Is the whole-food plant-based diet the answer to sustainable health?

However, when I came across The China Study, it got me questioning what I thought I knew about healthy eating. The book written by T. Colin Campbell, PHD and his son, Doctor Tom Campbell, MD is based on one of the largest nutritional studies ever to be conducted. Within its pages is scientific evidence proven many times over on how to sustain long term health and even how to manage or reverse the biggest killers such as cancers and heart conditions.

In this article we will meet a woman who is now in remission from breast cancer and a woman who manages several auto-immune health conditions with no drugs whatsoever – mere examples of the incredible effects of the whole-food plant-based (W.F.P.B.) diet advocated in the book. I also had the opportunity to speak to a naturopath/nutritionist, an expert working among the world-class medical professionals of Harley Street and an NHS doctor. The two approaches to patients proved to be a striking representation of available services and consultation time available across different ends of the socio-economic spectrum.

Campbell is a biochemist who specialises in the long-term effects nutrition has on health, he is a professor of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University and through his research, is now an advocate for the whole-food plant based-diet -  which is exactly what it sounds like, a diet comprised of whole foods, such as vegetables, fruits, legumes, grains, seeds, nuts and no animal products.

The China Study explored the patterns of associations for different dietary, lifestyle, and disease characteristics within the survey of 65 countries, 130 villages, and 6,500 adults and their families – with a focus on the correlation between consumption of animal protein and health. However, the book describes much more than the the study itself.

The China Study: “Protein, often regarded with unsurpassed awe, is the common thread tying together past and present knowledge about nutrition, and its supposed importance has permeated the practice of diet and health, even on the professional level, in ways that have suffused our very beings

“The story of protein is part science, part culture, and a good dose of mythology. I am reminded of the words of Goethe: 'We are best at hiding those things which are in plain sight'. Nothing has been so well hidden as the untold story of protein.

“Ever since the discovery of this nitrogen-containing chemical in 1839 by the Dutch chemist Gerhard Mulder, protein has loomed as the most sacred of all nutrients. The word protein comes from the Greek word proteios, which means 'of prime importance'. This begs the question why there was such irrational exuberance for this nutrient in the first place, especially given the belief that protein was only present in animal flesh”.

“If nutrition were better understood and prevention and natural treatments were more accepted in the medical community, we would not be pouring so many toxic, potentially lethal drugs into our bodies at the last stage of disease.

“We would not be frantically searching for the new medicine that alleviates symptoms but often does nothing to address the fundamental causes of our illnesses.

“We would not be spending our money developing, patenting and commercializing 'magic bullet' drugs that often cause additional health problems.”

Campbell has spent his career testing theories on nutrition, researching how protein affects the wellness of our bodies and discovered that not only are we being told that we need far more protein than our bodies require to function properly but that we have been conditioned into sourcing (most) of our protein from animals and this comes at a price.  Obviously to the animals themselves but that is another argument all together. The price is our own.

The evidence broken down in the book is outstanding and yet this absolute diamond of a discovery is not being implemented or shared as one would expect. If this is true, why is this information not represented in doctors’ recommendations? Why, if it’s true, does it feel like a kind of secret amongst the alternative medical community?

As a young woman who follows what I would describe as a fairly average western diet, it feels near impossible to imagine eating no processed food at all. First of all, I am a student, money doesn’t grow on trees and I am always running about so ‘on the go’ is how I consume most of my food. The key for people like me is planning ahead, preparing your meals in advance and hoping that wherever you are when you get hungry, you have access to a microwave. Some people are organised like that, and I can be at times but more often than not, I’m grabbing a sandwich from the shop. Pretty average.

