KFC and Pizza Hut’s parent company, Yum Brands, recently announced plans to open 600 restaurants in China this year. Dairy Queen aims to add more than 100 locations. McDonald’s expects to open a restaurant a day in China for the next three to four years. That adds up to a lot of greasy chicken and pizza, high-fat burgers, and cholesterol-laden ice cream.
This fast-food deluge is swamping traditional plant-based Chinese diets—with devastating results. Close to 39 percent of the Chinese population is now overweight or obese, according to the World Health Organization. Type 2 diabetes now affects close to 10 percent of Chinese residents.
But we have a healthful remedy. On March 5, PCRM is introducing our 21-Day Healthy Challenge to Chinese-speaking people in China, Taiwan, and around the world.
Our free online Healthy Challenge program—based on our 21-Day Vegan Kickstart—can help people in China and around the world jumpstart weight-loss and reduce the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and other health problems.
My colleague T. Collin Campbell, Ph.D., author of The China Study and Healthy Challenge coach, found through his research that traditional plant-based diets have provided some areas of China with protection from these diseases.
PCRM’s National Institutes of Health-funded clinical research shows that low-fat, plant-based diets can help people lose weight, reverse diabetes, and implement long-term changes in eating habits and health. And the best way to do this is to try a low-fat, plant-based diet for three weeks. The Healthy Challenge—offered in Mandarin—is a researched-based, fun, interactive way to do it.
Celebrity coaches, including actress Gao Yuanyuan, musician Louis Cheung, singer-songwriter Khalil Fong, and actress and singer Barbie Hsu, will join long-time PCRM friend Maggie Q in leading our Healthy Challenge. Participants will have free access to three weeks of meat- and dairy-free recipes for traditional Chinese favorites, such as vegan spring rolls, brown rice sushi, and ma po tofu. There’s also nutrition and cooking demonstration videos, a community forum, and an interactive restaurant guide.
Here’s Gao Yuanyuan explaining more about the program in Mandarin:
Please take moment to share this blog and link to 21DayHealthyChallenge.org with your Chinese-speaking friends and family.
PCRM dietitians just released a new report on popular Valentine’s Day restaurant options. They found steak, lobster, cheesecake, and other menu items loaded with fat, cholesterol, calories, and sodium. These foods promote heart disease and other health problems among the 70 million Americans who dine out on Valentine’s Day. Our report may make some of them rethink their plans.
Here are a few of the report’s nutrition findings: Outback Steakhouse’s porterhouse steak has more saturated fat than 29 pieces of pan-fried bacon. Red Lobster’s stuffed lobster contains nearly double the cholesterol a person should eat in an entire day. Olive Garden’s fondue has almost as much sodium as most people should eat in an entire day. Applebee’s Blue Ribbon Brownie has more calories than eight Twinkies. Cheesecake Factory’s strawberry cheesecake has more calories than five cans of Coke.
Exactly how do meals like these affect your health? A new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report says that excessive sodium consumption raises blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke. High-calorie foods promote weight gain. About one-third of U.S. adults and 12.5 million children are obese. Other research has found that even a single high-fat meal can raise blood pressure, stiffen major arteries, and cause the heart to beat harder. In men, fatty diets can lead to artery blockages that cause impotence—a warning sign for heart disease. And the list goes on.
So how do you eat healthfully when dining out? If you are a little choosey about where you go and what you order, you can find many healthy and delicious choices. Take a look at this video on dining out from our 21-Day Vegan Kickstart program:
You can learn more about the dangers of high-fat, high-cholesterol meals and sign up for our April Kickstart program at PCRM.org/Health.
PCRM recently filed a complaint against the Mecosta County Animal Shelter in Big Rapids, Mich., to stop the shelter from selling dogs to laboratories, and local activists have worked hard to end the practice. In response, the county controller announced that the shelter plans to stop providing dogs for experiments. That’s a huge step toward stopping dogs from being sent to Wayne State University, where they endure heart-failure experiments before being killed.
