Transition to Plant-Based: A Beginner’s Guide

Life can get pretty hectic sometimes but having a healthy meal every day is important. What we eat matters because the right food can contribute to optimal health and make you become healthier. While giving up potato chips, candy bars and fast food isn’t easy, there are lots of good alternatives to allow you to enjoy a diversity of tastes, flavors, and textures. When you have a healthy diet, you will feel good in the short term and enjoy a healthy life in the long term.

Looking to improve your health and well-being? Dive into our informative guide on plant-based and whole food eating. Learn how to make the transition for plant-based and wholefood diet, understand what is a good diet for optimal health, what is plant-based food, and what is whole food a healthy diet.

What is a good diet for optimal health?

It is believed that a diet that is cholesterol-free, high in nutrients, high in fibre, and contains alkaline is good for your health. Many people switch their diets into whole-food or plant-based (vegan) diets because they meet all of these criteria.

What is Plant-based food?

A plant-based diet is also called a vegan diet. It includes fruit, legumes, grains, nuts, seeds, and vegetables. A plant-based diet does not include any non-plant-based or animal products such as seafood, dairy, meat, and eggs. Here are some of the food substitutions to help you get into vegan diets.

Butter alternative

• You can use almond butter, cashew butter, peanut butter, or sesame butter.

Cheese alternative

• You can choose the cheese made from plant-based sources such as seeds, legumes, nutritional yeast flakes, or nuts.

Milk alternative

• To change to a plant-based diet, you can choose milk made from plant-based sources. Almond milk, coconut milk, oats milk, rice milk, and soy milk are good alternatives.

What is whole food?

Many people try to eat whole food because whole food has not been refined or processed. Indeed, when food is refined, it will lose nutrients. According to The Food Revolution written by John Robbins, when whole-wheat flour is refined into white flour, it will incur the loss of nutrients. For example, white flour has:

• 56% less Calcium than the whole-wheat flour
• 82% less Manganese than the whole-wheat flour
• 69% less Phosphorus than the whole-wheat flour
• 25% less Protein than the whole-wheat flour
• 62% less copper than the whole-wheat flour
• 87% less Vitamin B6 than the whole-wheat flour
• 95% less Vitamin E than the whole-wheat flour
• 52% less Selenium than the whole-wheat flour
• 76% less Zinc than the whole-wheat flour

Therefore, eating whole food which has not been refined or processed can make our body has more nutrients. Here are some examples of whole food:

12 essential tips for a healthy diet

If you are looking for some inspiration on how to move to a healthy diet, here are 12 good tips to help you start a healthy journey.

1. Change your cooking method from frying and over-cooking to blanching, steaming, dry roasting, and poaching.
2. Avoid 100% of all cooked food in a meal. Try to eat 50 percent of cooked food and 50 percent of fresh and raw food in your meal.
3. Choose whole-grain products instead of refined grain products.
4. Use unrefined sweeteners such as palm sugar fruit juice, jaggery. You can also use whole sweeteners like dates, dried fruits, and raisins. Avoid using refined sweeteners in general.
5. Change the diet from animal-based products to plant-based food.
6. Eat at least two hours before you go to bed.
7. Avoid junk food, artificial, and processed food.
8. Choose organic food.
9. Replace tea or coffee with green tea or other herbal teas such as mint tea, fennel teas, ginger teas, black peppercorns, lemongrass, or tulsi tea.
10. Change from extracted fats products such as oils and butter to whole fats products like nuts and seeds.