Many of the people I spoke to about this went through a kind of emotional event in their lives before taking the decision to completely change the way that they saw food and consumed it. Most of them have said that they probably would be eating the same as they did before had nothing driven them to seek change. Life altering events in our lives can see us needing a new haircut, new furniture, new friends, anything really. But emotionally traumatic events have a toll on the mind, they cause stress which strains the gut, where all the magic happens to keep our digestive system and immune system working properly. When we are weak in ourselves, our bodies will weaken, white blood cell counts will drop, our body soldiers against bad bacteria and our body will no longer be able to protect us as it did. And this can cause some people to fall ill, for some, impossibly or life-threateningly so - a clear reason to take the life altering decision to implement a whole-food plant-based diet. But for most people, who are plodding along at life, it seems momentously unachievable to incorporate amidst the busy and high stress lifestyles of the unsleeping Western world.

Following the unexpected death of her mother, the difficult family issues it caused and the near loss of one of her daughters in a frightening car crash; Denise Stevenson, wife and mother of three was diagnosed with breast cancer. She could not believe it. She was a seemingly healthy woman in her fifties, didn’t smoke or overindulge in processed foods but there it was, a cancer in her breast. Her journey began when she went to church and shared her diagnosis. A lady there passed her a book “Do you want to know what we did to beat cancer” by Robert and Susan Olifient. The book describes the journey of a Christian couple who had watched so many members of their family die from various cancers – or not so much from the cancer but the cancer treatments; the results of chemotherapy. So, when the wife is diagnosed with a tumour, they decide to take an alternative route. Denise explained: "If she was going to die it would be from the cancer and not the treatments." The couple started researching and uncovered a whole plethora of things from the natural world, proven to be anti-cancer. Things like turmeric, lemons, members of the garlic family, cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, spinach all have massive proven anti-cancer affects, they found. And in following this natural path, she healed herself of her tumour, entered remission and is still alive today. Denise read the book cover to cover straight away and then began her own research.

She had the good fortune of having a friend whose daughter, Alexandra Neilan, who is working as a naturopath and nutritionist on Harley Street in London, some of the best medical advisors in the UK - she was able to connect Denise to a breast cancer specialist. Alexandra helped Denise through the process of changing her diet to a whole-foods plant-based one, made suggestions on how to replace things with better foods, making sure not to cut anything out of Denise’s diet but only to help her make good decisions. Denise did not need to stop eating things like bread, only try to buy organic when she did or old-fashioned grains, to eat more fiber and eat raw as much as possible. The Harley Street naturopath has monitored Denise all the way through.

Denise explained: “But I really was a bit of a vigilante I have to say, I didn’t have a doctor prescribe what I did. I just went with what I would see again and again. On the basis that none of it was too whacky.

On a different end of the spectrum is ex-physiotherapist Jue James, who lives with many different difficult health issues that appear to be autoimmune, and she has been diagnosed with Spondyloarthritis. From 2012, Jue has faced cysts, pericarditis, a pulmonary embolism, pleurisy, a haemorrhage, a further blood clot and a plethora of other painful things all coming with side effects – joint pain, burning sensations, plaques in her hair, redness, swelling, headaches, chronic constipation, inflammation of the colon, gut pain, the list truly does go on and on. Thankfully. many of these symptoms have now subsided. Similarly to Denise, Jue had been through an emotionally traumatic period before her health began to flare. The first time she ended up in hospital she experienced a house flood. The second time, under urgent conditions, was after a very traumatic personal experience.

"The more I learn the stronger I feel about the importance of this information. Not only does it help you physically, its more helpful to the environment.

"The problem is that people are too animal hungry and the grass can’t sustain it from just grass-fed animals, it’s a lot of factory fed animals and what do they need – corn, soya to feed these factory animals.

“It makes me angry that people accuse me, as a plant-based eater of being the problem for the amount of soya and sweetcorn grown in the world."

Denise told me, emphatically: “There’s no other race that drinks the milk of another races young than human beings. Nobody else. Baby cows are made to drink cow’s milk, not human beings. When I was at school, we had the glass bottles of milk at playtime, the full fat cream on the top and it was you know, you have to have milk for calcium – for your teeth and your bones. Yes, we need calcium, but we don’t need it from cow’s milk. We can get it from many other sources,” she added.

