Interests
My list of favorite books:
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T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell II, 2006, The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-Term Health
I had always been cautious about good/bad habits concerning the health of the human body, but this book shook me to the core, literally. We converge towards industrial meat, milk, and sugar based diet, and this is linked - using scientific evidence - with the rise of the so-called Diseases of Affluence, obesity, diabetes, heart diseases, cancers… To a large extend, we give more attention to the amount of calories we consume (quantity), without being aware of the importance of the content (quality). Could the “mirror” be people’s average health status? well, the percentage of U.S. GDP spent on health care in 1960 was ~5%, in 1970 >6%, in 1980 ~8%, in 1990 in ~12%, and in 2000 close to 14%!
There is a lot of evidence behind the statements read in this book, and I suggested it unconditionally to anyone who is curious, at least as I do, about nutrition, health, and well-being.
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Jonathan Haidt, 2012, The righteous mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion
I’m quite convinced that if the great majority of people read this book, we would show more empathy when coming across new people, cultures, opinions, ideas, and generally human-made conceptions of reality. One of the most interesting statements I keep from this book is: “Do people believe in human rights because such rights actually exist, like mathematical truths, sitting on a cosmic shelf next to the Pythagorean theorem just waiting to be discovered by Platonic reasoners? Or do people feel revulsion and sympathy when they read accounts of torture, and then invent a story about universal rights to help justify their feelings?”.