Whole

Rethinking the Science of Nutrition

By: T. Colin Campbell PhD/PhD, Howard Jacobson

Narrated by: Don Hagen

Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

What happens when you eat an apple? The answer is vastly more complex than you imagine.

Whole, a New York Times bestseller and an eye-opening, paradigm-changing journey through cutting-edge thinking on nutrition, is a scientific tour de force with powerful implications for our health and for our world.

Every apple contains thousands of antioxidants whose names, beyond a few like vitamin C, are unfamiliar to us, and each of these powerful chemicals has the potential to play an important role in supporting our health. They impact thousands upon thousands of metabolic reactions inside the human body. But calculating the specific influence of each of these chemicals isn’t nearly sufficient to explain the effect of the apple as a whole. Because almost every chemical can affect every other chemical, there is an almost infinite number of possible biological consequences—and that’s just from an apple.

Nutritional science, long stuck in a reductionist mindset, is at the cusp of a revolution. The traditional gold standard of nutrition research has been to study one chemical at a time in an attempt to determine its particular impact on the human body. These sorts of studies are helpful to food companies trying to prove there is a chemical in milk or prepackaged dinners that is “good” for us, but they provide little insight into the complexity of what actually happens in our bodies or how those chemicals contribute to our health.

In The China Study, T. Colin Campbell revolutionized the way we think about our food with the evidence that a whole food, plant-based diet is the healthiest way to eat. Now, in Whole, he explains the science behind that evidence, the ways our current scientific paradigm ignores the fascinating complexity of the human body, and why, if we have such overwhelming evidence that everything we think we know about nutrition is wrong, our eating habits haven’t changed.

©2013 T. Colin Campbell (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

" Whole makes a convincing case that modern nutrition’s focus on single nutrients has led to mass confusion with tragic health consequences. Dr. Campbell’s new paradigm will change the way we think about food and, in doing so, could improve the lives of millions of people and save billions of dollars in health care costs." (Brian Wendel, creator and executive producer of Forks over Knives)

"There are very few material game-changers in life, but this book is truly one of them. The information herein - backed up by extraordinary peer-reviewed science - has the power to halt and reverse disease, give you energy you’ve never known, and put you on a path of transformation in just about every positive way. Read it and get ready to soar." (Kathy Freston, New York Times best-selling author of The Lean)

"In this provocative book, T. Colin Campbell, based on his long career in experimental research and health-policy making, uncovers how and why there is so much confusion about food and health and what can be done about it. The China Study revealed what we should eat; Whole answers why. Read and enjoy; there’s something here to inspire and offend just about everyone." (Dean Ornish, MD, founder and president, Preventive Medicine Research Institute, Sausalito)

I appreciate the passion but not the preaching…

I fully believe just about everything Dr Campbell has to say in this book about the health benefits of WFPB, but having it devoted almost entirely the evils of “Big Ag,” “Big Dairy,” “Big Pharma,” “Big Supplements,” “Stupid Government,” “misguided NGOs,” and on and on was just too much. I think Dr. Campbell should have devoted AT MOST one chapter to all of those facts and then spent the rest of the book talking about some the actual foods, possible methods of cooking, and perhaps some tips on making the transition from SAD to WFPB. I finished this audio book but I see it as a lost opportunity on the WFPB movement’s part.

Compelling evidence on the inconvenient truth linking diet and cancer.

The content is compelling and presented with the skill and unique insight of a premier researcher who decades ago embraced the paradigm shift his research led him to even when the system cannot.

Plant Food base diet.

I'm not sure where all these studies can be found, but I'm having a hard time going into any forest in the USA and finding enough plant matter to eat, and that can support a human long term. I did find plenty of wildlife to stop my hunger and some plant and seasonal fruits as a supplement. let's use the plants as medicine and not food.

eye opening

excellent information and well presented. glad to have listed to it. very informative research.

A lot of science and a few good tips

This is an excellent book for the scientific explanation of why supplements will never render the same positive results as eating the food they come from. The authors go to great lengths to scientifically evaluate the difference between the nutritional content of a whole food and a component part of that food that is being marketed as a supplement.

The narrator did the book justice, and he has a beautiful voice, but he was rather slow for me and his voice was a little too melodic. I almost went to sleep several times listening to him. For that reason, YOU SHOULDN'T LISTEN TO THIS AUDIOBOOK WHILE DRIVING. While I would have enjoyed listening to Don Hagan read a fiction book, I really think that narrators with a little more pep should be used for scientific books.

Overall, what I took away from Whole was an ingrained understanding that it's better to eat the vegetable than to take the supplement. This is not to say that I'll never use supplements again, but I now have a better understanding of the importance of dealing with sickness and disease nutritionally. For a full rating, I would have expected a few more tips on the incorporation of real food into a diet, but that said, I may listen to this one again, sometime, to remind myself to eat my vegetables.

The whole truth your not supposed to know!

Eye opening and startling information on what is most important in life - food and our health.

How important information about food is being hidden by the "money" and how there is a unhealthy business thriving on our "misfortune" of being uneducated.

This is a important first step to educate yourself.

Also about how business is manipulating us and the "world" and everyone

Do yourself a favor...

and read this book!! this book is right up there as a must with How not to Die.

Real truth

Loved learning truth ! So much is hidden from us in society, thank God for this research!

Thomas

A great read. Life changing book which everyone should read. Makes perfect sense that nutrition is not considered as a way to change the health of the world as their is no money to be made from it. Governments, pharmaceutical companies and health professionals are insidious and complicit in their disregard for the health of the population.
Whole paints a compelling argument against the status quo and for me is the way forward in living a disease free life in our later years.

Not what I expected, but still good.

This book starts to get in the weeds at times with very technical details. All of it is still very interesting and provides a new perspective of the medical industry like you wouldn't believe.