It Doesn't Get Easier Than These 50 Whole Food Plant-Based Recipes with 5 Ingredients or Less (2024)

FAQs

What are the problems with whole food plant-based diet? ›

Low vitamin B12 intake is a significant problem in vegan diets due to the exclusion of vitamin B12-rich foods such as meat, poultry, and eggs. A lack of vitamin B12 has been linked to neurologic and hematologic problems [19].

While a well-balanced plant-based diet can provide a wide range of nutrients, certain essential nutrients are more abundant in animal-derived foods. Plant-based diets can sometimes lead to nutritional deficiencies such as vitamin B12, iron, zinc, calcium, and omega-3 fatty acids.

You can be plant-based and still constipated.

A plant-based diet lays the foundation for healthy poop (especially when it includes flax and chia seeds), but other factors, such as hormonal changes, play a role. Regular exercise and water help move food through the colon.

It might seem obvious, but "one of the reasons why you might feel hungrier when you transition to a vegan or plant-based diet is because you may not be eating enough calories and nutrients," explains Julie Barrette, a senior clinical dietician with Providence Mission Hospital.

Tofu. "Half a cup of extra-firm tofu provides 22 grams of protein, making it an excellent source of filling protein!" says Amy Gorin MS, RDN, owner of Amy Gorin Nutrition. Her favorite ways to prepare tofu are grilled, in stir-fries and tossed into a homemade vegetable soup.

You'll restrict grains and foods made with them, such as bread and pasta. You also limit starchy vegetables like potatoes and corn, as well as beans and legumes. And you'll cut high-sugar tropical fruits such as pineapple, mango, and bananas, as well as fruit juices and sweets.

Following a plant-based diet means saying goodbye to all animal products — including lean meat and dairy products such as milk, yogurt, cheese and ice cream.

Vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, seeds, and nuts are the stars of all plant-based diets. More and more people seem to be making the switch to plant-based diet foods.

But there's a general agreement that foods like fruit and vegetables, nuts and seeds, beans and lentils, milk, wholegrains, and unprocessed meats and fish are whole foods. Meanwhile, foods like ready meals, processed meats or products with added sugars, salt, fats or any additives are not.

Spotlight the Super Six:

When it comes to the plants you eat, you want to eat from across the six different plant groups: vegetables, fruits, wholegrains, legumes (beans and pulses), nuts and seeds, and herbs and spices.

What happens to your body when you go plant-based? ›

Plants are high in fiber.

Eating a plant-based diet improves the health of your gut so you are better able to absorb the nutrients from food that support your immune system and reduce inflammation. Fiber can lower cholesterol and stabilize blood sugar and it's great for good bowel management.

A plant-based diet is one that encourages eating whole foods like fruit and vegetables and one that discourages dairy¸ meat¸ eggs and refined and processed foods. Physicians are not prescribing a plant-based diet to patients because of lack of patient educational resources.

In fact, eating such plant-based junk foods dramatically raises bad cholesterol and hypertension and can lead to associated heart disease and early death, according to a new study authors call “the first” to show ultraprocessed plant foods are associated with an increase in the risk of cardiovascular diseases.

Unhealthy plant foods, such as refined grains and sugar and processed foods can also be given negative marks in what is termed an unhealthy plant-based diet index (uPDI). The table above shows the positive and negative marks given to foods in the plant-based diet index.

With a whole food plant-based diet, the calorie density of the foods is lower than many foods that make up the standard western diet but the nutritional density is much higher. In other words for every mouthful you eat, you consume fewer calories but take in more valuable nutrition e.g. fibre, vitamins and minerals.