2: What Is Whole Food Plant-Based? And, Why Does It Even Matter?

Jarrod: 0:58

This is the Smarter Healthy Living podcast episode number two. What is whole food plant based? And why does it even matter? Stay tuned and find out.

Anita: 1:08

You're listening to the Smarter Healthy Living podcast where we firmly believe that getting healthy should never feel like torture, where your host, Jarrod and Anita Roussel were college sweethearts, and health professionals who help you redefine what getting healthy looks like using a whole food plant based lifestyle. It's time to hear from the experts and learn the best tips and tricks that helped others get beyond the overwhelm, to create a vibrant life they love. If you're sick and tired of being sick, and tired, you're in the right place. So pull up a virtual chair, grab your matcha latte, and let's get started. What is healthy plant based? and what isn't it? You know, a lot of people come up to us and they say, what exactly is this thing you're doing? Is it vegan? Isn't it like vegetarian? We don't know. We're confused. Well, we don't want you to be confused. We want to make sure you have the right info. You understand the differences? It really is important. So what exactly is whole food? whole food is produce as close to its original form as possible. In the form it was created.

Jarrod: 2:13

Yes.

Anita: 2:14

It is whole... plant... food.

Jarrod: 2:17

Yes. And it's something that your grandparents would recognize as food.

Anita: 2:22

Yeah. Parents, grandparents, great grandparents, they'd look at and say, Oh, that's food.

Jarrod: 2:26

If you brought a box of Cheez-Its, it's up to your great grandparents, they would say, what is this?

Anita: 2:33

That would not be what they knew as food grown up. Right? So and the other thing is people say, You mean, I have to have it only whole like I have to have the apple whole. So if I cut it up, is it no longer whole food? No, not at all. No, you can cut it up. You can mix it with other ingredients. We're going to create some great deliciousness. We know how to do that, right? But you have to be able to know how to combine these things and make them absolutely delicious. So yeah, you can absolutely take an apple and eat at home. That's fantastic. But hold does that mean that you can't cut it up, mix it in with other things and make delicious recipes and combine it that way too. Right?

Jarrod: 3:14

It's simply saying though, that you're minimally processing the food, you're not taking it and ultra processing and pulling out one part, exactly. subjecting it to a lot of heat or other chemical processes.

Anita: 3:27

So you think about white sugar, it's just that one piece pulled out. without all the fiber. You're losing all the phytonutrients and the good stuff that's in there. high fructose corn syrup, white flours, yes. Right. So the bran's left off, good stuff, fibers again, a lot of the phytonutrients. Oils pressed out. Do you ever see a big one? Yes. Right. When have you ever gone for a stroll outside your walk in your walking? You look over and you say, oh, there's an oil tree? Look at those beautiful bottles of oil hanging on that tree? Isn't that wonderful? No. And there's a reason for that. That is pressed out high calorie stuff. Okay, so oil is not a whole food. And then processed frozen foods, things like that anything that's processed, hopefully plant based can include minimally processed things like tofu, tempeh, those are the first ones I think off the top of my head.

Jarrod: 4:22

Yes.

Anita: 4:23

And but in whole food plant base, you want to eliminate or reduce animal products to up to 5% or less. That's the standard definition. And

Jarrod: 4:33

That would that would be about the same as having one meal a week that included an animal product. It would be meat, dairy or eggs,

Anita: 4:41

right. And we always encourage people to move as close to 100% as possible. That's always our goal. But that doesn't mean that has to be your goal. So don't hear this and say, I can't do whole food plant based because I'm not going to jump right in and do 95%. We know and the study show that the more whole plant foods you can get into your life, that absolute better health you're going to be in.