The China Study explains that the highest incidence of osteoporosis is actually in the West, the countries where they eat the most animal and dairy products.

Jue’s doctor expressed concern over how she would get her calcium on the W.F.P.B. diet she’d adopted and so Jue photocopied the pages of The China Study that addresses this and educated her doctor on how she knew how and why to get her daily source of calcium from green leafy vegetables and legumes.

Although this information doesn't appear to have received the acknowledgment you'd think it deserved, it would seem obvious that our medical experts and government would be very much aware, especially directors of organisations meant to educate us on health. If they know, as they should, about the risks of too much animal sourced calcium or protein, why aren't these facts being represented in government dietary advice?

I think it comprehensible that on a psychological and sociological level, people (I, included) would reject this information because it might feel easier to just go on with the way that we’ve been told to eat rather than to accept that our health advisors and government may have played a role in consciously misinforming us on how to protect our health - and continue to do so.

It is devastating then to look at the life of Colin Campbell, where he has had to battle to be acknowledged and heard to only be pushed off of certain boards for advocating a plant-based diet because his peers are being sponsored by the companies who don’t want the research shared.

Jue told me: “It’s about exposing the corruption within the medical system. Which really sadness me. Especially when you go into hospitals, and what are they serving you up? The food that could actually be causing the problems in the first place. That angers me.”

There is an element of responsibility that we must all take individually for what we do or do not eat, although it would be so easy to lay all blame on manufacturers and marketing of processed food. Why is it so hard for most of us to eat consciously? Does it tie into how lazy and complacent we’ve become, with mobile phones, cars, delivery options and the rest of it? Jue reckons: “A lot of the time, people don’t want to know what they need to do, because they don’t want to stop what they’re doing. And at the end of the day, if someone doesn’t want to, they won’t.”

We’ve learnt to have things on demand, delivered to our door, everything is deliberately made to be so practical. The W.F.P.B. diet intrinsically forces an individual to have to be immensely more deliberate with their food consumption. Jue agrees: “And it takes time to learn, although I was eating a lot of vegetarian food, I had to relearn. Part of the process that I’ve loved is that I’ve learnt to cook different things, with new ingredients and I’ve been plant-based for at least three years now – although I still have the occasional flare up. When you’re trying to undo years of what you’ve done to your body, it’s not just going to happen overnight.”

Alexandra Neilan, one of the country’s leading specialists in naturopathy and nutrition, is the cofounder of Health is Wealth, a company that works with businesses on improving the health and wellbeing of employees and in turn their productivity.

Alex met her business partner, Chloe Cunninham studying nutrition, they graduated and began seeing clients one to one, whether for cardiovascular disease and diabetes or sleep, insomnia and digestive issues. The company was launched with the intent to provide their specialist services to corporate workers who need them but are lacking in either time or the money, in a way that can simply slip into their working lives and is payed for by the company.

Business for Health is Wealth has become more in demand this year, as the reputation of the company has grown along with their client base. Alex explained: “Also, employees are demanding it more. Young adults, millennials care less about money and more whether or not the business they work for actually cares about them.”

There is a difference between a nutritionist and a dietician in the UK as nutritionists’ focus is preventative health care and dieticians - working in hospitals, the focus is on looking after patients in their care for example, patients in a coma who need internal feeding. Alex believes that therein lies an issue, as nutritionists are not as involved in the prevention of health complications as they should be.

As a professional in her field of naturopathy and nutrition, Alex does not feel we live in a health promoting society. She elaborated: “It’s partly to do with the NHS - it’s brilliant but because of what it is, a free health care service people take advantage of it. When we know that we have that support there people will just wait until they get unwell, eat whatever they want, drink loads of alcohol and then become ill and rely on the NHS and then also be annoyed at the NHS if they don’t instantly make them better. So, we need to be more proactive.

