Great Throughts Treasury

"The vast majority… of all cancers, cardiovascular diseases, and other forms of degenerative illness can be prevented… simply by adopting a plant-based diet."

"Everything in food works together to create health or disease. The more we think that a single chemical characterizes a whole food, the more we stray into idiocy."

"As early as 1913, physicians and laypeople formed the American Society for the Control of Cancer, which later became the American Cancer Society, bearing this hopeful message: “With early recognition and prompt treatment, the patient’s life may often be saved.” The idea had some scientific basis. Patients whose cancers appeared to be less extensive at diagnosis lived longer, on average, than those whose cancer was more widespread. The organization put this philosophy in action, publicizing a series of “danger signals” that suggested possible early warning signs of cancer, including breast lumps, irregular bleeding, sores that did not heal and persistent weight loss. “Delay kills!” posters bluntly warned."

"Americans love to hear good things about their bad habits."

"As you will come to see, much is governed by the Golden Rule: he who has the gold makes the rules."

"In every respect, vegans appear to enjoy equal or better health in comparison to both vegetarians and non-vegetarians."

"In the next ten years, one of the things you’re bound to hear is that animal protein is one of the most toxic nutrients of all that can be considered."

"Perhaps it is a testament to the power of modern marketing savvy that an obese man with heart disease and high blood pressure became one of the richest snake oil salesmen ever to live, selling a diet that promises to help you lose weight, to keep your heart healthy and to normalize your blood pressure."

"Quite simply, the more you substitute plant foods for animal foods, the healthier you are likely to be. I now consider veganism to be the ideal diet. A vegan diet – particularly one that is low in fat – will substantially reduce disease risks. Plus, we’ve seen no disadvantages from veganism."

"Much of my early career was spent working with two of the most toxic chemicals ever discovered, dioxin and aflatoxin. I initially worked at MIT, where I was assigned a chicken feed puzzle. Millions of chicks a year were dying from an unknown toxic chemical in their feed, and I had the responsibility of isolating and determining the structure of this chemical. After two and a half years, I helped discover dioxin, arguably the most toxic chemical ever found. This chemical has since received widespread attention, especially because it was part of the herbicide 2,4,5-T, or Agent Orange, then being used to defoliate forests in the Vietnam War."

"The body is always trying to restore health every microsecond of our lives. How do we furnish the resources for the body to use?"

"The U.S. government should be discussing the idea that the toxicity of our diet is the single biggest cause of cancer."

"The cost of PSA testing contributes $3 billion annually to health care spending, much of it paid for by Medicare and the Department of Veterans Affairs. In fact, Richard Ablin, the scientist who discovered PSA, calls the testing's widespread use a "public health disaster.""

"Usually, the first thing a country does in the course of economic development is to introduce a lot of livestock. Our data are showing that this is not a very smart move…. We are basically a vegetarian species and should be eating a wide variety of plant food and minimizing our intake of animal foods.... Once people start introducing animal products into their diet, that's when the mischief starts."

"Breast cancer is related to levels of female hormones in the blood, which are determined by the food we eat."

"Antioxidants, found in fruits and vegetables, are liked to better mental performance in old age."

"By feeding a mostly plant-based diet and promoting exercise, the Pritikin Center found that its clients lost 5.5% of their body weight over three weeks. Another group of scientists at the Pritikin Center achieved equally spectacular results by prescribing a low-fat, plant-based diet and exercise to a group of diabetic patients. Of forty patients on medication at the start of the program, thirty-four were able to discontinue all medication after only twenty-six days."

"Consuming diets high in protein and fat transfer calories away from their conversion into body heat to their storage form ? as body fat (unless severe calories restriction is causing weight loss). In contrast, diets low in protein and fat cause calories to be ?lose? as body heat."

"Dietary changes can enable diabetic patients to go off their medication."

"Consuming dairy foods can increase the risk of prostate cancer."

"Cancer-producing effects of a highly carcinogenic chemical were rendered insignificant by a low-protein diet. In fact, dietary protein proved to be so powerful in its effect that we could turn on and off cancer growth simply by changing the level consumed."

"Immunity from ourselves. Even though this system is a wonder of nature when it is defending the body against foreign proteins, it is also capable of attacking the same tissues it is designed to protect. This self-destructive process is common to all autoimmune diseases. One of the fundamental mechanisms for this self-destructive behavior is called molecular mimicry. It so happens that some of the foreign invaders that our soldier cells seek out to destroy look the same as our own cells. The immune system ?molds? that fit these invaders also fit our own cells. One of the foods that supply many of the foreign proteins that mimic our own body protein is cow?s milk."

