The WFPB Story
This is two days late, but I had grandkids over the weekend. Better late than never!
Okay, on topic. It all started when two world-class researchers met and compared notes. Their story and the story of the studies in which they were involved, (back when studies still meant something) are covered in a documentary that changed my life and restored my health.
Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn was head of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic for much of his career. Dr. T. Colin Campbell was a nutritional biochemist heading up his department at Cornell. They BOTH grew up on dairy farms. They didn’t expect or even like the results, but science doesn’t lie.
These pioneers of the eating habits they dub “whole foods, plant-based,” and using them, they’ve been reversing chronic diseases for more than two decades.
The story behind the science is in the documentary FORKS OVER KNIVES which can be found on multiple streaming services including and on the Forks Over Knives website for free, right here:
This is not a fad or some silly bullshit. There’s nothing being “sold.” Nobody’s getting rich off this. (Although I see lots of people trying.) Everything you need to know to follow the plan is out there FREE. There are no special foods to buy. Everything we eat grows naturally here on good old planet earth.
But what does “whole food, plant-based” really mean?
The term plant-based is increasingly problematic, since it has become a marketing ploy and is stamped on more products every day, many of them ultra-processed, unhealthy, and as far from the plants on which they are allegedly based as Pluto is from Mercury.
So let’s understand more clearly.
1. The plant-based part of whole food, plant-based
We only eat things that come from plants. Those things do NOT include dairy, which comes from animals, eggs which come from animals, or meat, which comes from animals. The meat category includes fish and birds and bugs and shellfish and scallops. Anything with a mother is meat. The dairy category includes cheese, cream, yogurt, ice cream, butter, creamers including “non-dairy creamers which aren’t really dairy-free, and margarines that are not clearly marked “dairy-free.” Most margarine contains dairy products.
The reason for this is that in legitimate, high level medical studies that have been repeated over and over again, animal proteins have been shown to activate dormant cancer genes. To keep that from happening, you’d have to ingest such a tiny amount you might as well not eat any.
A safe amount of animal proteins is less than 5% of your total daily caloric intake. In a 2000 calorie diet, that would be 100 calories worth of animal protein. Protein has 4 calories per gram, so that’s 25 grams. 3/4 cup of milk or maybe an ounce of cheese per day. It’s so little, why bother?
The mutated cancer genes turn on for sure at 20% of total calories from animal proteins. Reducing the intake to 5% or less, even after these genes are already producing cancer cells, frequently turns them back off.
It’s easier to just quit animal proteins altogether. And kinder. And better for your health and better for the planet.
At any level, animal proteins in our diets increase our risk of heart disease, multiple cancers, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, stroke, and numerous other issues. Those I’ve mentioned, however, are a perfect match for the list of leading causes of death in the US.
So we give up animals and their products.
2. The whole food part of whole food, plant-based
We only eat plant foods that include all their parts. For example, white rices and pasta are made with grains that have had their bran and germ stripped away, leaving only the endosperm. That’s the part with the fat in it.
The grain is meant to be ingested with all its parts. The bran and the germ allow the endosperm to move through the body and clear out. You get all the benefit of the grain, without the harm caused by its fats just sitting in your body and accumulating. Fiber moves fat through the digestive tract and out of the body.
When you eat just the endosperm, you get carbs and fat, no fiber or nutrients. It’s empty calories.
So we buy whole grain pastas, and brown and wild rice, and barley and quinoa, and whole grain breads and rolls. We don’t use much sugar, but what we use is raw sugar.
We eat fruits and vegetables, but we don’t eat parts extracted from fruits and vegetables.
Instead of orange juice or apple juice, we’d eat an orange or an apple.
Oils are another good example. They are the fats extracted from vegetables, nuts, or seeds. Oils are not whole foods.
Take an olive, take fat out of the olive. Take away the meat of the olive, take away the fiber, the nutrients, and just eat the fat. That’s olive oil. And it is, contrary to the fine work done by the olive oil PR folks, it is NOT good for you. They claim you get polyphenols and vitamin E.
You get those by eating the whole olive, and all its other benefits too. The olive’s component work together. They hold every good thing contained in olive oil, plus all the good things that have been stripped away from it.
We just don’t do oils. Not as ingredients, either.
You can cook without oil. In baking, substitute unsweetened applesauce or natural peanut butter or cashew butter if you must. But avoid oil.
I have a video demo of how to sauté without oil here.
What do we eat, then?
Our peanut butter is natural, no salt or oil added.
Our soy sauce is in the form of tamari. It’s a bit milder and always animal-product-free. And we use a lot of it in its “reduced sodium” variety.
We use nutritional yeast for a cheesy flavor aid. It’s cultured from molasses.
We eat a lot of mushrooms and tofu. Tofu is made from soybeans, which take the place of meat for us. Mushrooms provide vitamin B12, which almost everyone in the US is lacking. (We take a daily B12 supplement, cyanocobalamin.)
Our protein comes from beans & legumes, tofu, and whole grains. Also, all plants have proteins, and in fact, all plants contain all 9 “essential” amino acids in varying amounts.
We drink Soy milk, because it’s the healthiest and most environmentally friendly of all the plant milks.