“There are certain countries like Canada and Australia who give more clout or respect to nutritionists, to naturopaths and use them more to take the burden off their health care system - I think we need to do that more. There are no naturopaths in the NHS.”

When Alex consults with clients, her main focus of attention is bio-individuality, to adapt an eating plan to the specific needs of each individual. She explained: “The reason why diets don’t work is because we are all so different. A keto diet might work for somebody but not for somebody else and so people become disheartened when they try different trending diets and it does not work for them. Also, ethics come into it, people have different religions, and these have to be taken into account. "

In general, Alex promotes a balanced varied diet with good quality products. She’d advise people eat around 80% plant-based but would not advise her clients to become fully vegan because of the health implications of not doing it properly as there is a risk of being left deficient in certain vitamins and minerals - although Alex thinks it amazing if people are able to eat vegan as there are both health and environmental benefits.

She explained that the ketogenic diet can also be hard to manage as it can be damaging to an individual’s kidneys and so in general balance is of the upmost importance along with bio-individuality.

I’ve learned that paleo-dieters use the B12 vitamin argument to validate claims of vegan and whole-food plant-based diets being unhealthy and unnatural as the nutrient can only be found in animals.

The specialist naturopath explained: “The B12 vitamin is incredibly important for energy production but also for focus and concentration, neurological functioning in general. If you're deficient in B12 – you’re less likely to be able to get to sleep quicker so it is very important, and it is unfortunately lacking in a vegan diet.

“But there are a number of things you can do. Being vegan is so brilliant in so many ways and there are so many supplements, food powders and super-food powders that you can take to get your vitamin B12, it’s just about being aware of that.

“The problem is that maybe we were meant to have a vegan diet but the lifestyle we lead now which is a highly stressful environment, we’re constantly connected to our phones, our stress responses are going like crazy, we’re in pollution, we over exercise, we drink alcohol – all these things deplete us of vitamins and minerals. That’s why people have to be careful being on any kind of restrictive diet.”

This reminded me of something Jue said to me, she was adamant she could get all the nutrients her body needed on the W.F.P.B. diet and explained why she has concerns about the paleo diet. Her summary of them were, that, if people want to eat meat, it’s important to eat grass-fed meat, the issue is the factory farmed meat. If you look at the pure paleo diet, they advocate grass fed meat, grass fed butter, and yes, if you go back to the time in life when that was the way people were eating, then maybe nutritionally it was a lot better. In the evolution of man, people in the past were not eating meat three times a day, more likely once a week and the meat will have been good quality. Jue believes the problem is our world has gone so far away from that.

Jue added: “What worries me more is the keto diet, where people are cutting out carbohydrates, I think that is not good for your health – to cut out a complete macro-food group; not good. What are you replacing it with? More protein, more fat. Okay, if you’re eating good fats, from nuts and avocados for instance, that’s good. Most keto-dieters eat far too much protein. I was very worried about a friend who was telling me that she needed to have so many grams of protein per meal, most of it coming from an animal source. People think they need a lot more protein that they do. When people cut out things like carbohydrates, they are going to replace it with foods that are not as helpful. We have this real fear of carbohydrates and it’s only the processed carbohydrates we should worry about. I tell people, the first thing you should do is cut out processed sugar, processed carbohydrates – there's a fear of fruit sugar – it does different things in your body, it’s not to be feared. Unless you’re in a certain situation where your body needs to cut out all sugars.

“There's a fear of bananas because they have a lot of fruit sugars and obviously carbohydrates, but that’s where I would look first for my carbohydrates – fruit and vegetables, next from pulses and finally from grains.

