Vegan Health ArticlesPlantPure Nation: A Story of Food and Power
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From PlantPure Nation
June 2014

Together, Nelson and Rep. Riner launch a plan to expose the forces that stand in the way of a wider recognition of the healings powers of a plant-based diet. PlantPure Nation was filmed across the USA and includes world-renowned experts, doctors and authors. The Production team includes Director Nelson Campbell, and Producer John Corry & Writer Lee Fulkerson from the acclaimed documentary film Forks Over Knives. The film is scheduled for completion by the end of 2014.

The documentary film PlantPure Nation tells the story of three people on a quest to spread the message of one of the most important health breakthroughs of all time. When nutritional scientist and author T. Colin Campbell inspires Kentucky State Representative Tom Riner to propose a pilot program documenting the health benefits of a plant-based diet, they inadvertently set in motion a series of events that expose powerful forces opposed to the diet. When industry lobbyists kill the pilot program, Dr. Campbell’s oldest son Nelson decides to try his own grassroots approach in his hometown of Mebane, North Carolina.

In his groundbreaking 2004 book, The China Study, and in the recent popular documentary film Forks Over Knives, Dr. Campbell detailed the weight of scientific evidence that a whole foods plant-based diet can prevent and even reverse some of the most deadly health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

Campbell argues that unlike the statin prescription drugs and invasive surgeries American doctors routinely prescribe, a diet consisting primarily of whole plant-based foods treats the underlying causes of these conditions as well as the symptoms. Patients experience immediate drops in cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and excess body weight. Their energy levels increase, they lose aches and pains, contract fewer illnesses, and enjoy a host of other improved health benefits.

A growing number of celebrities, athletes, TV hosts, and nutrition experts have promoted the plant-based diet in the past few years. Tens of thousands of people have documented their personal success stories since implementing the diet. But as more doctors and public officials become aware of the healing power of plant-based nutrition the question arises: Why don’t they share the information with their patients or the public? Tragically, there have been few official medical or state-sponsored efforts in the nation to support the life sustaining benefits of a whole foods plant-based diet.

On November 15th 2011, doctors T. Colin Campbell and Caldwell Esselstyn took the first step in this direction. They made history as they presented their research to the Kentucky State legislature. With one of the highest levels of childhood obesity in the nation, Kentucky also suffers from high rates of heart attacks, strokes, and diabetes. Moved by what they heard, the representatives unanimously approved a non-binding resolution calling upon Kentucky to “lead the nation in a health and wellness, nutrition-based revolution” by making “plant-based food grown in Kentucky affordable and available to some of the poorest individuals and communities in the Commonwealth.”

Nelson Campbell worked with Rep. Tom Riner to build on this non-binding resolution by developing and introducing House Bill 550, which mandated a pilot program that would document the health benefits of a plant-based diet. But once the bill went into committee, industry lobbyists woke up to the threat posed by the initiative. What followed was one of the most intensive lobby efforts ever in Kentucky. As the bill’s sponsor Rep. Riner put it, HB 550 was watered down to “a shadow of its former self”, turned “from steel to Reynolds Wrap.”

A top-down approach that recognized the powerful healing effects of plant-based nutrition had failed ­ again. But Nelson Campbell suspected there was another way to prove the merits of this idea. After the setback in Kentucky, he resolved to put his hunch to the test in his own North Carolina hometown of Mebane (population 11,562). He also took a documentary film crew with him.

Nelson hoped to demonstrate that a whole foods plant-based diet would lead to significant and measurable health improvements in just 10 days. He also wanted to demonstrate that such a diet would be easy to follow and indefinitely sustainable.

Using an approach consistent with the mainstream values of his hometown, he started small, offering ten-day “jumpstarts” of freshly prepared plant-based meals to 16 local influencers including a business executive, a journalist, two physicians, a local farming couple and other Mebane movers and shakers.

How would these rural people, many of whom were raised on southern comfort foods such as meat, potatoes, biscuits and gravy, handle a plant-based diet? Would they lose weight and get healthier? Would their families and friends accept their diet and lifestyle change? Could this be the spark of something even bigger? Can a nationwide health revolution actually begin in a town as rural and small as Mebane?

Beyond Mebane, PlantPure Nation explores the topical issues of the small family farmer, food deserts, modern medicine and the challenges of getting plant-based nutrition included in the political process.

Nelson’s campaign also has the unintended benefit of bringing him and his father closer together, as Dr. Campbell shares memories of his personal “journey”, when his son faces some of the same obstacles he faced over the years. As Nelson is launching a movement in the most unlikely of places, his close friend in Kentucky, Rep. Tom Riner, continues his efforts to educate his legislative colleagues – eventually giving away over 300 copies of Dr. Campbell’s groundbreaking book “The China Study.”

Their success in both places motivates them to join hands in an effort to right what is surely one of the greatest wrongs of our modern age. Together, Nelson and Rep. Riner launch a plan to expose the forces that stand in the way of a wider recognition of the healings powers of a plant-based diet.

PlantPure Nation was filmed across the USA and includes world-renowned experts, doctors and authors. The Production team includes Director Nelson Campbell, and Producer John Corry & Writer Lee Fulkerson from the acclaimed documentary film Forks Over Knives.

The film is scheduled for completion by the end of 2014. 

Please join with us in launching a grassroots revolution to change the way the world eats! We will keep you regularly apprised of our film’s progress and will invite your participation in our project as we move forward. Please be assured we will not share your e-mail address with anyone.


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We began this archive as a means of assisting our visitors in answering many of their health and diet questions, and in encouraging them to take a pro-active part in their own health.  We believe the articles and information contained herein are true, but are not presenting them as advice.  We, personally, have found that a whole food vegan diet has helped our own health, and simply wish to share with others the things we have found.   Each of us must make our own decisions, for it's our own body.  If you have a health problem, see your own physician.