Robert Boyer

Why is there so much confusion over the term whole food plant based?

A whole-food, plant-based diet lets you meet your nutritional needs by focusing on natural, minimally processed plant foods, and is based on the following principles: Whole foods describes natural foods that are not heavily processed. That means whole, unrefined, or minimally refined ingredients. Plant-based means food that comes from plants and doesn’t include animal ingredients such as meat, milk, eggs, or honey. It seems pretty simple to me. A user named Princess Frost posted a paleo recipe for pie. Paleo is its own separate thing. Without getting into the merits of this diet I think we can all agree it does not meet the definition of whole food plant based. There’s plenty of communities for everyone here and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to respect the spirit and values of each other’s communities by not posting recipes that don’t follow them. Princess Frost can you please either alter the recipe or just take it down. I’m sure there’s plenty of paleo and omnivore communities here for you to post that recipe. Thank you for your understanding.

Minion cook

A plant-based diet actually limits or avoids animal-based products. It is not necessarily the same as a vegan diet. There are users new to avoiding/ limiting animal products that need to be supported in n their journey so they might post wrong recipes in any community. Let’s share our love and support to people new to these topics ❤️

Princess Frost

It was an error. Clicked on the wrong group to add this recipe to. I am removing. Apologies and kindness.

Brita

I have to say, the term plant-based to me means that plant foods would play the dominant role, but not that the food would exclude all animal products. So making the group description more exact might help. Even as simple as whole food plants only recipes, or something like that.

Robert Boyer

I’m all for supporting anyone on their journey to live a healthy cruelty free existence and that’s why I think it’s so important to one have a community free from foods containing animal products and two making sure people understand what those terms mean. Brita I’m sorry but your interpretation is in fact incorrect. The term plant based originated with Dr. Campbell in the eighties who worked on the China study. Then Dr. Esselstyn showed that only a diet with whole food that was only derived from plants can not only prevent such diseases as diabetes and heart disease it can in fact reverse them. Please go to the website Forks over Knives for more references. It’s important to make this distinction because only a whole food plant based diet has been proven to do this. Not a partial one or paleo or keto which ever other diet you want to try it will not have those same health effects and benefits and you will still be supporting the cruelty and exploitation of animals while having a huge negative environmental effect. I do like having this open forums so that we can clear the air and have an open discussion. Thanks again Princess Frost for removing the recipe.

Brita

Hi Robert, I understand that you are getting your term from a specific place, but if your goal is to actually communicate your intentions, you have to consider how other people understand the words you are using. I was only trying to give you feedback on what your words communicate to an average person, not to comment on a specific definition, diet or lifestyle. Unfortunately, no matter how good your bases for a definition is, it doesn't mean much if the person you are communicating with doesn't know your definition.

Robert Boyer

Thanks for your feedback Brita. That’s why I was referring you to the people that actually created the term and the definition. Who better than the source. Please check out the Forks over Knives website and the work of both Dr. Esselstyn and Dr. Campbell. Thanks again and good luck on your food and nutrition journey and I really hope you can find your way to a healthy cruelty free whole food plant based lifestyle. You’ll find plenty of delicious recipes here along with support.