Unfortunately, it is too late to save Charlie, a brown-and-white hound and Labrador mix who was sold to Wayne State. There, she was placed in a hypertension experiment, underwent multiple major surgeries, and endured forced treadmill exercise for months. Below, you can read a timeline of Charlie’s story.
Hundreds of dogs have experienced unrelieved suffering and death in similar experiments. In the latest issue of Good Medicine we tell the tragic story of Queenie. Queenie was a gentle and friendly Dalmatian. She had been a stray and was turned in to a Gratiot County, Mich., animal shelter. She was then transferred to a Class B dealer, who sold her to be used in heart experiments at Wayne State.
Unfortunately, Mecosta County’s decision does not end the experiments at Wayne State. R&R Research, the dealer supplying dogs to the university, can still obtain dogs from the Gratiot County Animal Shelter in Ithaca, Mich., from private dealers, and from out-of-state sources. So it is important, not only to stop the supply of dogs into experiments; it is also essential that Wayne State and other facilities like it wake up to the need to replace their cruel experiments with other methods that do not require animals.
You can help end these experiments. To ask Wayne State University to halt its inhumane dog experiments, visit PCRM.org/WayneState.
Charlie’s Story:
Jan. 20, 2011: Charlie was transferred from the Mecosta County Animal Shelter, operated by Kenneth and Susan DeVries, to Cheri-Hill Kennel and Supply.
Feb. 1, 2011: Charlie was transferred from Cheri-Hill Kennel and Supply to Class B dealer R&R Research.
Feb. 23, 2011: R&R Research sold Charlie to Wayne State University. She started treadmill “training” shortly afterward, and was frightened and easily startled.
March 3, 2011: Charlie underwent her first major surgery. Experimenters implanted a telemetry pressure device and blood flow transducers near her heart.
March 23, 2011: Charlie underwent her second major surgery to have more medical devices implanted in her body.
March 31, 2011: During her first postsurgery exercise test, Charlie panicked, causing experimenters to stop the session.
April 1, 2011: Charlie became sick, and her temperature skyrocketed to 106.6 F. She had to be fed with a syringe, and she vomited multiple times. She was sick on and off over the next few months.
Aug. 1, 2011: Charlie vomited and defecated leash fragments, and a laboratory technician noted that he or she was “very worry” about Charlie.
Sept. 1, 2011: Charlie was killed due to her deteriorating health.
October 2011: Michigan activists pressured Mecosta County commissioners to ban gas chamber euthanasia and ban transferring dogs to Class B dealers in the DeVries’ next five-year contract, scheduled for renewal in January 2012.
Nov. 8, 2011: PCRM filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture against the Mecosta County Animal Shelter, alleging that the DeVries were operating as unlicensed dealers.
Dec. 7, 2011: Mecosta County commissioners met to discuss the upcoming vote to renew the shelter contract.
Dec. 15, 2011: Mecosta County commissioners voted to extend the contract with the DeVries for six months beginning Jan. 1, 2012, with the stipulation that the DeVries must stop gas chamber euthanasia.
Jan. 3, 2012: An official from the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service confirmed that the PCRM’s complaint regarding the DeVries has been sent to the Investigative and Enforcement Service for review.
Jan. 5, 2012: Mecosta County commissioners offered a five-year contract to the DeVries that would eliminate gas chamber euthanasia and only allow the DeVries to transfer dogs to Cheri-Hill Kennel and Supply for testing veterinary medications and other substances. Once the dogs arrived at Cheri-Hill, they could not be transferred again.
Jan. 10, 2012: Rather than accepting the contract, the DeVries announced that they will retire from running the shelter at the end of their six-month contract.
Jan. 23, 2012: Mecosta County controller and administrator Paul Bullock confirmed to PCRM that the county’s next shelter contract beginning July 1, 2012, will not allow pound seizure.
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PCRM dietitians just released a 
PCRM recently filed a complaint against the Mecosta County Animal Shelter in Big Rapids, Mich., to stop the shelter from selling dogs to laboratories, and local activists have worked hard to end the practice. In response, the county controller announced that the shelter plans to stop providing dogs for experiments. That’s a huge step toward stopping dogs from being sent to Wayne State University, where they endure heart-failure experiments before being killed.