What is a Whole Foods Plant-based (WFPB) Diet?

What’s the Science Behind It?

What are the Benefits?

And, What Should I Actually Eat on a Daily Basis?!

Whether you’re an experienced WFPB enthusiast, or heard enough to be curious, here’s a “best of our knowledge” overview of WFPB benefits 💚 and science, as well as practical eating guidelines.

First, the easy part, the definition of what’s included ✅: A whole foods plant-based diet means eating minimally processed fruits, vegetables, beans & legumes, whole grains, nuts & seeds, herbs & spices, and mushrooms.

What’s excluded ❌: animal products (meat, dairy, eggs) and highly processed foods (e.g. refined grains, refined sugar, artificial flavors/colors).

Next, why is WFPB the healthiest diet known to science?

The Sciences Favoring WFPB

There are four relevant, big, and distinct scientific domains that each have a “preponderance of evidence” in favor of a whole food plant-based (WFPB) diet being the healthiest diet for humans:

Centenarian and longevity studies: In the five recognized “Blue Zones” on Earth 🌎 — places with the highest percentage of centenarians — the overwhelming dietary pattern shared by those longest-living peoples is 95% to 100% whole food plant-based. Despite their wide separation of geography, from Okinawa to Sardinia to Loma Linda, Blue Zones diets share commonalities: they are especially rich in beans, and whole grains or root vegetables. For more details see the BlueZones website, which also links to books and research articles.

Epidemiology/observation studies: From following the demographic, health, and outcomes data for many people over years, WFPB diets are consistently tied to lower risks of disease. 💚 Prominent examples include the Adventist Health Study 1 and 2 (additional summary), the Nurses’ Health Study, and The China Study. Population migration studies can be especially revealing, e.g. chronic disease risks (heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s) can differ by 10× or more for the same ethnic group members living in the US vs elsewhere — strongly suggesting that diet and lifestyle far outweigh genetics, as risk factors.

Clinical research and interventions: The carefully planned and closely monitored use of nutrition-based interventions to treat diseases, provides some of the strongest evidence in favor of WFPB diets. ✅ In clinical studies, particularly the “gold standard” of randomized clinical trials having a control group, WFPB diets have been repeatedly shown to reverse severe heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, and obesity. This domain provides the key evidence backing “evidence-based” medicine and nutrition.

Biochemistry: A well-balanced WFPB diet is most aligned with growing knowledge of healthy biochemistry in the body, especially our need for antioxidants, and plants-only 🌱 phytonutrients, and fiber. Those needs are in addition to the familiar macronutrients (carbs, protein, fat) and micronutrients (vitamins, minerals). Plants-only nutrients play vital roles in our health, at all levels from molecules, to cells, to larger body systems (e.g. blood circulation, digestion, nervous system) and organs (heart, brain, gut and microbiome, etc).

These are the broad general “pillars” supporting whole foods plant-based diets, but there are many more specialized studies that are the “bricks” within each pillar.

We can further organize those WFPB “bricks” by their benefits to us, which is what we’ll classify and list below.

One more important note before moving on: These health sciences are applied by a rapidly growing, global community of healthcare professionals, specializing in lifestyle medicine — which primarily relies on the proven benefits of a WFPB diet to help people heal themselves, and thrive.

Top Benefits of WFPB Eating

Optimal Weight Loss / Management

One can lose excess weight in the short-term on a very wide variety of diets, but what matters is keeping the weight off, i.e. long-term, healthy, and ideally easy weight management, where we’d simply eat delicious and nutritious foods until we feel full.

That need for easy long-term weight management implies eating meals that are nutrient-dense: delivering all the macro, micro, and phyto nutrients needed for good health, while avoiding excess energy-density, i.e. avoiding calorie-rich foods that are nutrient-poor, and bypass our natural satiety senses (because they have no fiber), like saturated fats from meat and dairy, oils, processed sugar, etc. From epidemiology and clinical research, plant-based diets best fit those requirements. ✅

Only a diversified whole food plant-based menu fits those requirements of high nutrient density while avoiding excessively high caloric/energy density. Put another way, eating minimally processed, fiber-rich foods best allows our natural satiety signals to work, while also being long-term sustainable because 1) the eating guidelines are very simple to follow, and 2) the meals are fully nourishing.

