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A review by peripetia
Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition by T. Colin Campbell
2.0
Edit: I'm changing my review system and bumping this down to 2 stars.
In spite of giving this a three star rating, I have more complaints than compliments, and I have spent many hours now thinking about them while I listened to the audiobook. My ranting is probably not very interesting or useful, so I will try to make this as brief as possible.
The author does make good points, and I think it was a good choice to explain how science and research actually work. It's quite obvious to me that many people don't know, and even those that do are not experts in fields outside of their own. This leads to a lack of understanding of what it means when you read "research shows potatoes cause cancer". So that was great.
However. The author spends a significant amount of time explaining what reductionism is and why it's bad. Reductionists only focus on one small thing and refuse to see outside of this narrow focus. They do not acknowledge alternative truths or differences of opinion. This is probably true, but it's very ironic that the author himself is such a reductionist. All other research and opinions outside of his own are, at best, misguided, and possibly due to corruption.
Much of the book revolves around his hurt boomer ego. He is offended that official institutions as well as other researchers have not embraced his fringe research as the gospel truth and instead based their opinions on the current scientific consensus. The consensus might not be correct, but the logic is obvious. He offers a lot of anecdotes from the 90s that in his view show that academia, media, the government, and the medical field are all corrupt. There is no other explanation for criticizing his research.
It gets even wilder when he advocates for "alternative treatments" for example for cancer, and is affronted that doctors refuse to even discuss solving serious cancer diagnoses through diet. I mean... you shouldn't be telling people to just go vegan to cure serious illnesses jfc.
The author seems to think that nutrition as a way of taking care of your health and preventing illnesses is not discussed or taken seriously. Now, we might have different contexts due to our ages, geographical locations, gender, and media (he does not mention social media at all), but I find it hard to believe that this trend of borderline obsessive healthiness is not widespread. People really buy into this belief that they can prevent and cure all diseases with whatever diet they deem to be the One True Diet.
It's true that declining healthcare systems focus on disease-care, not preventative healthcare, but health has become another thing that's shoved firmly on the shoulders of the individual, who is supposedly responsible for all medical problems.
In conclusion: what a mess. Maybe it was full of all this extra whining because it doesn't actually take that long to say "eat plant-based whole foods, here's some evidence, goodbye".
In spite of giving this a three star rating, I have more complaints than compliments, and I have spent many hours now thinking about them while I listened to the audiobook. My ranting is probably not very interesting or useful, so I will try to make this as brief as possible.
The author does make good points, and I think it was a good choice to explain how science and research actually work. It's quite obvious to me that many people don't know, and even those that do are not experts in fields outside of their own. This leads to a lack of understanding of what it means when you read "research shows potatoes cause cancer". So that was great.
However. The author spends a significant amount of time explaining what reductionism is and why it's bad. Reductionists only focus on one small thing and refuse to see outside of this narrow focus. They do not acknowledge alternative truths or differences of opinion. This is probably true, but it's very ironic that the author himself is such a reductionist. All other research and opinions outside of his own are, at best, misguided, and possibly due to corruption.
Much of the book revolves around his hurt boomer ego. He is offended that official institutions as well as other researchers have not embraced his fringe research as the gospel truth and instead based their opinions on the current scientific consensus. The consensus might not be correct, but the logic is obvious. He offers a lot of anecdotes from the 90s that in his view show that academia, media, the government, and the medical field are all corrupt. There is no other explanation for criticizing his research.
It gets even wilder when he advocates for "alternative treatments" for example for cancer, and is affronted that doctors refuse to even discuss solving serious cancer diagnoses through diet. I mean... you shouldn't be telling people to just go vegan to cure serious illnesses jfc.
The author seems to think that nutrition as a way of taking care of your health and preventing illnesses is not discussed or taken seriously. Now, we might have different contexts due to our ages, geographical locations, gender, and media (he does not mention social media at all), but I find it hard to believe that this trend of borderline obsessive healthiness is not widespread. People really buy into this belief that they can prevent and cure all diseases with whatever diet they deem to be the One True Diet.
It's true that declining healthcare systems focus on disease-care, not preventative healthcare, but health has become another thing that's shoved firmly on the shoulders of the individual, who is supposedly responsible for all medical problems.
In conclusion: what a mess. Maybe it was full of all this extra whining because it doesn't actually take that long to say "eat plant-based whole foods, here's some evidence, goodbye".