“There’s all these fads. And there are things that concern me. The good thing about a paleo diet is they will eat a lot of plants, no doubt but the amount of animal protein they eat is way higher than needed, and that’s not helpful. But then like anything, people will find things to back it up. Some bring up the Innuits and how they survive on a high animal protein diet, and they have no incidents of heart problems and whatever else – but actually that’s a complete myth because if you did biopsies of them after they died, they ‘d all show heart problems but they often don’t live long enough for them to be seen.”

I struggled, like so many as a young teenager with eating disorders, which is likely where my interest in nutrition has stemmed from. It doesn’t seem clear where the line is drawn in all of this. At which point are you not being deliberate but being obsessive? How much should we actually concern ourselves with worrying about the processes our food has gone through? Alex tells me: “What we have to remember is our bodies are capable of taking in certain chemicals and that’s fine, it’s about balance. What you need to do is when you can give yourself a really whole-food plant-based diet, live a good lifestyle, don’t drink too much, sleep well, drink lots of water, make sure your systems of detoxification are working well – and then you’ll be in a position where your body will be able to handle some chemicals. It shouldn’t be thought about all the time."

Everything taken into account, if anything has been fundamentally proven about nutrition, you’d expect the first places we’d see any change to be in our hospitals, where we go to get medical help and treatment. Although things may have improved somewhat, it all comes down to money and time which the NHS is sorely lacking. It would be amazing if a fresh vegetable soup was conjured up for the children in paediatrics instead of something from a packet – but practically so many things have to fall into place before we’d see something like that, funding at the top of that list. If the population were healthier, there would be less patients and therefore doctors and nurses would be less overstretched – a reality we must remain hopeful for.

But with there being so much less capital interest in nutritional studies than the development and marketing of a new pill, how can we get people to invest in nutrition more? Alex reckons it would need to come from doctors. She added: “People trust their doctors so much and they get so little nutritional training - which I think needs to change. And the government needs to bring in naturopaths and nutritionists more to educate people on the benefits. And that’s one reason we set up the business, when you’re having one on one consultations with people - you’re limited and when you’re speaking in front of five hundred people you’re getting the message out on a greater scale."

Our doctors not receiving enough nutrition-based training I’ve realised is an opinion which has come up in all my interviews. The strenuous years of studying to become a doctor has a packed curriculum as it stands, it seems impossible to suggest they implement another module.

However, the BBC published 'We learn nothing about nutrition, claim medical students' in 2018 that stated the NHS were to spend more than £11bn on diabetes alone and social care costs, time off work etc, would almost double that bill that year. The lack of training in nutrition and preventative medicine combined with the populations unhealthy dietary choices is bankrupting the NHS.

With my head packed full of information from the China Study, the stories of both Denise Stevenson and Jue James and the advice of top medical professional nutritionist, Alexandra Neilan - I spoke to an NHS general practitioner on the topic. The GP has chosen to be quoted anonymously, so I will refer to them as Doc.

As a result of such a high demand on doctors and the NHS as a whole, Doc explained that the centre where they work has a telephone consultation process where the caller will be allowed five minutes to explain why they’re seeking help and only if the doctor believes it necessary, the patient can come in for a face to face consultation which can last up to a mere ten minutes.

Doc explained: “There definitely isn’t a massive amount of concentrated training on nutrition because in the NHS we have the benefit of being able to refer patients to a nutritionist/dietician which is much more specialised than a doctor to be giving nutritional advice. So, I suppose we have very basic training and it will be specific to the conditions we’re looking after such as diabetes, obesity and paediatrics.” They believe this is sufficient considering their access to specialised dieticians who can assist patients that need further advice when they know their knowledge is insufficient.

The NHS GP consults with people who have issues related to nutrition like obesity, diabetes and mood problems every day, although they may be seeing them for a comorbidity and won’t necessarily talk about nutrition as often. Doc puts this down to not having enough time to go through what their patients eat. She stressed: “There are too many time constraints, consultations are way too short.”