In fact, the highest average weight loss ever recorded in a randomized controlled trial (aka RCT, the “gold standard” for evidence-based health studies) without restricting calories and without exercise, long-term (6 months and 12 months), was achieved with a whole food plant-based diet — in the BROAD study. Participants who were simply educated about WFPB (not provided meals or food) for 3 months, and told to focus on eating as much WFPB as they could, lost an average of about 12 kg (26 pounds) by the 6-month mark, and kept that result at the 1 year mark too! 🤩

Increase Energy

Despite “energy” being a fundamental physical concept like space and time, it’s not easy to measure directly in the human body. Yet every day we all have a subjective sense of our energy levels, which impacts every aspect of life, from mood to alertness to productivity. 🏃‍♀️

Our food choices obviously play a primary role in our energy levels, and unlike air, we have choices. Assuming enough calories, a plant-based diet can easily lead to a sense of increased energy, in all timeframes:

After a meal, during digestion, we all know the sluggish feeling from high-fat meals. But a low/moderate-fat plant-based meal is high in complex carbohydrates with a low glycemic index that keeps blood sugar levels, i.e. energy levels, more stable.

Meanwhile, mitochondria activity — the chemical power plants in our cells — can directly increase. 

A whole plant foods meal also precludes excess saturated fat being dumped into your blood, ensuring efficient circulation. 💓 And without endotoxins from meat and dairy taxing your gut and immune system, digestion proceeds efficiently.

In the longer run, on a WFPB diet: You have plenty of glycogen stored in your muscles and liver to keep you going. Your blood is less sticky/thick, and circulates better through cleaner arteries. You eat abundant plant antioxidants that clean up the inevitable free radicals throughout your body (especially in your brain). And critically, there’s little or no chronic inflammation that taxes your system. ✅

When a clean, pure, whole food plant-based diet fuels the body so well, is it any wonder you feel good and energized?

Improve Mind & Mood

Your brain 🧠 consumes about a quarter of all energy in the body — producing an inevitable firestorm of oxidation and free radicals between the ears. Fortunately, plant-based diets can provide the abundant antioxidants that clean up the brain’s waste products.

Looking beyond the cellular level, WFPB diets have been found to improve mood and lessen depression 😊, to produce measurable improvements in productivity, and to lessen risks, or slow the progression of, the most common form of dementia: Alzheimer’s disease.

The exact mechanisms by which WFPB diets can strengthen our minds and improve our moods are being heavily researched, including cleaning up the brain’s arteries for better bloodflow; or having plant phytonutrients quickly improving our thinking.

Sleep Better

There are many reports and comments from WFPB newcomers that their sleep duration and quality improve on a plant-based diet. 😴 Not only does good sleep provide immediate daily benefits, but it can also help lower long-term disease risks, e.g. for heart disease and dementia.

The early science so far suggests that sleep and diet significantly influence one another. Many possible factors could be contributing: e.g. general improved mood and body comfort (such as reduced joint pain) from reducing or eliminating chronic inflammation. Or easier breathing from reducing or eliminating mucus-inducing foods like dairy. Or keeping our microbiome happy and healthy; or eating plant foods rich in sleep-improving nutrients like isoflavone, tryptophan, and melatonin. ✅

While some of us can wait for careful nutrition and lab studies to untangle the myriad benefits of plant foods on sleep, most of us are happy to simply enjoy another major benefit of plant-based eating.

Boost Athletic Performance

It’s a thing: more and more world-class, elite-level athletes are using plant-based diets to help their performance and recovery. 🏅 Science is discovering and confirming what some incredible athletes have known for a while: you need the best fuel for powerhouse performance.

Top WFPB athletic benefits include:

  1. Leaner body mass and composition which boosts metabolism and endurance.
  2. Easier glycogen/energy storage from plant foods rich in complex carbohydrates.
  3. Better blood circulation and oxygenation.
  4. Reduced oxidation stress.
  5. Reduced inflammation.

Certain foods can also directly boost athletic performance 💯, in very surprising ways, like beet juice, and nitrate-rich leafy green vegetables that provide an even better package-deal of nitrates with vitamin C. With many thousands more plant foods out there, science may well find many more winning ingredients.

Attractiveness & Sexual Health
Improve Attractiveness: Skin, Scent, & Sexual Health

Besides the sciences discussed so far, there’s a science of attractiveness — and the effect of plant-based diets on attractiveness confirm evolutionary predictions: Healthy mates can be seen and smelled as such. 😍

Skin is our body’s largest organ, so it’s small surprise that eating more fruits and vegetables shows up as a healthy skin tone and fewer wrinkles. The abundant antioxidants in plant foods fights off the continuous oxidation stress on skin: externally from the sun, and internally from chronic inflammation (from processed or animal foods) and decreased blood flow (typically from atherosclerosis from saturated fats and cholesterol). Acne is a particularly common problem often reflecting poor diet, and often responsive to cutting dairy and going on a WFPB diet.

Another powerful attractiveness factor is body scent (or odor). 👃 Whether from increased nutrients, improved digestion, and/or less toxic load on the body, many people report improved body scent from eating more plant-foods — and at least one controlled experiment confirmed that women found the scent of men on a plant-based diet “signifcantly more attractive, more pleasant, and less intense.”

