It has been 17 months since my wife and I began implementing a WFPB lifestyle (whole food plant based). We’ve both experienced significant and meaningful health benefits. So much so, that we have no intention of ever consuming a typical Western diet… full of animal products, and highly processed foods.

NOTE: Images have been added as visual breaks, and to feature some whole food plant based meals. Click on the photographs to enlarge them. If you would like to view this article in a range of different languages click on the Canadian flag in the upper right corner.

Readers who are interested in learning more about the benefits of a WFPB lifestyle can investigate the ground breaking work done in this area by Dr. T. Colin Campbell (see his work with The China Study). Dr. Dean Ornish (see his research on reversing heart disease, and later work on reversing early stage prostate cancer). And, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn and his work on reversing heart disease.

I would also highly recommend visiting Dr. Michael Greger’s free website NutritionFacts.Org. You’ll find a treasure trove of information on the latest evidence based research on the impacts of various components of a whole food plant based lifestyle. You may also find the work of Dr. Neal Barnard of interest.

This article will not delve into the details of the work done by the doctors noted above, but rather share some of what we’ve learned about implementing a WFPB lifestyle. 

If you happen to be a strong proponent of a fad diet…. meat-based, low carb, or anti-plant, this article likely isn’t worth your time to read. And, don’t bother trying to post any comments in support of any of these fad diets. I will not allow my website to be used to promote dietary approaches that are likely to cause harm to my readers.

The purpose of this article is to simply share our experiences. It is not intended to recommend that other people do what we did. Dietary lifestyle choices are intensely personal decisions.

Significant dietary changes are typically not done without reviewing one’s personal health with medical professionals. This is especially important for folks who are taking ongoing prescription medications for chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease, Type 2 Diabetes, high blood pressure and similar chronic issues.

Unfortunately one of the challenges sometimes faced when discussing the benefits of changing one’s diet to a whole food plant based approach with a physician, is that some of them have not received any significant medical training about the health impacts of nutrition.

If you doctor isn’t proactively discussing dietary issues with you, doing your own research in The Lancet and other leading medical journals may be a viable option. If you don’t have the time to wade through countless scientific papers on the impact of diet, then referring to NutritionFacts.org on a regular basis may be a better use of your time.

At the end of the day it is up to each one of us to take personal responsibility for our own health. Every day we are faced with numerous binary decisions that will either help to improve our health… or erode it… based on what we decide to eat.

Some health issues have a genetic component that can affect our lifespans. These are estimated to be present in about 20% to 25% of heath situations. It is important to note that even though our genetics may load the gun,  our diet often pulls the trigger. This means that we are in direct control of about 75% of the factors that impact our health and lifespan. Our diet can also impact some of the genetic leanings that we carry around with us.

Lessons learned on our journey to a WFPB lifestyle.

This journey had its challenges and folks should be aware of these before they embark on their own dietary adventure. There are a number of important factors and issues of which to be aware when considering a whole food plant based diet.

Understand what a whole food plant based lifestyle really means.

Don’t be duped by all of the emerging marketing hype about highly processed plant-based/vegan foods. Spend the bulk of your time in the produce section of your local supermarket. Whole foods are just that… they are the entire food. A head of cabbage. A sweet potato. A mushroom. An orange. An apple.

If it’s in a package of some sort, the list of ingredients should be absolutely minimal… like whole wheat… red lentils… brown rice. If there is a long list of ingredients on the label, or some ingredient names listed that you don’t understand, that indicates highly processed food. Don’t buy it.

Avoid all animal products.

Avoiding all animal products can be a challenge at first… but it does become easier over time. My wife and I do not eat any meat (beef, pork, poultry, lamb etc.), fish, seafood (shrimp, oysters, mussels, scallops, lobster etc.), dairy (milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream etc.) or eggs. This reduces our cholesterol intake significantly. It also helps to reduce our risk of heart disease, Type 2 Diabetes, various cancers, and a host of other ailments.

Don’t fret about protein.

The animals that people eat like cows, pigs, lambs, and a variety of fowl all get their protein from plants. And, so can we.  A diet full of various beans, whole grains, lentils, nuts and seeds, and fruits like berries can provide us with all of the protein we need.

Avoid/limit oil consumption.

Oils are processed foods that can damage our endothelium and contribute to cardiovascular disease. When we are preparing a stir fry meal we typically use vegetable broth, not oil. We stopped using bottled salad dressings because of the oil content (yes we avoid olive oil as well). Instead we put some balsamic vinegar on our salad and periodically on other vegetables and greens. It can be a challenge to completely eliminate all oils, but at least limiting them can be beneficial. One tablespoon of olive oil, and other vegetable oils, contain about 120 calories.

