The China Study: A Whole New Way of Thinking

It took me awhile (I'll blame the grading of creative nonfiction papers), but I finally finished reading I am Malala and began a new book called The China Study.

To wrap up the former, I did enjoy I am Malala.  As I alluded to in my last post, I preferred the beginning and the ending which were all about her personal story and experience.  That to me was so much stronger than the historical piece in the middle where she spent the majority of the book.  There was obviously need and importance in this part of the book; I just wished there was more about her growing up and her personal life, as this to me was the heart of the book.  On goodreads, I gave it three stars.  Her story itself is powerful, amazing, inspirational.  But the book, well…it just wasn't all of the above.

Next up in my reading queue was a nonfiction read I heard about from our media center specialist titled The China Study.  I have been into sports and fitness for my entire 32 years of existence.  I ran track and cross country in middle school and college, swam for a club, played select soccer, and was outside playing football with the neighborhood guys every single day.  You can call me tom boy if you want.  I never really watched what I ate until after college though, and especially after I had three children.  I want to be healthy for them and I know so many people who are fighting cancer currently or have in the past.  This book is about a researcher who basically studied plant-based diets versus diets with higher concentrations of protein and found a direct connection between the two.  Those who lived a plant-based lifestyle had a much lower chance of getting certain types of cancers, as well as heart disease.  (A plant-based lifestyle means that less than 5% of their diet comes from animal protein sources, such as meat, milk or eggs).  A protein lifestyle means that greater than 20%  of their diet comes from the aforementioned animal sources.  I am not a huge protein/meat eater and I feel like I am kind of buying into this right now.  I will update again as I find out more about the study.

I've already talked to a few other people who have read this book, so maybe it is trending?  Have any of you heard of this book or this study?  Anyone eat a plant-based diet?  If you want to read more about the study, click here.