A week or so ago, somebody in the letters section of a Salon article linked to a post in this blog. I spent most of a day reading it from (raw vegan) start to finish in order to get the background for the technical posts on the China Study, something I had actually never heard of, due to the fact that I have zero interest in pseudo-scientific fad diets. Being raised by a mother who was religious about crazy nutritional theories, I had had enough of it. I also no longer consume foods that taste like medicine, nor foods which would not be considered edible were it not for magical supposedly medicinal properties.

I don’t even take vitamins anymore. In fact, scientific evidence is mounting that the concept of “vitamins as harmless insurance” is incorrect. There are indeed harmful side-effects from dosing yourself with them. If there’s something wrong with your diet, you need to fix it, not take pills.

I do not see foods from the perspective that they are “good” or “evil”. I do not believe in the concept of “superfoods”. I do not believe that there really is all that much difference between whole grains and refined grains. White rice and brown rice are primarily both rice.

So when my mother looked in my cupboard and saw that I had both brown and white rice, she was mortified, as though somehow the evil white rice was going to suck all the goodness out of the brown rice, just by occupying the same shelf.

I have always had an academic interest in raw veganism after reading about it on Barry Groves’ website. Unfortunately the section I read no longer seems to exist, though there is quite a good section on vegetarianism. (Hint: he’s opposed.)

Getting back to the blog, The China Study is a book written based on data gathered in a broad nutritional and health survey in China. Since different regions have different traditional diets, and a person born in a region would likely eat the same sort of diet his whole life, the data could be used to compare diet and health in different regions. The book seeks to prove that vegan diets are good and animal protein is bad, though actually the data suggests nothing of the sort. However, not having done the research, a great many gullible readers have been impressed by the book.

Anyway, that’s as far as I want to describe it. Read the China Study articles to get the scoop on what correlates, what has been misinterpreted, and what you might want to know.

Since you’re reading this, you are probably interested in a gluten-free diet. In fact, you are likely already on such a diet, and you have found it helpful. The data from the China Project suggests that eating wheat is bad not only for your heart, but it makes you fat, as does polyunsaturated fat. So there. And eat your green vegetables while you are at it.

Is wheat MURDER?

Is love of wheat the root of all evil?