WFPB movement
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A WFPB diet is an eating plan that adheres to the following principles:
1. Emphasizes consumption of minimally processed foods that are close to their natural form as possible. This includes whole grains, legumes, fruits, vegetables and small quantities of nuts and seeds, which should make up the majority of what you eat.
2. Limits or avoids animal products such as meat, eggs and dairy.
3. Excludes refined foods such as white flour, and processed oils.
4. Avoid highly processed foods with added sugars, salt and other artificial ingredients.
5. Pays special attention to food quality, prioritizing locally sourced, organic food whenever possible.
A WFPB diet adheres to the adage, ‘nothing good removed, nothing bad added’. The key to successfully adopting a WFPB diet is to eat adequate, and even large, portions of complex carbohydrates or starches. You want to get most of your calories from whole grains, legumes and root vegetables, with these making up at least half of your plate. You can load up the rest with salads and vegetables.
How is a WFPB diet different from a vegan or vegetarian diet?
Although similar in some ways, these diets are not the same.
People who follow vegan diets abstain from consuming any animal products, including dairy, meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, and honey.
Vegetarians exclude all meat and poultry from their diets, but some vegetarians eat eggs, seafood, or dairy.
The WFPB diet, on the other hand, is more flexible. Followers eat mostly plants, but animal products aren’t off limits. While one person following a WFPB diet may eat no animal products, another may eat small amounts of eggs, poultry, seafood, meat, or dairy.
A WFPB diet also emphasizes the avoidance of processed foods in favor of whole foods. A vegan diet can include processed foods provided they not animal products. The same with a vegetarian diet, it can include processed foods which are suitable for a vegetarian diet but would not be part of a WFPB diet.
Whole-food plant-based eating is a powerful way to reduce the risk of lifestyle diseases while
promoting overall wellbeing and longevity. WFPB foods have the following benefits:
- They are nutrient-dense and lower in calories, which means you consume fewer calories for the same amount of food. This helps one maintain a healthy weight.
- They are packed with essential micronutrients: vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals and antioxidants. which help to reduce your susceptibility to serious health issues and help you fight infections.
- They are nutrient-dense and lower in calories, which means you consume fewer calories for the same amount of food. This helps one maintain a healthy weight.
- They are rich in fiber which ensures a healthy gut and improves the absorption of nutrients thus strengthening the immune system.
- They are nutrient-dense and lower in calories, which means you consume fewer calories for the same amount of food. This helps one maintain a healthy weight.
- Substituting animal products for plant foods is effective at lowering blood pressure, blood glucose and cholesterol which lowers the risk of Heart Disease, Stroke, Type 2 Diabetes and some Cancers.
- They help improve blood level thus delivering more oxygen and nutrients to tissues and organs. This promotes waste product removal, reduces muscle pain, boosts your cell regeneration, improves athletic performance and promotes skin health.
- Improves energy levels, reduces fatigue. enhances mood and reduces depression.
In addition to the health benefits, cutting back on meat and eating more plant-based foods helps fight climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions thus improving the health of our planet. Increasing demand for meat is a leading cause of deforestation and degradation of soil and water.
A WFPB diet also emphasizes food quality including nutrient density and food safety by prioritizing organic foods over foods that are produced using genetically modified organisms (GMOs), chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Paying more attention to food quality requires strengthening the link between consumers and producers.
Linking consumers and farmers who value food safety and sustainability and shortening supply chains also empowers farmers as stewards of our environment and provides opportunities for consumers to learn and appreciate where their food comes from, how it is produced and the effects that this has on their health, the health of the planet and the wellbeing of the farmers who we rely on to produce the food we eat.
Depending on your current diet patterns, adopting a WFPB may require a bit of a lifestyle change. Whether we realize it or not, we are all part of a wider food system that has global, regional and local dimensions. The food choices presented to us are determined for the most part by larger forces at play including commercial interests, affordability, culture and health factors. It is becoming increasingly difficult for us as consumers to influence the supply and demand dynamics in the food system through individual choice.
Adopting a WFPB is a way to take personal responsibility and control of your health and protect yourself from numerous lifestyle diseases linked to modern conventional diets. To adopt a WFPB diet, you are deciding to be intentional in selecting foods that will not harm your body and that will improve your health and the health of our planet. It means you are choosing to pay attention to where our food comes from, how it is produced and how this affects the quality of the food we eat. Most importantly, you are choosing to change your daily habits to accommodate strategies for improving the quality of the food you eat.
Adopting a WFPB opens up other avenues for improving your overall wellbeing. Once you get started, you will become more conscious about the different aspects of day-to-day life that we take for granted that could be harming our health. You will be more interested in nature-based solutions for maintaining your health and the health of our planet.
Adopting a WFPB is a not a “one-size, fits all” formula. It requires educating yourself about the food choices available to you and selecting beneficial foods based on your context. It will be a continuous learning and growing process. You start small and keep making adjustments to make progress towards health and sustainability goals.
On the NutriPoa platform, you can find tips on how to adopt a WFPB diet from an African perspective based on research and personal experience. This includes strategies to:
- Minimize consumption of animal-products. This includes meat, dairy and eggs which should make up a very small proportion of your diet.
- Avoid refined grains and maximize consumption of whole grains. Refined grains such as white rice, white pasta and non-whole-meal flour have had good things removed – dietary fiber, iron and other nutrients, and phytonutrients including antioxidant polyphenols. Unprocessed whole grains such as brown rice, maize, sorghum etc. are better than flour products for weight loss and reversing insulin resistance. You want to keep any flour products as close to whole-meal as possible.
- Maximize consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables are health supporting whole foods, rich in fiber, nutrients and water and low in calories. You should aim to consume a wide variety regularly, and in their raw natural form as much as possible.
- Moderate consumption of nuts and seeds. Nuts and seeds are naturally very high in fat and low in water, and consequently have at least five times the calorie density of basic starchy foods. This makes them appealing to eat, but easy to overeat. Eating a lot of nuts and seeds can give you a very high ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats. For a healthier ratio include nuts and seeds that are higher in omega-3 such as flax and chia seeds.
- Minimize consumption of processed foods. A WFPB diet may include small amounts of partially processed foods, for example plant milks and tofu but try to keep this to small amounts consumed occasionally.