As for going past appearances: for men, erectile dysfunction is a reliable and serious warning sign of atherosclerosis, because the smaller arteries of the penis clog up sooner than the larger arteries of the heart. Fortunately men and women alike can improve their sexual performance on a plant-based diet. 💖

Prevent & Reverse Disease

It’s remarkable how a WFPB diet can help broadly prevent or alleviate so many chronic diseases. That’s because a diverse WFPB diet can quickly and dramatically cut the top risk factors ✅: chronic inflammation, excess oxidation, and toxic levels of fat and sugar. Those risks all shoot up on a “modern” diet high in animal products’ saturated fats, and processed foods.

A WFPB diet can make a big difference in most of today’s top chronic illnesses:

Heart disease (atherosclerosis, clogging and hardening of the arteries)  remains the #1 killer in the US and much of the world. Yet it has well-known dietary risk factors for prevention, and WFPB is the only diet clinically shown to reverse heart disease in the majority of patients, per the pioneering work of Dr. Ornish and Dr. Esselstyn. 🫀

Diabetes afflicts almost 10% of the US population, and over 80 million Americans are prediabetic. But for almost a century it’s been known that a plant-based diet can rapidly improve diabetic conditions, and often reverse type 2 diabetes.

Cancer is another dreaded disease that’s all too common, where again nutrition’s role is highly significant, but not generally recognized. Yet there’s already striking evidence that WFPB nutrition can slow or reverse numerous forms of cancer.

Besides the major diseases above, many other chronic diseases such as hypertension or auto-immune disorders can be improved or reversed with a WFPB diet. 🙏 Which altogether, shouldn’t be too surprising: Food is by far our most extensive and closest contact with the outside world, so once the bad stuff is cut out, and we only eat good stuff, a billion years of bodily survival instincts kick-in to support our health.

Longevity

The evidence from Blue Zones diets being 95-100% WFPB, and epidemiology studies with large plant-based groups living disease-free longer, makes the high-level case for greater longevity from WFPB eating (on average). ⏳

The detailed, molecular-level case for WFPB boosting longevity: It’s the diet best able to increase telomerase activity and  telomere length, which directly reflects cellular aging. A follow-up study confirmed that diet is the most important factor in boosting telomerase. 🧬

Metabolic Health & Constitution

Metabolic health is the absence of metabolic syndrome, and measured by five of the most familiar medical metrics: blood sugar, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, blood pressure, and waist circumference.

Only about 12% of Americans have ideal metabolic health metrics. Plant-based eaters have the best metabolic health on average, and people who switch to WFPB eating can rapidly improve their metabolic health. ✅

Thinking more generally, health is not only the absence of disease, but overall wellness and thriving — your constitution. Consider: The combined evidence from the 4 science domains above is unmatched by any other diet category.  Besides the remarkable WFPB disease reversal outcomes from clinical practice and research, epidemiology and longevity studies provide broad backing: plant-based eaters generally have much lower rates of disease, and live longer, with the healthiest average body compositions (lowest average BMI), directly indicating metabolic health. 💚 In a smaller well-controlled setting like a workplace, WFPB eating can quickly bring measurably better mood and productivity that easily pays for itself. At the biochemical level, right down to our cells and DNA, diet seems to be the most powerful factor affecting our “biological age” and youthfulness: plant-based diets are best at lengthening our telomeres, the most direct markers of aging.

Eat Freely & Indulge Guilt-Free

When you eat minimally processed whole plant foods, you can generally indulge yourself 🎉 in a huge variety of delicious AND maximally nutritious foods: thousands of different fruits, vegetables, beans and legumes, whole grains, nuts and seeds, mushrooms, and many different herbs and spices. The number of ways to prepare, cook, and combine WFPB meals is practically unlimited.

Even without using any sugar, oils, or salt (SOS-free), new techniques and recipes are appearing every day, from scores of cultural backgrounds. Deliciously decadent yet healthy recipes abound, like roasted sweet potato wedges dipped in lemon and tahini topped hummus. Or dark raw cacao raspberry cashew-cream “cheeze” cake. 😋 There are far more WFPB options than salads, that you can enjoy guilt-free because they’re truly good for you, AND you can rely on your body to signal when it’s full. ✅

That's a Ton of Benefits! So What Should I Actually Eat??

Let’s Use the Highest Standard of WFPB Nutrition

Within the WFPB community, there are many different guidelines, with very similar advice: eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, beans, and herbs. Eat a wide variety of colors to get the full range of phytonutrients.  Eat broccoli.  Etc. etc.

But being nutrition nerds at LeafSide, we wanted the most evidence-based eating plan, where as many specific ingredients as possible have direct clinical intervention evidence, and biochemistry-level explanations of WHY a food (group) is good for us.