Avoid fruit juices.

While eating a variety of fresh or frozen fruit everyday contributes to our health, we avoid consuming fruit juices as they often contain added sugars. The juicing process also can remove a significant portion of the fruit’s fibre, thus reducing its nutritional value. With some fruits like apples, the most nutritious part of the fruit is the skin. Eating whole fruit is always a more healthy option than consuming fruit juices. Water is the best beverage.

Moderation does not work.

Drug addicts and alcoholics can’t overcome their addictions by simply reducing drug use or alcohol consumption, and being moderate consumers of these substances.

Effectively changing to a whole food plant based diet does not work in moderation. Success takes going ‘all in’. Regularly consuming salt, fat and sugar found in highly processed foods, or eating animal products… notably cheese, can create food addictions.

It takes up to 90 days to reorient our taste buds to prefer other foods and flavours. Using moderation means we will likely never reorient our taste buds… increasing the likelihood that we will fail with our lifestyle change. Moderation will also sub-optimize potential health benefits. The level of adherence to a WFPB diet directly impacts results.

Partnerships work.

If you have a spouse or significant other it is critically important that they are fully engaged with, and participate in, the switch to a whole food plant based lifestyle. It takes more time to prepare whole food plant based meals so both parties need to share the work load with meal preparation.

Making separate meals for each party is far too time consuming to be successful. We may be tempted to save time by consuming highly processed packaged plant based/vegan foods. The oils typically found in these foods are unhealthy and counterproductive.

Male canary in the coal mine.

Men who suffer from erectile dysfunction are at higher risk of having a cardiovascular event like a heart attack. Erectile dysfunction is a red flag for potential heart disease. A whole food plant based diet has been shown to reverse erectile dysfunction without any medication. When faced with the prospect of ED, don’t think of it as erectile dysfunction… think of it as early death.

Research and find preferred recipes.

It takes time to learn how to cook whole food plant based meals. Taking time to research different recipes and experimenting in the kitchen will pay dividends over time. Research can also help develop a nutritionally well balanced whole food plant based diet composed of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts and seeds, beans and lentils.

Our daughter suggested we try an interesting product called soy curls. These come dehydrated and must be rehydrated prior to use. The rehydration process gives us the option to use a variety of liquids, the flavour of which becomes infused in the soy curls. The texture is similar to chicken, so we often adjust some of our previous meat-based recipes by substituting soy curls.

Take specific supplements and eschew the rest.

Taking B12 is essential when consuming a whole food plant based diet. Vitamin D and an algae based Omega 3 can also be helpful. Avoid fish oil and ignore all of the hype around other supplements as in many cases they lack efficacy, and sometimes can even be detrimental to health.

Change perspectives and mental biases.

Changing to a whole food plant based diet involves a complete reorientation on how we perceive different foods. We may be biased and think that we must eat animal products to be healthy. The opposite is true. The more animal products we eat, the more we put our health at risk, and the more likely we are to develop chronic food-based illnesses like cardiovascular disease, Type 2 Diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, bowel cancer (and others), and erectile dysfunction to name a few.

Avoid highly processed foods.

Highly processed foods are engineered to achieve a ‘bliss point’ in terms of tastes created by high levels of salt, fat and sugar. These ingredients encourage us to eat/crave foods that often have high caloric density but have low nutritional value. CBC’s The Nature of Things has a great episode on this called Foodspiracy.

Avoiding highly processed foods includes those marketed as vegan or plant-based. These concoctions often contain coconut and palm oils which are very high in saturated fat, and detrimental to health. The salt content in these highly processed foods can also be very high. Highly processed foods often contain numerous human-made chemicals that act as preservatives.

Avoid restaurants and take-out food.

One can never be sure how food is prepared in a restaurant. Even vegan restaurants can prepare foods using unhealthy oils. My wife and I have been avoiding restaurants for decades. Early on in our marriage we assessed how much money we were spending in restaurants and on take-out food. The amount shocked us. Our first trip to Hawaii was financed by the money we saved by avoiding restaurants and take-out food.

Recognize self-rationalization.

It is extremely easy to fall into a trap of self-rationalization about why it is OK to deviate from our whole food plant based lifestyle “this one time”. The problem is that “this one time” can happen over and over again. We can lose sight of what we are trying to achieve with our diet… which is to improve our health. Virtually every time we choose to eat something we are making a binary choice to either improve our health, or damage ourselves.

Avoid food poisoning.