Jarrod: 5:03

Even with just one added servings a day, it shows that there are benefits,

Anita: 5:09

Right. And it just makes you feel so much better when your body gets those nutrients they need. But we have to have it in a way that's easy to create. And that tastes amazing. How do you do that? We're going to talk about that. So what makes me sad though, is a lot of people, they hear this list and they think, Oh, I'm gonna be deprived. I mean, you got this idea that for some reason, a vegetable is salad or zero point cabbage soup, and that's what you're gonna have to live on the rest of your life. There's no way it's going to taste good. And it it just, it makes me so sad because we've discovered how to make vegetables and fruits and all those things tastes so good. And your taste buds are going to change and your taste perceptions are going to change as you go and you're going to just pick up an apple and you're going to taste things in that plain apple. You've never tasted before.

Jarrod: 5:58

But then you're you're going to crave it though. You're... When you think I'm hungry, you're going to

Anita: 6:01

Yeah. start wanting these other foods, these new foods, it's amazing. It's like this all foods kind of lose their handle or their, their grip they had on you, really. So now we enjoy... Of course, we enjoy salads and veggie soup. We're not trying to bash them or anything, but it's just that there's so much more for you to enjoy when it comes to whole plant foods than just that. I mean, it's just endless, even if, well, it's virtually endless. Right, so you can take all the stuff, you think of one little category of food, beans, whole plant food, within the bean category, you got a ton of different kinds of beans. And within with each beam, there's about a bazillion different ways you can cook it, mix it, make it and so it's just, it's unbelievable the different amount of things that you can create in the whole food plant based realm.

Jarrod: 6:58

We just want you to know the that it can be done. And we know because we do it every day. People hear these lists and they really think of this is a list of "I can'ts" but we really want you to flip that on its head and look at it as this is a list of"I cans". And it's much wider much broader than you probably realize right now.

Anita: 7:19

And you want to start focusing on I can have all of these amazing foods. And you know what, you can have a lot of the same foods, a lot of the same ret types of recipes and things.

Unknown: 7:30

What kind of foods do we have that that people probably recognize, but think they can never have again,?

Anita: 7:36

Sloppy Joe's, burgers.

Jarrod: 7:38

What ?!

Anita: 7:38

Sushi.

Jarrod: 7:39

Sushi?!

Anita: 7:40

Pizza, burritos, tacos. We eat, all of those things and so many more, and shepherd's pie. What are some of our other favorites, you can think of chili, of course,

Jarrod: 7:50

Oh my goodness.

Unknown: 7:51

Loaded baked potatoes. We just do it in a different way. And it tastes amazing. We think it even tastes better. But again, your taste buds change so quickly doing this. And frappuccinos, hot cocoas. I've always got some kind of good drink in my little container over here. That's my absolute favorite, my clinking team. And that just living this way is completely delicious. You just need to learn how to flip the things that you're doing, still have the same foods that you love, but you're going to learn how to make recipe upgrades. And that's where the whole thing changes for you. Your whole world can change when you learn to make those upgrades.

Jarrod: 8:30

Now, you asked a question earlier or mentioned a question was, which was what is vegan? Because we get asked that is this the same as vegan? And it's not. There are some similarities, but they're not exactly the same. Some of the major differences are that with vegan, it's pretty much if it's not from an animal source, it's okay. So meat, dairy eggs, and actually even honey. So if you're truly going strictly vegan, then you would not have any of those products, those those specific products,

Anita: 8:58

No meat, no dairy, no eggs, no honey,

Unknown: 9:01

Exactly. Okay. Now, in vegan, it can include products that are very highly processed. So like some of these artificial meats or plant based meats, these plant based burgers,

Anita: 9:15

Vegan chicken nuggets, vegan burgers that are done in that, well, they're in the frozen food section, Impossible Burgers, things like that.

Unknown: 9:22

And oils, that's a huge, huge, I would say difference because oils are used, or can be used pretty liberally within the vegan lifestyle. Also two vegans, sometimes with individuals can be motivated more from the stance of animals, like they want to avoid cruelty to animals, so that there may be a large component with that aspect. But I would say in some instances, though, that choosing vegan may not be any healthier than just the standard American way of eating, because of the fact that some of the things are very highly processed. So if you take a plant protein versus an animal protein, even if you're processing it, it's not going to be that much healthier.

