March 20, 2013 | 2 minute read

I love my GP.

She is about my age and we are both engaged in the same balancing act – aging parents, children, full time jobs that we love and not enough hours in the day. She is monitoring my blood pressure and inevitably the conversation turns to weight loss, finding time for exercise, finding time to cook and what is healthy eating anyway?  I am sheepish, pleased with my loss of a few pounds but know I could do more.

Casually she mentions a similar conversation with an earlier patient when she asked him what the new diet craze is. I am pondering on the thought that a medical doctor is asking that question of a patient when she asks me if I have heard of the China Study. She is amazed that I know it; work for an organization that Colin Campbell advised and supported, and that I know about the evidence for a plant-based diet for cancer prevention.

We discuss the science but our conversation quickly turns to the practical – how to reduce red meat and increase other forms of protein in her family meals.  But she doesn’t know any recipes that use beans and other proteins. Quicker than you could say ABC, I wrote down our website address and told her to sign up for AICR Health-e-recipes.

As I leave the Doctor’s office, she is already on our website, has signed up for the recipes and is telling all her colleagues about our Foods that Fight Cancer. “I love this website – I’m going to tell everyone about you.”

In this technical world we sometimes forget the power of the face to face human connection:  a simple conversation can lead to a simple conversion.