Are you catching the excitement of what it was like on the Low-Carb Cruise we experienced on May 6-13, 2012 yet? It was by far the most successful cruise we have ever done thanks to some truly amazing people working behind-the-scenes to pull off an event like this featuring the biggest names in the low-carb and Paleo world for the 275 people in attendance on that ship. When we created this idea to do a Low-Carb Cruise, we had no idea this thing would grow to become this big this fast. But grow it has and we are very grateful for the support so many of you have given us by faithfully attending and rubbing elbows not just with the bigwigs but also with so many of your fellow low-carb and Paleo enthusiasts. And next year is proving to be even bigger and better than our record-smashing 2012 event! We’ve got Robb Wolf headlining the 6th Annual Low-Carb Cruise on May 5-12, 2013 once again on the Carnival Magic for an awesome time of relaxation and education on the high seas! You can learn more about the 2013 Low-Carb Cruise and sign up to be a part of this must-attend annual event by going to LowCarbCruiseInfo.com.
We’ve got plenty of video left to share with you featuring the guest speakers who presented lectures on the ship. I’m releasing them to you in the order they were presented on the cruise so you can catch the feeling of what it was like for all of us who were able to attend in person. So far you’ve seen and heard from Dr. Eric Westman, Fred Hahn and Monique Forslund with lots more Paleo and low-carb superstars to come. We were extremely fortunate to have Terry and Pam Young from “Make It Fun & It Will Get Done” with us this year to capture all of these amazing presentations on video for us. While a lot of people kinda dibble-dabble in amateur video productions, Terry can do this stuff in his sleep as a professional videographer. We couldn’t have produced such stunning quality in video or audio without the spectacular job he did for us.
As a man of gratitude, I’m a big believer in rewarding those who do great work. If you haven’t already checked out Terry and Pam Young’s new web site “Make It Fun & It Will Get Done”, then I encourage you to hop on over there now. One of my favorite parts of their web site are all the delicious low-carb recipes (yes, they are big-time low-carb lovers!) featuring the lovable and exuberant Pam on camera. Watch her prepare a yummy Chicken Salad which includes a fantastic bone broth idea (if you look closely at the beginning, you’ll notice Charles and Julie Mayfield’s Paleo Comfort Foods cookbook on her kitchen counter). I love Pam’s no-nonsense on-camera talents and her matter-of-fact comments like “don’t get any of that low-fat junk!” HA! You gotta love it. ENJOY checking out more of the information Terry and Pam provide on this web site. Again, a VERY SPECIAL THANK YOU to Terry and Pam for allowing my readers this unique glimpse into what it’s like to be at the conference portion of the Low-Carb Cruise with these outstanding videos.
DENISE MINGER – May 8, 2012 at 9:15AM
“The China Study: Wilted Evidence For Plant-Based Eating”
Does English major and health blogger Denise Minger really need an introduction to the low-carb community? This adorable and super-smart young lady has firmly established herself as a major player in the Paleo and low-carb communities because she was willing to challenge T. Colin Campbell’s on the claims he makes in his bestselling book heralding the benefits of eschewing meat called The China Study, which is trumpeted (even worshiped) by vegans and vegetarians alike as the last word about what a healthy diet is. Denise masterfully revealed in a series of blog posts beginning in the Summer 2010 that much of the supposed science cited by Campbell in his book is either misleading or just plain wrong. This series made the 25-year old former vegan an instant overnight Internet sensation in the Paleo and low-carb communities and she’s continuing to shake up paradigms about plant-based eating while still maintaining great compassion for those people still caught up in vegetarianism/veganism. She’s currently finishing up her highly-anticipated debut book being published by Mark Sisson entitled Death By Food Pyramid set to release later this year. Check out Denise in Episode 12 of “Ask The Low-Carb Experts” as well as Episode 405 and Episode 430 of “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show” for more insights from this self-proclaimed “nerd” with a cause.
Watch Denise’s 2012 Low-Carb Cruise lecture (with key pull quotes):
“For some reason a lot of people think (The China Study) book is peer-reviewed, but it’s not.”
“Someone said the book is ‘more talked about than actually read.’ Which I thought was so true because even people who use this thing to prove their point often haven’t even read the book itself.”
“Campbell also strongly opposes low-carb diets. And he has a lot of reasons for that…if you go (on Amazon.com) to any of the Atkins books, you’ll find a review from Campbell that has like 400 comments after it which he’s participating in arguing with people. If you ever wanted to kill a day or four or a week, you can go online and watch this. It’s almost like a sitcom in some sense. I don’t know how he has time to do that, but it seems like one of his hobbies.”
