Mar 13, 20212 min
Shaun Britton explores some preventative alternatives to conventional medicines.
Photo by Anshu A
Much discussion has taken place in recent years regarding our approach to food and the impact it has on our health, including how many of our most prominent diseases and health issues may stem from what we put on our plates.
One such is person is Dr Michael Klaper. In his fascinating Tedx talk, Dr Klaper describes how pro inflammatory acid, carcinogens, hormones and antibiotics are in a typical day of the western diet, and states that a plant based diet can cure many serious conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and atherosclerosis.
Why then, with this information, is a plant based diet not being more widely advised, and why are so many people still continuing to eat meat? Firstly, according to Dr John McDougall, a prominent physician, one of the key reasons could simply be profits. Speaking in an interview with Plant Based News, he says, of the ‘big food’ industries:
“they have fought with every dollar, every lobbyist, every advertisement, every lie, everything they could gather together to ensure they didn't follow in the footsteps of big tobacco”
He also describes how the profitable route in many medical industries is not suggesting a new diet but in manufacture of medicines and current medical practices: “Cash is king”
Leading the public down a particular commercial avenue is not new, neither is the effort to provide a scientific basis for that approach to the consumer. Many industries have used scientific research groups to conduct studies or reports to bolster their claims in the media, or to seek to confront claims that may cast their products unfavourably.
In 2015, a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded that diets where meat and dairy where the main source of saturated fat had the best level of good cholesterol. Not only did the study only use 14 people, it was also funded by the Dairy Research Institute and the Danish Dairy Research Foundation. A letter to the editor of the journal criticised the study saying that the experiments were designed so the conclusion could be drawn.
Whilst the nobility, skill and dedication of those in the medical profession can never be understated, neither can the influence of big food industries on our health, whose prime motivation is profit. That motivation taints the information we receive, and the advice we are given.
‘Big’ industries responsible for climate change, environmental destruction and waning health, rely on the consumer to continue. Such companies could be likened to a machine that only runs when we are pedalling to power it. Perhaps the best way to stop the machine, is to get off it.
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