A Note On Healthcare.

An excerpt from "The China Study" by T. Colin Campbell, PhD

By any number of measure, America's health is failing. We spend far more, per capita, on healthcare than any other society in the world, and yet two thirds of Americans are overweight, and over 15 million Americans have diabetes, a number that has been rising rapidly. We fall prey to heart disease as often as we did thirty years ago, and the War on Cancer, launched in the 1970s has been a miserable failure. Half of Americans have a health problem that requires taking a prescription drug every week, and over 100 million Americans have high cholesterol.

To make matters worse we are leading our youth down a path of disease earlier and earlier in their lives. One third of young people in this country are overweight or at risk of becoming overweight. Increasingly, they are falling prey to a form of diabetes that used to be seen only in adults, and these young people now take more prescription drugs then ever before.

These issues come down to breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

This is a problem with our heath care system that needs to addressed much more than all other problems with access. I completely understand that there are very useful technologies and procedures of Allopathic healthcare, a large one being emergency care. For example, if I am hit by a car and break bones, no amount of kale will heal me. I would like my bones reset quickly, which would involve action from a team of doctors, possibly even surgery. While other facets of our current, traditional health care sometimes can help people at the last minute by exposing their bodies to various chemicals, inevitably it can do a myriad of harmful things that may be permanent. And this traditional way of approaching sickness almost never makes determined efforts to change the underlying problem.

I usually want to laugh when I hear about another new whole food that "can help in the fight against cancer." Why? Because ALL plant-based whole foods from the ground do that. Eating the regular diet of white breads, deli meats, a selected few types of veggies sometimes adding acai berries or pomegranate to your diet will not keep you safe from the possibility or cancer. What we need to know is that these fresh whole foods are the primary foods we should be eating. Then, if we choose, we can supplement with convenience foods. Our country's current thought on food and health is backwards. Right now, the idea is to consume whatever is tasty and easy and then go to the doctor when you get to your 40s and fight cancer. Instead, we should educate ourselves on what is right for us and learn to love the foods that have been feeding our species for thousands(or millions) of years now. If we do, we will lead an extremely more vibrant and healthy life while avoiding long stays in the hospital.

I may not know or understand the details of what is happening in Washington right now, but I have a pretty good clue what is going on in people's kitchens, as well as the quality and perspective on health in the doctors office. That's what needs reform. If not I believe that we will be giving a nice hand to nice people for more rat race type drugs, and doing almost nothing to really stop a bad cycle of sickness.