I’ve wondered when I go to my GP with an ache or pain why I am not referred to a nutritionist or dietician, if everything is so connected as I’m learning it is? Alex reckons people may think their doctor doesn't care if they don’t question the correlation of your pain to what you’re eating but it’s not that, “they just don’t know,” she told me. They receive an average of ten hours of nutritional training in six years of medical school, Alex claims.

“It always shocks my clients because they expect to lose weight or reduce their diabetes medication for example when they begin changing their diet, but they don’t realise how connected it is to inflammation and pain,” she added.

Underfunded and overworked, it's far from unfathomable how our NHS doctors can't find time to link pain or aches with diet. With only five minutes on the phone with her patients or ten minutes in person, Doc focusses on the pain, ache or other complaint that is raised and says lifestyle advice tends to go down the pecking order. They explained: “We tend to look at what the patient has come to us for, because that’s what they want us to do. If we had time, we could definitely screen and ask about their diet but it’s unfortunate, we just don’t.” It is only when Doc has consulted with a patient a few times and sees there might be a connection between the individuals health issues and their diet that they might be able to bring it up. “It simply cannot be prioritised”, Doc told me.

I would like to tell you that all the information I have gathered, all the conversations I've had, all the research I've done, have had a massive impact on what I eat. And they have in some ways; but not in others, maybe just not yet. Doc is right. It is really hard to make the right choices.

It would seem as though following a W.F.P.B. diet would become really evident for someone to do if they'd been failed by the medical system - if they'd been on medication for years and they wanted a life without side-effects. Or if they decided they didn't want to take the risks that came with treatments of diseases.

Maybe if you saw it first hand, someone close to you, be failed by the medical system, you'd have the resolve to alter your vision of food and gather information on how to do your healing naturally.

Perhaps growing up in a community or family that lives and thinks alternatively to the typical western ways would lead you to this lifestyle organically.

Or it may be that you are tired of being bloated after your meals, feeling like you need an afternoon nap or worried about feeling your joints ache or your back crack - you decide that you've had to complain about this for too long and after a little research decide you're going to test your ability to self-discipline and wean yourself off the processed protein.

Whichever way someone does it, from the sounds of it, there are a lot of benefits.

From the early 1900s to the present day, the nations access to food has changed so drastically. From popping into your local corner shop and asking the shopkeeper for small portions of loose products to feed the family for a day or so - to the revolutionary self-service and canned goods.

Then food rationing that didn't end until near-nine years after World War II, still fresh in people's minds as the agricultural industry boomed and superstores opened - closely followed by American fast-food restaurants making their way to Britain. By 2010, the hospital admissions for obesity were ten times higher than a mere decade earlier. It really isn't surprising, looking at the order of things, that Britain's health is now so poor.

People are going to cherry pick, it is in our nature, different nutritionists are going to promote different theories and correlating evidence. It is the bio-individuality point of naturopath and nutritionist Alex that I wish I'd investigated sooner. Only, we don't all have the opportunity to explore what our bio-individuality is. What kind of world would it be, if we all had access to the nations' highest qualified nutritional experts?

Alexandra had explained how in places like Canada and Australia, they use and take advantage of the expertise of the alternative medical community for preventative healthcare much more than in the UK. I wonder how the health of our different nations compare because of it.

Amid the global pandemic of our lifetime, COVID-19, it would appear that people are making more conscious decisions in their eating and general lifestyle. We have more time on our hands, no-longer rushing from one place to another 'on the go', we cook because we cannot eat out and we concern ourselves with our mental and physical well-being - sometimes, just because it is just something to do.

But everyone comfort eats - just to a different extreme - and in different ways. If ever there were a time to seek comfort, globally, we're all in this together. Whether you are enjoying investing more time and energy in your love for healthy food or giving in to cravings for sweet and savoury treats more often.

So many things will change for us during and far after this health crisis but will we remember what we learnt - when the fast-food joints were closed, when we were rationing eggs and paracetamol? For the first time since World War II, restricted buying has been imposed by the government.