Research On Nutrition

Despite numerous attempts to have a nap in the last two days (after two rather sleepless nights with Marcus), I am sitting in front of my computer screen instead and doing the research on nutrition. Yesterday, I registered for a Certificate in Plant-Based Nutrition, offered by Cornell University. The move was inspired by yet another documentary my husband and I came across, Forks Over Knives, which among other things depicted the decades-long research by Dr. Colin Campbell on the incredible benefits of plant-based nutrition. 

This and the other documentary, Food Matters, made me wish I knew the facts about nutrients, how they interact with our bodies, and how they are affected in the cooking process. For the last eight or nine years, I thought I ate a balanced, healthful diet- and I most certainly did, if compared with an average Canadian's- but as my recent research shows, consuming vegetables and lean meats is not necessarily as beneficial as it could be had I consumed less animal protein and more raw veggies and fruit.

I am still rather skeptical about the harm in dairy products, meats and monounsaturated fats, however. According to Dr. Campbell, the rates of the cardiovascular disease and cancer among the Mediterranean nations, although significantly lower than that in the U.S. and the U.K. (and dare I add, Canada), are much higher of that of the rural Chinese, who were found to eat little animal protein and fats. And that, he says in his article Fat And Plant-Based Diets, might be attributed to monounsaturated fats found in olive oil, for example. Hmm... although I by no means conducted any primary research on the subject, I was surprised to come across such a conclusion. Could the disease rates not have been attributed to say the Mediterranean sea, which is apparently contaminated with massive amounts of mineral oil, mercury, lead and phosphates? Could the cause have something to do with genetics of the Italians and the Spanish versus the Chinese? Whatever it is, I tend to think there is a different reason for higher disease rates in the Mediterranean region. 

However, at this point I need to be open-minded and learn as much as possible about nutrition, in general, and what the ultimate diet- the one that can prevent future and reverse existing ailments- is all about. Next is the work done by Dr. Max Gerson in helping treat chronic degenerative diseases like cancer through a special diet. I will be learning about that in conjunction with Dr. W. J. McCormick's research into Vitamin C and its ability (in large, intravenously administered, doses) to target cancer cells.