"In the China Study, the amount of dietary fat consumed was closely associated with the incidence of breast cancer, large bowel cancer, and heart disease. People who migrated form one area to another and who started eating the typical diet of their new residency assumed the disease risk of the area to which they moved."

"Dietary fiber is exclusively found in plant-based foods."

"Disease groupings: Diseases of affluence (nutritional extravagance) include cancer, diabetes, and coronary heart disease. Diseases of poverty (nutritional inadequacy and poor sanitation) include pneumonia, rheumatic heart disease, endocrine disease other than diabetes, peptic ulcer, pulmonary tuberculosis, etc. Almost all of us in the United States will die of diseases of affluence."

"Drugs and surgery don?t cure the diseases that kill most Americans."

"Greater plant protein intake was closely linked to greater height and body weight."

"Heart disease can be reversed with diet alone."

"High-fiber intake is consistently associated with lower rates of cancers of the rectum and colon. High-fiber intakes also were associated with lower levels of blood cholesterol. Of course, high-fiber consumption reflected high plant-based food consumption: foods such as beans, leafy vegetables and whole grains are all high in fiber."

"Hippocrates (460-357 B.C.) The Father of Medicine ? He who does not know food, how can he understand the diseases of man?"

"Lifestyle changes are the most cost-effective means to reduce risk for CHD [coronary heart disease]."

"Kidney stones can be prevented by a healthy diet."

"Obsessively controlling your intake of anyone nutrient, such as carbohydrates, fat, cholesterol or omega-3 fats, will not result in long-term health."

"Our country?s population which numbers almost 300 million people, is sick. ?"

"The correlation between fat intake and animal protein intake is more than 90%. This means that fat intake increases parallel with animal protein intake. In other words, dietary fat is an indicator of how much animal-based food is in the diet. It is almost a perfect match."

"The China Study produced more than 8,000 statistically significant associations between various dietary factors and disease. People who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease. Even relatively small intakes of animal-based food were associated with adverse affects. People who at the most plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease."

"One of the more obvious characteristics of plants is their wide range of bright colors. The colors of fruits and vegetables are derived from a variety of chemicals called antioxidants [protect against errant electrons and free radicals]. These chemicals are almost exclusively found in plants. They are only present in animal-based foods to the extent that animals eat them and store a small amount in their own tissues."

"Nutrition is far more important in controlling cancer promotion than the dose of the initiating carcinogen."

"Plato, in this passage, made it perfectly clear: we shall eat animals only at our own peril. The false sense of rich luxury granted by being able to eat animals would only lead to a culture of sickness, disease, land disputes, lawyers and doctors. This is a pretty good description of some of the challenges faced by modern America."

"Synthetic chemicals in the environment and in your food, as problematic as they may be, are not the main cause of cancer."

"The Eight Principles of Food and Health: Principle 1: Nutrition represents the combined activities of countless food substances. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Principle 2: Vitamin supplements are not a panacea for good health. Principle 3: There are virtually no nutrients in animal-based foods that are not better provided by plants. Principle 4: Genes do not determine disease on their own. Genes function only by being activated, or expressed, and nutrition plays a critical role in determining which genes, good and bad, are expressed. Principle 5: Nutrition can substantially control the adverse effects of noxious chemicals. Principle 6: The same nutrition that prevents disease in its early stages (before diagnosis) can also halt or reverse disease in its later stages (after diagnosis). Principle 7: Nutrition that is truly beneficial for one chronic disease will support health across the board. Principle 8: Good nutrition creates health in all areas of our existence. All parts are interconnected."

"The hope that genetic research will eventually lead to drug cures for diseases ignores more powerful solutions that can be employed today."

"The genes you inherit from your parents are not the most important factors in determining whether you will fall prey to any of the ten leading causes of death."

"The people who eat the most animal protein have the most heart disease, cancer and diabetes."

"Very few people truly know what they should be doing to improve their health. Real science has been buried beneath a clutter of irrelevant or even harmful information ? junk science, fad diets and food industry propaganda."

"Type 1 diabetes, one of the most devastating diseases that can befall a child, is convincingly linked to infant feeding practices."

"The nature of science included discussion on research including correlation versus causation, statistical significance, mechanisms of action [two correlated factors are related in a ?biologically plausible? way. If the relationship is biologically plausible, it is considered much more reliable], and meta-analysis."

"Vitamins and nutritional supplements do not give you long-term protection against disease."

"What is my prescription for good health? In short, it is about the multiple health benefits of consuming plant-based foods, and the largely unappreciated health dangers of consuming animal-based foods, including all types of meat, dairy and eggs."

"We now have a deep and broad range of evidence showing that a whole foods, plant-based diet is best for the heart, is best for diabetes and autoimmune diseases, and is best for our kidneys, bones, eyes and brains."