When we first made the switch to a whole food plant based diet it was challenging to break some of my old cravings… like eating salty snacks and cheese. I soon  learned the best way for me to deal with my cravings and to avoid those foods completely was to label them as “poison”. There are now entire sections in a grocery store that we avoid as they are permanently labelled as poison in my mind.

Stop seeing food as a reward.

We often rationalize poor food choices by thinking that having a steak… or lobster… or a high calorie, fat filled desert is a reward that we deserve. What we deserve is a healthy, long life. Why would we perceive something as a reward when it is full of cholesterol and saturated fat that will damage our endothelium and potentially lead to heart disease, high blood pressure, Type 2 Diabetes, and other potential illnesses? We need to realize the absurdity of our thinking. Food is not a reward… it is an essential fuel for life.

Eat to live.

Many people get fixated on food and live to eat. That contributes to the obesity crisis, and the surge in chronic illnesses, faced in many countries around the world.

When our orientation is to eat to live… we make more informed and healthy food choices, as we are focused on the nutritional quality of our food.

Even though my wife and I switched to a whole food plant based diet when we were in our senior years… we can still look forward to potentially adding 6-8 healthy years to our lifespans. The younger people are when they make this change, the more healthy years they can potentially add to their lifespans.

Learn about nutrition.

The more we learn about nutrition from factual, scientific studies… the better equipped we are to make informed decisions. I follow a select number of doctors who have well deserved reputations with food nutrition, and are recognized as leaders in the whole food plant based arena. People like Dr. Michael Greger, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyne, Dr. Dean Ornish, and Dr. Neal Barnard. I don’t waste my time looking at ‘click bait’ videos on YouTube that are full of fad diets and often make sensational, bogus food claims.

Regularly reinforce nutritional messages.

It is important to continually reinforce nutritional information so we can integrate this knowledge into our everyday lives. I regularly reread important sections of books (and watch corresponding videos) like How Not to Die, How Not to Diet, How Not to Age, and Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease. I often watch factual WFPB videos and documentaries while doing my daily exercise on my rower/recumbent bike. Some of these include Eating You Alive and The Game Changers.

Be aware of social pressures to conform.

Many people who start following a whole food plant based lifestyle end up quitting after a little while due to the social pressure they experience from friends and family. When this happens people are deciding that their personal health is not very important to them. Or, at least not as important as their relationships with friends and relatives.

It is interesting to note that sometimes the social pressure around a whole food plant based diet is self-induced. We think our friends and family won’t approve… so we are not fully committed to making the change. To date we have not faced any social pressure from our friends and family.

More education, not medication.

To improve our health we need more education about the impacts of our diet and nutrition. This allows us to make better, more informed food choices.

Medications for chronic conditions like cardiovascular disease, Type 2 Diabetes, and high blood pressure, do not solve the underlying issues that are causing these illnesses… they suppress symptoms. That’s why dosages typically increase over time and chronic diseases continue to progress, albeit sometimes at slower rates, in spite of the medications taken.

Unfortunately many people see medication-induced reductions in their cholesterol levels, blood sugar levels, or blood pressure as a permission slip to continue with their consumption of health harming foods.

Evidence, not anecdotes.

Look for clinical evidence about the benefits of changing to a whole food plant based lifestyle. Learn the differences between various types of nutritional research so you can identify contrived studies funded by big business. Be wary of substitution studies as the control groups in these are often constructed to purposely reach a predetermined outcome. Ignore all studies funded by meat, dairy, and egg marketing boards… as well as those funded by large corporations with vested interests.

This article has some general comments about the benefits that my wife and I have achieved by moving to a whole food plant based lifestyle. I decided not to include any specifics, as our experiences should in no way be a determining factor whether you decide to change your diet.

You need evidence, not anecdotes. Spend the time needed to learn about the independent, scientific research that has been done about nutrition. One of the things that you’ll learn is the only diet that has been clinically proven to reverse cardiovascular disease is a whole food plant based diet.

Summary

This article shares our experiences and my views on issues associated with implementing a whole food plant based diet. Our specific food choices and our approach to a WFPB lifestyle are based on hundreds of hours spent reading/viewing information about the impact of nutrition on health. Taking the WFPB route is what we decided to do… and is in no way a recommendation about the food choices that you should make.

We are in our senior years and neither one of us has ever taken any prescription medications for any chronic illnesses. We plan to maintain that status for many years to come by following a whole food plant based lifestyle.

Technical Note

Photographs were captured handheld. All images were created from RAW files using my standard process in post. This is the 1,474 article published on this website since its original inception in 2015.

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