The Vegan diet

A properly planned vegan diet consists primarily of whole foods. It is often called a Whole-Foods, Plant-Based (WFPB) diet.

This diet doesn’t just eliminate animal foods… it also eliminates a number of foods that science has shown to be harmful.

What else do they remove, besides animal foods? Let’s have a look…

• Refined sugar: Causes insulin resistance and fatty liver. Strong links to obesity, diabetes and heart disease (2, 3, 4, 5, 6).
• Refined grains: Lead to rapid spikes in blood sugar, insulin resistance and weight gain. Strong links to many chronic, Western diseases (7, 8, 9).
• Vegetable Oils: High in inflammatory Omega-6 fatty acids, increase inflammation and oxidative damage (10, 11, 12).
• Trans Fats: Extremely harmful, man-made fats found in processed foods and linked to many serious diseases, especially heart disease (13, 14).

Not to mention that these diets also eliminate processed foods… which are low in nutrients and high in harmful ingredients and artificial chemicals.

I personally find it plausible that the benefits of vegan diets are largely caused by avoiding processed foods and harmful ingredients like added sugar. It has absolutely nothing to do with avoiding unprocessed animal foods.

In the studies on vegan diets, they usually compare against the junk food-laden Western diet, NOT a whole foods based diet like paleo or the Mediterranean diet.

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