“Does anybody know what epidemiology is? Have some idea? A couple of people. Yeah. So the technical breakdown of it is the study of things that can never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever prove cause and effect. If you look it up in the dictionary, it should say this but it usually doesn’t. That’s a shame because this is kinda the truth.”
“The unfortunate part of (epidemiology) is that it often catches fire in the media…everyone just assumes that correlation equals causation which is not true. The things we see in epidemiology can never prove cause and effect.”
“Since this isn’t a controlled experiment, there’s nothing in The China Study that is actually proving anything. So just keep that in mind.”
“For some reason my ‘purpose’ of doing this critique is often shrouded in mystery or suspicion because people ask me all the time if I’m funded by the meat industry or the dairy industry or if I even exist. I don’t even know…I really don’t know how that would work.”
“Here I was at 16 years old, all of a sudden my health was falling apart (being a raw vegan). The breaking moment for me came actually when I was 17 and in the dentist’s office for my yearly clean-up…I hadn’t had almost any problems for my entire life, I’d taken great care of my teeth. Here I was 17 years old back in the dentist’s chair waiting for my glowing report and all of a sudden the dentist started making comments and noises that you really don’t want to hear from a dentist…by the end of the dentist’s visit, I found out I had 16 cavities. And that’s a ballpark figure. There were so many cavities they were growing on top of each other. It was at that point that I realized I really needed to make some changes.”
“What I found (in her investigation of The China Study book) was that none of the claims match the data. There was such a stark difference between what the raw data said and what (The China Study) book said the data said that I was just stunned. I had to do something about this. I had to put this online for people to read.”
“Here’s the really interesting part: plant protein has more positive associations with cancer than animal protein does, including with colon cancer and leukemia. So this is from the raw data (in the China study)…it’s not something we heard about in The China Study book.”
“Out of every single food that was documented in the China study, wheat had the strongest correlation with heart disease and stroke. It was astronomically high. It was higher than any other food and any other disease which baffled me…I have no explanation for this…this correlation was so much stronger than anything that had anything to do with animal products. Yet this was completely left out of The China Study book.”
“(Campbell) was already writing about possible mechanisms that involved wheat. I just found it astounding that this was one of his peer-reviewed papers and it just received absolutely no mention in The China Study book. I mean there wasn’t even a single bad thing said about wheat. And again, this isn’t proving causation, but the fact that he relied so heavily on the China study data to prove his ‘animal protein causes heart disease and cancer’ stuff and use so many kinda sneaky chains of variables to prove that and yet ignored this direct, astounding correlation–that really disturbed me.”
“This is a paper by Campbell himself where he’s saying that cholesterol was not associated with heart disease in the China study data which is a blatant contradiction of what we read in (The China Study) book.”
“So much of the data in the China study is fascinating and I think that it could be a great place to start to look for ideas for further experiments…but the fact that most people only see The China Study book version of the China study means that much of this data, much of the findings are never gonna see the light of day. Unless you’re actually surfing PubMed and being a nerd, it’s likely that you’ll never hear about this anywhere. Unfortunate.”
“Yes, your cholesterol can be too low and yes that can cause problems. And it appears that in the China study data it was the people with the lowest cholesterol that were actually the unhealthiest.”
“So here we are talking about an actual food substance–casein–something that is in breast milk that we all consumed as a child and it’s apparently a carcinogen (if you believe was Campbell says). Scary stuff.”
“(Campbell’s) experiments don’t necessarily have much relevance to real life especially if you’re not a rat eating a refined diet from birth until death.”
“Campbell’s research and this idea that animal protein itself is some kind of switch for turning on and off cancer growth is a complete misrepresentation of what the actual research is. And unfortunately, this one part of (The China Study) book has scared a lot of people away from eating animal products because it seems so convincing on the surface.”
“I do want to say a couple of nice things about The China Study…most modern diseases are caused by diet…and it promotes a whole foods diet.”
Stay tuned for even more video lectures from the 2012 Low-Carb Cruise posted at my blog. We’d LOVE to have you join us on the 2013 Low-Carb Cruise leaving out of Galveston, Texas on May 5-12, 2013 on board the Carnival Magic featuring guest speakers Robb Wolf, Dr. Mary Vernon, Dr. Jay Wortman, Dr. Larry McCleary, Dr. Cate Shanahan, Dr. Dwight Lundell, Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt and his LCHF friends, Jackie Eberstein with a special tribute to Dr. Atkins, Dr. Jayson and Mira Calton, Dave Asprey and Jonathan Bailor. Plus, Tom Naughton will be back for another rip-roaring roast of the guest speakers! YOU WON’T WANT TO MISS THIS!