Soy products, by the way, actually REDUCE the risk of breast cancer. Long ago, it was discovered that the estrogen we get from eating animals and dairy products increased the risk of breast cancer and its recurrence in those who’d already had it. Scientists assumed this applied to all estrogen, including the phytoestrogens in plants. But further studies found the opposite was true. Breast cancer risk is REDUCED by the ingestion of soy and soy products, and the recurrence is reduced in patients who’ve already had it, and life expectancy is increased.
I know, I was surprised too!
We base our meals around the wonderful world of carbs. The grains, the rice, the root vegetables. So enjoy potatoes and corn and peas and carrots and beets and sweet potatoes and yams and winter squash. And turnips, I guess, if you're into that sort of thing. We are carb-based beings. Our brains are built from carbs. We need them. They’re good for us.
Are you noticing yet, how everything pop-culture thinks about food is wrong? Maybe that’s why we’re so sick as a nation.
Leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables are something we strive to ingest multiple times per day. This group brings nitric oxide into the bloodstream, which actually removes plaque build-up from our coronary arteries.
This group includes all the greens like spinach, Swiss chard, turnip greens, kale, lettuces, arugula, dandelion greens, collard greens, mustard greens, broccoli and everything broccoli-like, cauliflower, cabbage, bok choy, Brussels sprouts, beets, asparagus, kohlrabi, watercress, horseradish. And turnips, if you’re into that sort of thing.
It takes a lot of them to work the plaque-removing magic, so I put them into every meal. I just made a goulash with whole grain spirals, canned tomatoes, peppers, onions, mushrooms, and a big bunch of Swiss chard.
Think you don’t have any plaque? They autopsied 18 year-old soldiers killed in Viet Nam and they already had plaque starting to build up in their coronary arteries. It’s from the standard American diet. It’s largely from meat and dairy.
Our grains include natural oatmeal, which we go through in massive quantities, brown rice, wild rice, quinoa, whole grain spaghetti, spirals, shells, and pasta noodles, soba noodles, udon noodles, Dave’s Killer brand bread, hot dog and burger buns, Ezekiel brand bread, raisin bread and English muffins. (You might be wondering what we put on the hot dog buns: Carrot Dogs!)
Nuts & Seeds too! We keep a good supply of walnuts, raisins, peanuts, cashews, pecans, and almonds on hand. I make sauces and spreads from the walnuts and cashews, and mix all of the nuts and raisins for easy snacking.
We also keep sesame seeds, chia seeds, and ground flaxseed on hand.
Shortcut foods
This no oil, no dairy rule makes it hard to buy processed foods, and that’s a happy side-effect of adopting the WFPB plan. The less we process the foods we consume, (aside from obvious safety precautions) the healthier we’ll be.
You’ll be shocked when you start reading labels. Almost every product on the shelf has some sort of oil and some sort of dairy product in it. I even found raisins that listed oil as an ingredient.
Here are a few shortcuts I’ve discovered and buy regularly for times when I’m short on time for dinner.
Real Veggies brand burger patties but ONLY in the Sweet Potato and Purple Root varieties.
Eat Meati brand “cutlets” and “mycelium steaks.” Made from mushroom roots. They’re good! But you can’t cook them in oil as instructed. Get your skillet good and hot, so a drop of water sizzles and dances. Then dump them in, and stir every minute or two. Stir and cook, stir and cook. You want to get some browning on the outsides, and cook out most of the moisture to get the right consistency. Takes about ten minutes, maybe a little less. If they get sticky use a couple tablespoons of veggie broth in the pan, and pop a lid on for a minute to speed things along.
I add these to tacos, scatter them atop salads, add them to stir fries, and use them as the basis of a nice sandwich on sourdough bread with cooked peppers, onions, mushrooms, and greens
Speaking of sourdough—even if it’s not whole grain, sourdough is an exception to the whole grain rule because of how amazingly good fermentation is for us.)
Vitabella brand cold cereals, including their Choco Crispies, Corn Flakes, and Multigrain Flakes
Buy pre-cut, frozen vegetables, especially diced peppers and onions, French fries, and hash browns, can save a lot of time.
Buy canned beans (black beans, red kidney beans, white kidney beans, pinto beans, garbanzo beans, lentils, etc.) to save time over cooking them from raw.
Other than these, there are not a lot of processed foods in our kitchen. We have soy milk, tofu, and soy sauce, all minimally processed from soybeans.
Yes, there’s a learning curve
That’s why it’s important to start NOW! You will stumble a bit and cheat a little, and fall off the wagon and eat a whole bag of Lay’s Potato Chips every once in a while, sure. You’ll be at a loss sometimes and have to repeat the same meal more often than you’d like.
But for every day you do this you’ll add several to your life. And for every week you do this, you’ll add weeks to your life. And for every year that you do this, you’ll add years to your life.
Even people who begin at 60 had an average increase of 8 years added to their life expectancy. You melt down to your natural weight, you feel better, you have more energy, you get off your prescriptions with medical supervision and you improve your life in every single way.
Hubby and I are five years in, and better than ever!
Questions?
I’m just an email or a comment away.
“Maggie Shayne writes romantic suspense with page-turning thrills. She has a permanent spot on my keeper shelf!”
–#1 New York Times bestseller, KAREN ROBARDS
It’s release day!
HUNTED is on sale now.
