Crazy Talk

A couple weeks ago I think I ended a random post declaring my love for steak and abhorrence for anything weird like quinoa.

Wanna know what we had last week for dinner?

It wasn't bloody and melt-in-your-mouth amazeballs...

It all started several weeks ago when Steve and I sat down and Netflixed Food, Inc.

watch the trailer here

We came out of this movie with a whole new perspective. I told Steve I wanted a cow and a chicken or two. Kim, if you're reading this, I used to think you were all sorts of weird for wanting that but I totally get it now! It's pretty scary the things we learned from this. If you have to constantly give your chickens benadryl and xanax to keep them calm and normal because of the conditions you're putting them in, you KNOW something's wrong. Just sayin...

Then Steve started reading this book, 'Eat To Live', which also pulls from 'The China Study'.

He went nuts.

I'm talking green smoothies every day with 10 different  kinds of greens, no animal products whatsoever, beans out the wazoo (my nose can attest), soaking steel-cut oatmeal overnight for breakfast in the am, measuring out 1 cup of 100% whole wheat grains allowance per day, I mean KURAZAY.

We had allllll sorts of discussions on how crazy he was.

I mean, he could be crazy on his own, but I was certainly going to continue with my steak, sour cream and pizza with a healthy portion of fruits and veggies incorporated in.

But then I remembered we have a kid, and will most likely have other little people mouths to feed.

What were we going to do?

I've always been a firm believer of 'everything in moderation'.

It's not healthy to eliminate anything from your diet, right?!

So I looked into this China Study, found a lot of critiques on the methodology of his study and the vegan propaganda many feel this Campbell guy's book is.

I brought it back to Steve ready to dismiss his claims. 

We discussed.

And he said it in a way that made me believe it.

Even if there is error in this 30-year largest-scale ever nutritional study, even if he did cherry-pick his evidence to coincide with his hypotheses, even if the study indicates correlation and not necessarily causation, there is still quite a bit of concern out there where it would be better to be safe than sorry.

OK fine.

Back to the research.

I looked into it more, and found that there really is quite a large amount of people saying the same things...that milk has been engrained into our brains as the perfect food when really, it is all sorts of harmful (specifically the hormones in US milk, casein, and IGF-1) and there are plenty of better sources of calcium out there.

So really, I was shocked to learn that American milk is banned in Europe.

Lactose intolerance around the world really kinda makes sense...it is intended for calfs, not humans.

IGF-1 in our milk, IGF-1--prostate cancer

more details on milk

Steve said he's been taught in all sorts of classes at BYU and here at SCCO about

cooked meat and it's relation to cancer. I had vaguely heard about this, but I mostly attributed it to processed meats like hot dogs and also smoked/grilled foods.

One crazy thing I read about one scientist's experience with breast cancer.

So, all this crazy talk has definitely led to a change in OUR diets.

We're not going to eliminate dairy and meat from our lives, we both feel that would be unfeasible without a lot of trouble. But we're definitely not going to make it a staple of our diet.

It's kinda crazy to think that something so mainstream and normal as milk could really not be...

Again, we aren't scientists, we didn't do the research, and I strongly believe that for every study or article done or written, there is most-likely one out there that negates it and shows the opposite. But in this case, we feel the evidence is skewed in the direction we want to go. BELIVE ME when I say I'm going to miss it, but at the same time, I don't want that stuff as much anymore because of what I've read now. Crazy talk, really...