Hey, I'm looking forward to this.

[Hallowcallow]

I've been on and off the vegan wagon for several years. When I turned 18 and decided to feed myself I learned about nutrition and all these new fruits and veggies (was raised on a small variety) and I enjoyed all of them. Eggplant, okra, brussel sprouts, avocado, mangoes. I was so excited to find all these delicious foods! Then I'm not sure if it was youtube or searching on google "healthy, easy, cheap meals." Beans? Tofu? Vegan? Oh yeah...
I knew about the word vegan in high school but only in one of those terrifying slaughterhouse clips. I tried for maybe a day and my family did not support the idea. They didn't know anything about it and neither did I. So whatever they said I couldn't defend or refute. So I gave up easily.
I think it was the China Study that attracted me to veganism, but I understand now that it's very weak evidence.
I wouldn't recommend the China Study to anyone, unless for comedic value.
So I dived deep into vegan nutrition, diy vegan cooking. But damn was I gassy!
I won't be anymore descriptive than that, to save you the nastiness, but I'm open to talking about it!
Was vegan for a from 19-21, gave it up because I missed all the foods... Then I went vegan again at 22-23, then gave up. I think I would eat like a half gallon of ice cream each night. So lots of over-exercising and not eating enough.
Here I am now. Turning 25 in a week. And I've been mostly vegan for a month now. There's a lot of junk food
in my shared living space that would get otherwise thrown out if I didn't consume them. I do throw out some of these things because meat just I can't stand it anymore. But cheddar popcorn, milk chocolate chips that I will replace with vegan chips when they're through. I accidentally bought the kashi go lean that has honey....
Ok! Thanks!

[brimstoneSalad]

Welcome! Great intro, and it sounds like you're doing great.
I hope you like it here, don't hesitate to jump into discussions (and reviving old ones is OK too).

[Jebus]

Welcome Hallow,

Have you read the China Study? How can you dismiss that body of evidence as weak?

[brimstoneSalad]

Have you read the China Study? How can you dismiss that body of evidence as weak?

If I remember correctly it's largely observational correlation, which would be weak in methodological terms. The gold standard would be a controlled feeding trial of a sequestered population. Like if you divided a prison up and fed half this and half that for decades. Tough to get that kind of evidence in diet.

If I remember it's kind of pro-carb and anti-fat, and mechanistically that doesn't make a lot of sense given other data we have from shorter term interventions. It's seems it's the type of fat that matters, and maybe even the type of carb.

[Jebus]

If I remember correctly it's largely observational correlation, which would be weak in methodological terms. The gold standard would be a controlled feeding trial of a sequestered population. Like if you divided a prison up and fed half this and half that for decades. Tough to get that kind of evidence in diet.

The confusion is probably due to the name of the book. The China portion of the book is only one of many chapters, each of which supports Campbell's main claim that animal protein is harmful. Because the book is named the "China Study" it has become popular to only look at the China survey described in the book, and point out that correlation does not imply causation. Dr. Campbell would be the first to admit that.

It's been a long time since I read the book, but my memory was somewhat refreshed when I took Dr, Campbell's eCornell plant based diet course in 2016. Among other things, the book also includes a number of (ethically questionable) animal lab experiments which all point to the same conclusion as the China survey. I wish anyone who criticizes the book would realize that it is the large body of evidence presented that makes it strong. Simply criticizing Campbell's conclusions based on the China portion of the book is unfair and idiotic.

[brimstoneSalad]

Among other things, the book also includes a number of (ethically questionable) animal lab experiments which all point to the same conclusion as the China survey.

Quite a few people, and particularly vegans, reject animal models for humans. It's not really sensible to do so when it's true of pretty much any animal from rats to birds to possibly even insects as may be the case for methionine restriction, but I'm not sure how much it goes into the mechanistic data in that regard. Some of that is pretty recent.

The bigger issue is I think the anti-fat message. It harms the overall credibility of the research when obviously unsubstantiated conclusions like that are drawn.

[Jebus]

Quite a few people, and particularly vegans, reject animal models for humans. It's not really sensible to do so when it's true of pretty much any animal from rats to birds to possibly even insects as may be the case for methionine restriction, but I'm not sure how much it goes into the mechanistic data in that regard.

Again, any of the (around) 20 studies presented in the book can be criticized as insufficient in itself, including the animal lab experiments. I do, however, find it impossible to dismiss all of them when presented as a body of evidence.

The bigger issue is I think the anti-fat message. It harms the overall credibility of the research when obviously unsubstantiated conclusions like that are drawn.

Where did you get that from? It has been decades since Dr. Campbell identified fat as the main health culprit. He has been very clear that animal protein is what humans need to avoid in order to achieve superior health benefits.

[brimstoneSalad]

Again, any of the (around) 20 studies presented in the book can be criticized as insufficient in itself, including the animal lab experiments. I do, however, find it impossible to dismiss all of them when presented as a body of evidence.

That's the trouble with looking at an accumulated set of studies: they can be cherry picked. A single large and compelling study can't so much be.
When you deal with little studies presenting weak evidence, there are so many of them (because the barrier to entry is low) and you can get a distribution slightly for and slightly against against any proposition. Choosing only the for or only against results and presenting just those studies can create the appearance that something is better supported than it is.

Where did you get that from? It has been decades since Dr. Campbell identified fat as the main health culprit. He has been very clear that animal protein is what humans need to avoid in order to achieve superior health benefits.

That's good if he's been moving away from that. Unfortunately most of what I can find online still quotes and emphasizes his anti-fat position, so in order to really distance himself from that I think he would need to make a few very high profile pro-plant-fat statements, or maybe even go on a vegan low-carb diet himself for a certain period to draw publicity to his change or mind so people will stop using him to criticize plant fats.

My view is that once somebody in the public sphere has taken a public position on something and been used as a citation for that position, there's a certain responsibility to publicize a reversal of that position so it can take precedence.

[Jebus]

Unfortunately most of what I can find online still quotes and emphasizes his anti-fat position, so in order to really distance himself from that I think he would need to make a few very high profile pro-plant-fat statements, or maybe even go on a vegan low-carb diet himself for a certain period to draw publicity to his change or mind so people will stop using him to criticize plant fats.

I'm sure Dr. Campbell would be very disappointed reading this. Shifting the focus from fats to animal protein pretty much sums up his life's work. Here is an article he wrote in 2017: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5466939/

[Jebus]

That's the trouble with looking at an accumulated set of studies: they can be cherry picked.

I think "The China Study" handles that well. It describes how Dr. Campbell, while researching something completely different, coincidentally discovered the link between animal protein, particularly casein, with heart disease and cancer, and how every follow up experiment ended up supporting this hypothesis.