but it is not a human being. Candida Albicans is a yeast, a type of fungus that lives naturally in all human bodies of all ages from birth on. Here is the ‘big deal’ with candida and health:
If you live in a healthy body: It lives symbiotically in a balanced environment as a yeast in the gastrointestinal tract, on the mucus membranes and on the skin, causing no problems for the body. Living in a healthy body implies that you have a strong immune system via a nutrient-dense, conscious diet and high-frequency thought patterns.
If you live in an unhealthy body: This harmless ‘yeast’ (single-celled organism) can overgrow, turning into an extremely dangerous pathogenic fungus with roots that can attack any organs or systems in your body. This fungus uses its roots to dig and create holes into the intestinal lining, where it and its by products can then infiltrate the blood stream. more …
You saw him as one of the poster boys for our Protein Myth Part 1 article first, and now professional Ironman triathlete and bestselling author Brendan Brazier sat down with HLife for an extensive interview where we get down to the nitty-gritty of plant-based nutrition. As one of the principal advocates for a vegan diet and the creator of the Vega line of nutritional products, Brazier has also written Thrive and Thrive Fitness, books in which he discusses the benefits of eating everything the plant kingdom has to offer, especially for athletic performance, and physical as well as mental health.
In this interview we tackle the usual suspects – protein and calcium – as well as policy and education, food issues (the topic of his upcoming third book, to be published next year), travel, and even his favorite salad recipe. more …
Raw Granola by HLife Photography
Breakfast is the most important meal that get your day started. We always have a very nutrient-dense vegan-raw smoothie in the morning, but we also need variety. Cereal in a box with “fortified” synthetic stuff (or granola with added sugar) makes me think of Soilent Green. Has anyone seen that movie? Well, not on my clock will I ever consider breakfast, something that hasn’t been freshly prepared by my hands or feed my unborn children jokes like sugar-coated breakfast from a cardboard container.
I can live without the cereal and milk combo for breakfast forever because I believe the body needs more nutrients than the few contained in that to create cellular energy for the day. That is also why I don’t drink – or need – coffee. But my husband, from time to time, has these mental associations of cereal/milk breakfast (from childhood, I guess, and he doesn’t drink cow’s milk, ’cause he is a human, not a calf) and I have to give him a nutritionally dense alternative to prevent him from coming home with some box of cereal and vegan milk (also from a box). Box, box, box… CRAZY. SAY “YES” TO WHOLE, FRESH FOODS. The best foods for human consumption hands down are living foods. In the morning, we need a balanced blend of complex carbohydrates, quality protein, and good fats in order to make cellular energy, combined with plenty of minerals, vitamins, antioxidants, etc. So I came up with a Rawnola (raw granola) that meets our nutritional requirements optimally, and that also happens to be gluten-free and delicious. It’s very easy to make, as long as you have a dehydrator and food processor (standard equipment for a vegan-raw kitchen). more …
“Laughing Zebra” by August Jennewein
Emotions: Laughter is a universal language, according to new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study, conducted with people from Britain and Namibia, suggests that basic emotions like fear, anger, sadness and amusement are shared by all human beings. Conventional wisdom dictates that, while we all communicate, people from different cultures may not understand the same words, phrases or body language. In spite of this, the researchers discovered that emotions like laughter and anger are easily recognizable despite cultural differences, suggesting that these emotions and their vocalizations are similar across all cultures. Laughter was probably the best recognized among the positive emotions, which should not come as a surprise, as researchers have seen this with other primates such as chimpanzees, and other mammals, too. While previous studies have indicated that smiling is also universal, laughter is special because it symbolizes playfulness, probably one of the first steps in communication between children and their mothers. more …
Ahh, the famous apple. From bringing down the Garden of Eden to keeping the doctor away…pretty powerful little fruit, wouldn’t you say? Today, let’s explore the apple’s micro-universe to see why it is so great for our own micro-universe. From reducing risks of some cancers, cardiovascular disease, asthma and diabetes overall to lowering risk of heart attack by 32% by eating one a day, studies find apples’s benefits are plentiful. Personally, with a particular apple derivative, I’m like the dad in the movie Big Fat Greek Wedding: Apple cider vinegar (and aloe vera) is my “Windex” – I apply it to all kinds of things and, let me tell you, it works. more …
Your body is a reflection of your mind, your emotions and, of course, the food you choose to put in it. Here at HLife, we do not believe in diets or any other temporary ‘fixes’ – those days are over. The truth is that health is a lifestyle, and part of that lifestyle is NUTRITION – conscious, balanced, nutrient-dense eating. It’s time to change the way your look at food and get active about how you nurture your body.
Yes, everyone knows that with exercise you will lose some weight and get toned, but if your nutrition is not great, even exercise won’t keep you at your optimal, healthy human-machine level. Every day we look at ourselves in the mirror, and what do we see? A figure, a form, a dense silhouette of compacted matter. We think, “There I am, that’s me, the dense mass in the mirror” and either “I look fat” or “I look skinny”. But, what is the problem with this picture? Generally, people seem to look only at the external part of the body, the end result, but in order to change the outside (what we see in the mirror) we need to understand and be conscious of the INSIDE of our body, where all the magic happens on both an electric and chemical level. more …
