7 tips to help you put your diet on a plant-based path
- More than 10,000 studies show that a diet based on whole plant foods leads to higher life expectancy and lower rates of many chronic ailments.
A plant-based diet may have seemed extreme years ago, but today it’s all the rage – and for good reason. In many ways the planet and human health are in trouble, and a plant-centric diet is one way to address both issues.
More than 10,000 studies in peer-reviewed medical journals show that a diet based on whole plant foods leads to higher life expectancy and lower rates of cancer, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s and most other chronic ailments. “If you eat the standard American diet, you’re going to get the standard American diseases,” says Ocean Robbins, co-founder of the Food Revolution Network and author of 31-Day Food Revolution.
“However, a plant-based diet can add years to your life and life to your years.” When you look more closely at heart disease, the No. 1 killer of American adults, the story becomes even more convincing. “The only diet proven not just to prevent but also reverse heart disease is a plant-based diet,” says Marco A. Borges, exercise physiologist, founder of 22 Days Nutrition and New York Times bestselling author whose latest book is The Greenprint: Plant-Based Diet, Best Body, Better World. Statistics show that roughly 600,000 Americans die from heart disease every year, but 80 per cent of cardiovascular disease is preventable, especially with a shift to a plant-based diet, says Dr Saray Stancic, a lifestyle medicine physician in the US state of New Jersey.
There’s also evidence that the current food system is unsustainable. “Worldwide, animal agriculture provides 18 per cent of humanity’s food calories and 37 per cent of protein, but uses 83 per cent of farmland and one-third of the planet’s fresh water, and is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the world’s cars, planes, trucks, ships and trains combined,” Robbins says.
Yet, changing how you’ve always eaten isn’t easy. Where do you start? Experts share seven strategies:
1. Don’t think “all or nothing”
Just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, you don’t need to shift your diet overnight. “Every step you take toward more whole plant foods is a step toward greater health for you and the planet,” Robbins says. How closely you lean into plants is your choice, but know that in the “Blue Zones” – places around the world where people live the longest and healthiest – diets are focused on whole plant foods with almost no added sugar or processed foods and between zero and 10 per cent of calories from animal products.
The Chinese version of Impossible Meat, Zhenmeat offers plant- and fungus-based protein products