Thankfully, Dr. Greger and his dedicated army of volunteers at the non-profit NutritionFacts.org provide the whole world with that level of evidence-based nutrition science. To find the most reliable and actionable nutrition advice, they read the tens of thousands of nutrition research papers published every year “so that busy people like you, don’t have to.”

The best findings are posted online at NutritionFacts as short, 2-5 minute videos — well over 2,000 videos now.  Then Dr. G distilled his decades of experience and his thousands of videos from NutritionFacts into one global bestseller book, How Not to Die and shared its simple Daily Dozen eating guidelines.

With over 3,000 references to the nutrition and medical literature, it’s the best scientific advice for healthy living.

What’s the Daily Dozen? Why Does It Matter?

The Daily Dozen is a set of guidelines from Dr. Michael Greger’s global bestseller, How Not To Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease. Here’s a short and entertaining video overview:

The 10 Evidence-Based Foods

From the book’s 3,000 references, come the ten recommended foods (or groups thereof) in the Daily Dozen, listed below (the other two daily things are healthy beverages, e.g. water/tea; and exercise).

Now That You Know the Highest WFPB Standard, Maybe LeafSide Can Help

Some people learn about WFPB, learn about the Daily Dozen, and can’t wait to crack open the cookbook, make shopping lists, and sharpen their tools for their next super-healthy meals.

For the rest of us who are short on time, patience, or both, LeafSide is here to help make healthy eating ridiculously easy.

LeafSide Makes the Daily Dozen Easy — Every LeafSide Meal Delivers On Average 10 or more DD Units

It’s your choice, any day, anytime, anywhere: one LeafSide meal has strong nutrition by itself. 

Do you use NutritionFact.org’s Daily Dozen App?

Download the Daily Dozen serving breakdown for all of our meals here.

Don’t Compromise Any More On Your Healthy Eating Goals

The status quo is unhealthy convenience meals, or healthy meals requiring time and effort. LeafSide insists on healthy convenience: our complete meal packs deliver leading nutrition science, ready in minutes, to fit your life schedule.

Get Healthy

15 to 30 Whole Food Ingredients In Every Meal

You won’t find another meal product that delivers the same benefits in a single serving.

Each meal pack has 15 to 30 whole plant-based ingredients inside, more than any other meal on the market.

Why does that matter? Because every whole plant food brings its own unique macro-, micro-, and phytonutrients profile, ensuring your body gets everything it needs to thrive.

Also, every whole plant food brings its own unique fiber as a prebiotic that feeds your microbiome and supports its diversity; our trillions of different gut bacteria friends feed on those fibers in different ways, releasing more nutrients for us to use, including all-important short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), which our immune system and brain particularly need.

In fact, the largest study ever done of the human microbiome, the “American Gut Project” found a direct relationship between the number of different whole plant foods eaten, and our overall health markers (look for “dietary plant diversity” on that webpage).

And when you consider that LeafSide meals ONLY use the ingredients shown from nutrition science to provide you with the maximum health benefits, nothing else even comes close.

...and Don't Forget the Special Nutrients

In addition to helping you check off the Daily Dozen (DD) foods, every LeafSide meal has effective amounts of at least three of the following five DD special nutrients, combined in ways that taste great:

Sulforaphane

“The most powerful natural inducer of our liver’s detoxifying enzyme system.”  1

From cruciferous veggies, sulforaphane significantly improves our ability to detox carcinogens, decrease inflammation, and may combat brain inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, synaptic dysfunction, and help protect against cancer. 2 3 4

Ergothioneine

Obtained only through diet, and most abundant in mushrooms, ergothioneine is a newly found antioxidant that our cells have specific receptors for. It may represent a new vitamin that can uniquely enter a cell’s nucleus and mitochondria, concentrating itself wherever there’s high oxidative stress, like the eyes.5 6

Lignan Compounds

Richest in flaxseeds, lignans may reduce the risk of breast cancer, and prolong the life of those affected.  Lignans may also slow the growth of prostate cancer and decrease cholesterol with daily consumption. 7

Turmeric + Black Pepper

With thousands of studies, turmeric has proven itself as one of the most powerful anti-cancer, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory substances known. It has also been shown to effectively treat rheumatoid arthritis better than the leading drug of choice, and may be effective against osteoarthritis and other inflammatory conditions. 8 9 10

Legumes

“Legumes may be the most important predictor of survival for older people around the world.”

Researchers studied long-term eating habits of the longest living people from different continents. They found that the single most beneficial food group was legumes and beans: a 7-8% reduction mortality risk for every 20 grams of daily consumption. 11 12 13

Ready for the best health of your life?

Tasty, filling, effortless, on-demand, go-anywhere meals following the best nutrition science — LeafSide checks all the boxes. Just click to your optimal health and lifestyle.

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