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Unfortunately, your doctor is not tossing and turning at night, debating the benefits of pushing drugs or food. He doesn’t have enough information to be conflicted; although medical schools are supposed to provide students with approximately 25 hours of nutritional education, it’s believed that as many as 60 percent don’t comply. 20 Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical industry is pumping money into medical schools in the form of research grants for drug studies. And we’re not talking chump change here: Over the next 3 years, Vanderbilt University will receive $10 million from pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson to develop new drugs, with another $100 million promised if certain research milestones are met. 21 That kind of influence might eclipse a few hours of nutrition classes! So keep in mind that after reading this book, you may know more about healthy eating than your doctor does.
Medical school faculty are also on the payroll. About 1,600 of Harvard University’s 8,900 professors and lecturers disclosed that they had a financial interest in businesses related to their teaching, research, or clinical care. One hundred forty-nine had financial ties to Pfizer and 130 to Merck. It’s becoming hard to tell if a professor is teaching about certain drugs because they work or because the company that makes them is sending him on a golf vacation. Members of the American Medical Student Association are so disturbed by teachers taking payola from drug companies that they recently began grading medical schools’ ability to monitor and control drug industry money. While the University of Pennsylvania received an A, Yale got a C, and Harvard a big fat F. 22
I’m not saying that doctors are bad people or that all the information they’ve received is wrong. I’m just here to remind you that the pharmaceutical industry is the most profitable in the entire country and that Americans buy nearly half the drugs on the planet—spending $235 billion in 2008. 23 And when companies are chasing that kind of money, profit often trumps the truth. None of us like to think that we can’t trust the institutions we’ve grown up with, but being a truly healthy person means exploring important issues deeply and thinking for yourself. As your body gets stronger and stronger from eating whole grains and vegetables, your intuition will get louder and louder. Remember: You were designed by nature, not by a corporation or a doctor. Thank goodness Mother Nature—being so rich herself—isn’t trying to make a buck off you.
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    Of the gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide is the one we often hear about. It comes out of our cars, our heaters, and our lungs. But there is another gas, methane, that traps 21 times 24 more heat per molecule than carbon dioxide. Methane is a naturally occurring trace gas and a normal part of our atmosphere. One of its biggest sources is . . . burps. Yup. That’s right. And as much as you might think your brother belches, cows standing around being overfed and never exercised—1.3 billion of them worldwide—burp much, much more. In fact, each cow produces anywhere from 100 to 520 quarts of methane gas daily. 25 Not that methane is inherently bad; it exists naturally and in a balanced ratio with other gases within the atmosphere. But with all the animals we’ve bred for food, we’ve tipped the scales. Methane emitted by livestock accounts for 19 percent 26 of the total global methane emissions. In fact, the livestock we keep—to feed us meat that hurts our bodies—produce more methane than landfills, waste treatment plants, and even the methane we use as natural gas to heat our homes!
    By deciding not to eat that burger, you’ll be reducing the numbers of cows cattlemen need to raise, thereby reducing the gases they emit. It’s a straight line from a plant-based diet to a healthier planet. Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, recently