Anita: 10:06

But then she found an interesting chair that as we've started this lifestyle, and years ago that it really it wasn't for the reason it was for our health. It wasn't for the motivation of saving the animals or protecting the animals. But we've always cared about animals,

Jarrod: 10:23

And treating them ethically.

Anita: 10:25

And now that we've been living this lifestyle,

Unknown: 10:28

We feel much more sympathetic towards animals.

Anita: 10:31

It's really interesting.

Jarrod: 10:33

I think, because we no longer see them as food, there is more sympathy towards them.

Anita: 10:38

Yeah, that's true, too. But why does it matter? Why does this really matter? Well, number one is the nutrients your body is great craving certain nutrients your cell was made. Your cells were made more than one cell, right? They're made to function in a certain way and they work require absolutely require certain nutrients that are stripped out of our foods when they're processed. And when they're just treated in the way they are to go in the products that we're eating on a regular basis.

Jarrod: 11:11

And with vegan there can be a lot of unnecessary additives, preservatives flavor enhancers, that if they're not from an animal source, then they are okay. And with whole food plant base, you're typically not going to find as much of that just because you're trying to keep it as close to the natural product as possible. Now, it has been scientifically proven it's a well known fact that refined foods like the ones we talked about the refined sugars, the white sugars, white flowers, the oils are do lead to chronic disease.

Anita: 11:46

Hmm, absolutely. And then vegetarian, the difference is, is vegetarians will eliminate meat and animal products and that way with meat, but they keep the dairy and eggs in their life. So whole food plant based gain familiarity. It became more popular when?

Jarrod: 12:04

Around the 1990s

Anita: 12:06

Yeah

Jarrod: 12:06

In that range. They became use a whole food plant base to differentiate between vegan and vegetarian.

Anita: 12:14

So that verbiage that's they took that on.

Jarrod: 12:16

Exactly. It's still I don't think widely heard. But it became more popular than because there was they tried to create a differentiation. Mm hmm.

Anita: 12:26

And the food industry saw and had an interest in people liking vegan and vegetarian they saw a growing interest in vegan and vegetarian so they start creating products like plant based burgers, plant based chicken nuggets and things like that. And, and that's how that came to be.

Jarrod: 12:45

Yes, give people what they want. But the problem is again, that started to introduce a lot of the the processed foods. Now, with whole food plant base, it is the only way of eating that has been scientifically shown to prevent and reverse the chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and really the list goes on. Autoimmune diseases. Again, it's amazing what this way a living can do.

Anita: 13:10

Well, and so many of those things are tied to gut health and vascular health. And we're going to be talking about that more as we go. But to wrap it up. The thing that we want to end on here is what are the foundational foods you need in your life to be whole food plant base, and these are the things you want to get more of, to increase your health to increase your energy to start feeling better again, to be able to get out there and live the life you were created to live. You want to get more of these foundational foods, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, legumes, things like that nuts and seeds, and delicious herbs and spices. If you have herbs and spices that you like start using more than if you don't have herbs and spices that you like start discovering the antioxidant ability than just an overall anti inflammatory nutritional benefits and herbs and spices are amazing and the flavors are through the roof phenomenal you've got to get more herbs and spices into your life.

Jarrod: 14:08

Antibacterial, antiviral, even anti cancer properties.

Anita: 14:12

And, we're gonna be talking more about herbs and spices. I have a feeling there's an upcoming podcast there because I love me some herbs and spices and then you know, you start wondering is dry better or fresh better, what's better, so we got to talk about that for sure that'll be coming up. Listen, we have a bunch of great info coming your way. So be sure to click that button right now to follow or subscribe so you don't miss out. And after that, head on over to smarter healthy living for a little surprise we have for you. Grab Your Free Copy of the exact grocery list to make your next whole food plant based shopping trip a breeze. We've even included our 10 of our favorite meal ideas to get you started. So click the Follow button and head over right now to smarter healthy living.com to get your free guide and we'll see you again on the next episode.