Now This is What We're Talking About!

The China Study. There's not the word "diet" in the title, but make no mistake, this book is all about the way we eat.

T. Colin Campbell is a well-respected doctor from Cornell with years of clinical study and research on his long, long résumé. He's a profoundly educated voice on nutrition and diet. So what's he saying?

Eat a plant-based, wholefoods diet and change your life!

This isn't a pitch for some weight-loss program complete with nutrition supplements and TV dinners designed to line his pockets. Nope, he and his mounds of research suggest that we eat the simplest foods of all: whole plant foods.

Campbell and his research team have been able to turn on and off cancer in rats by changing the amount of animal protein in the rats' diet. Not kidding. He also offers up tons of examples of how a wholefoods, plant-based diet can help and in some ways reverse the ravages of diseases like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity and other problems that affect many people on the Western Diet (what I've referred to before as the Standard American Diet, SAD). It's documented.

So, why aren't doctors spouting off this information at yearly check-ups? Campbell argues that doctors like him who have proposed preventing and treating "diseases of affluence" like cancer, heart disease and other chronic illness with diet have been constantly put down for going against the grain in the medical society. The medical industry is in bed with the drug industry and if you eat better and don't get chronic illness, well, they lose money.

Despite their underlying yearn to help people, most doctors would like to treat first with a pill or a surgery and make their money off of you, rather than getting nothing from fruit and vegetable growers nor you as the patient, says Campbell. And he makes a good argument!

Buy it and read if for yourself. His research doesn't lie — it's just one more reason to go unrefined.

An Unrefined Life

Let's get one thing straight. I am not wild and woolly nor do I have an aversion to the finer things in life. You should see my shoe collection. Refined and plentiful, indeed.

Okay, now that we've got that out of the way, let me tell you that this year my goal is going unrefined.

As in unrefined foods.

Is it possible for someone living in middle America, surrounded by all the tidings of the high-fat, high-risk Standard American Diet (SAD) go a year of eating against the grain? Consuming unrefined, non-prepackaged foods, devoid of fillers, additives and all those other inorganic ingredients we all readily ingest without really thinking about it?

Whole grains, organic fruits and vegetables. What if those were the staples rather than the things we know are good for us but rarely eat? What if venturing to the center aisles of the grocery store were like stomping across the wilds of the moon?

We'd all be healthier and happier. Or at least that's the theory. It's something hard to prove because it's hard to sustain. No matter how healthy we claim our diets are, we can't get through life in the industrialized United States with creating an attachment to some processed, we-should-know better vice.

Can you go without it?

Can I?

Man, I hope so. But I must tell you, Diet Coke is my life line. I'm a journalist and it's nearly impossible to meet person in my profession who is without an addiction to some caffeinated product. Like finding a Yeti in Times Square. Possible, but impossible all the same. I've had my kicks where I've tried to eliminate the stuff, despite cans being popped open around me every few minutes, the refreshing fizz hitting the throat of the thirsty person next to me, behind me, or across the newsroom. I crave it, my tongue yearning for only the metallic syrupy taste, the sickly hit of aspartame, the carbonated particles rushing through my lips straight to my gut, burning the whole way down.

Too bad it's a can of chemicals.

Every beloved drop is artificial except for the water, and even that is pumped full of gas to become carbonated. Yum!

Yes, regrettably, to quit the SAD and go unrefined, my life juice in the sophisticated silver can has got to be history.

Is it possible to say good by to the vice of my dreams and the other trappings of today's toxic American diet? I'd like to think I'm a healthy eater, a good eater, but on closer examination, I'm about two steps to the left from a trip to McDonald's some days. And not just the Diet Coke days. My morning packets of oatmeal have about 10 ingredients after "oats" that are unpronounceable, despite being "healthy." I have a soft spot for Peanut M&Ms on Wednesdays at a TV night with my family. And my organic frozen pizza, despite the superior ingredients, taste, and bigger price tag, is still a prepackaged disc of unfreshness.

So, what's a girl to do? Give it her best shot.

For the next year, I'm going to try to avoid the pitfalls of the SAD, go as unprocessed, unrefined and, well, un-American as possible.

A little wacky and difficult in today's society? You bet. But it's also more practical than the 100-mile diet being touted today, and a whole lot less gimmicky and profit-driven than all those diet books out there, with all their given product-placed accompaniments.

It's common sense: Eat foods in their most natural state, avoid anything unfresh or loaded with chemicals. In a sense, eat what our grandparents were raised on.

True food.

Real. Unrefined. Fresh.

Follow my progress here, and try it if you can. Healthy loves company!