Quite a few years ago, I watched a programme on Netflix called Forks Over Knives, a documentary about whole food and plant-based diets. I was so inspired after watching it and thought I would try a plant-based diet right away. Although apparently, I’ve failed, the ideas introduced in the programme have since changed the way I shop for groceries and eat.

Whole foods

Whole foods are foods that are unprocessed, such as fruit and vegetables, beans, grains, etc. A lot of dairy products and anything that’s highly refined, such as white flour and sugar are not whole foods.

Unlike a vegetarian diet, a whole food diet doesn’t focus on eating just vegetables because vegetables alone don’t give our body enough energy. If we only eat vegetables for an extended period, we’ll just be hungry, lack energy, and end up with disorders like binge eating.

The foundation of whole food or plant-based diet is fruits and starchy vegetables such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, sweetcorn and peas, or whole grains such as brown rice and quinoa. These foods keep us full.

Vegetarian

A vegetarian diet is generally seen as a healthy diet. But it’s not necessarily true. Vegetarians don’t eat meat, but they can eat pizza, crisps, fries, chocolate cookies, and they can eat a lot of processed and refined foods such as cheese, butter and ice cream.

On the other hand, a whole foods diet focuses on health. The key isn’t to stop eating meat. The key is whole food – unprocessed food.

Give it a go

Can I go 100% whole food or plant-based? I’ve already tried. I can’t. While I prefer vegetables to meat most of the time, I do like a flame-grilled steak or chicken tikka masala once in a while. Other than that, I never really like processed food, not even pasta sauce, dressing or anything like that. I prefer homemade stuff, like fresh lemon juice for salad dressing and fresh tomatoes for pasta sauce. For a long time I was so stubborn I wouldn’t even use chopped tomatoes in a tin!

Switching from takeaways to home cooking and from store-bought stuff to homemade stuff take a bit of determination. Who’s got all that time to make everything at home anyway?! But once you get used to it, you’ll soon realise cooking at home isn’t just much healthier, it’s fun too!

Speaking of vegetables, these are some of my favourite vegetarian soups.

And a few vegetarian dishes I like.

Forks Over Knives – Official Trailer

The documentary is now streaming for free here.

If you’ve watched it, let me know what you think in the comments below! You can also join my email list to get all the new recipes and updates in your inbox 🙂

Janice xx