Forks Over Knives Page #10

financial relationships

with the food industry.

So we said, hey, wait a minute.

There are laws about what

they're supposed to do

and how transparent they

are supposed to be.

They violated those.

And we brought them to court,

and it was a long

trial, but we won.

But that doesn't change the fact

that the policies

they came up with

continued to favor industry

as they always have.

I don't think there

really is a problem

with industry connections

between scientists

and the food industry,

primarily because if

the beef industry

has a question about

their products,

shouldn't they go to

the best scientists?

And if the best scientists

are consulting for

the food industry,

I still want the best

scientists on these committees

that make nutritional

recommendations.

Financial conflict of interest

is only one conflict

of interest.

You know, there are people

who've spent their

entire careers

trying to prove that a

vegetarian diet is good for you

or that red meat is bad for you.

Now, they may not

have industry ties,

but they too have a

conflict of interest.

You know, we do develop

biases personally.

I had those biases, too.

But I got to a

point in my career

that I was getting results

that went against

what I had thought was true.

So I had to self-reflect,

criticize my own bias,

look at it really carefully,

and I changed my views.

Dr. Campbell paid a price

for changing his views.

He's been marginalized

by key administrators

of his own university,

this after being

a lead scientist

and securing millions of

dollars in research grants

for Cornell's nutritional

sciences division.

He had a popular

nutrition course

canceled by the

division director

who had long been a

major consultant

to the dairy industry.

Numerous observers feel this

was an arbitrary decision

that violated the standards

of academic freedom.

Dr. Campbell has also witnessed

serious corporate influence

over research that

is used to develop

the government's

nutrition policy.

One example he cites centers on

the prestigious national

academy of sciences.

The building behind

me here is perhaps

the single most

important building

in the area of science

in the country.

This is where scientists

participate in deliberations

about issues of the day

and determine how that science

can be used to affect policy.

In the early days

when I was involved,

those panels were mostly

funded by public money.

But on the other hand,

in more recent years,

I have seen more and

more corporate money

coming in to support

these activities

and more and more people being

allowed on the committees,

especially the chairs

of the committee.

And, of course, they can

pick the kind of people

they want to pick

in order to get a certain

kind of conclusion.

It's not the way it should be,

and I'm sure that if the

public were to know

how powerful is this influence,

they would be surely upset.

I had been a runner

for 14 years,

in fact, a marathoner.

top of my game.

In 1982, Ruth heidrich's

running career

came to a sudden stop

when she was diagnosed

with breast cancer.

After a mastectomy, her doctors

recommended chemotherapy

and radiation to

treat the cancer

that had by then spread

to her lungs and bones.

Ruth decided to visit

Dr. John Mcdougall instead.

And I said, "Ruth, I

spent my residency

"collecting information on

diet and breast cancer.

"It's all in these

files right here.

"Sit in my office

and read through it

and see what you think."

He said, "these are the

studies that show...

"what I'm trying to prove

is that diet can reverse

breast cancer."

And she read it,

and she comes out and she says

"okay, I've changed my diet."

She changed her diet.

So he showed me how to eat.

No added oils, lots of fruits

and vegetables, whole grains.

Ruth then started training

for the ironman

triathlon in Hawaii,

which combines

running a marathon

with long-distance

biking and swimming.

I became obsessed.

Kept up the running, of

course, never stopped,

and then added swimming, biking,

and, for good measure,

lifted weights.

And people were saying,

"you're crazy.

You're a cancer patient.

You should be resting."

Doctors told me this.

I felt so good.

I felt fit, and I wanted to

maintain that level of fitness.

And I felt sure that if

I had a healthy body

and I was putting the

right food into it

that I could beat this cancer.

At the ironman triathlon,

Ruth won a gold medal

in her age group.

Stuck with the diet.

Found out my arthritis

disappeared.

My constipation disappeared.

My dandruff disappeared.

No sign of depression,

which you might expect

with a cancer diagnosis.

I felt renewed, invigorated,

and out to show that diet

is so much more important

than anybody ever thought.

Mmm!

Other women get

over breast cancer,

colon cancer, prostate cancer.

There are people who've had

metastatic prostate cancer

all over their body

who have gone through what we

call spontaneous remission.

In other words,

they've been cured.

And it's not the

end of the world

when you get this diagnosis.

Some people get over it.

Ruth did.

So I'm still racing.

Still daily training.

Now how many people in their

Not very many.

So that gives hope for

all of us as we age

that not only will

you stay healthy

and beat the degenerative

diseases that most people get,

but you can start

collecting medals.

The food choices we make

have profound global effects.

It takes over ten times

the amount of energy

from fossil fuels to produce a

calorie of animal-based food

than it does to produce a

calorie of plant food.

Since the 1970s, 20% of

the Amazon's rainforest

has been destroyed.

That's an area the

size of California.

now occupied by livestock.

The world's cattle alone

eat enough grain to feed

nearly 2 billion more than

the population on earth.

With almost a billion

malnourished people

across the globe, redirecting

even a portion of the grain

used to fatten cattle could feed

every hungry mouth

on the planet.

For Gene Baur,

factors like these,

combined with a deep

respect for animals,

helped convince him to

adopt a plant-based diet.

Mr. Baur is president and

co-founder of farm sanctuary

near Watkins Glen, New York.

It provides a safe

haven for animals

that have been

abandoned or abused.

I grew up eating animals like

most people in our country,

but once I started

considering my food choices

I recognized that I didn't

want to eat animals.

And the more I learned,

the more I saw

that I was healthier if

I didn't eat animals

and that I had a much lighter

footprint on our planet.

The livestock industry

is a greater contributor

to global warming than the

entire transportation industry

according to the United Nations.

So by eating meat, milk,

and eggs the way we are,

we're harming our own health,

we're slaughtering 10

billion innocent animals

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