1. Avoid Making Decisions as Much as Possible

Making decisions is where diet changes often break down in practice, and the average person makes about 200 food-related decisions daily. All those decisions can lead to decision fatigue, which erodes your willpower. Try to set up your life so that your food-related decisions are minimized and the healthiest choice is also the easiest. How to do this? Stock your house and kitchen with healthy food and be as consistent with your intentions as much as you can, such as by bringing food with you during errands and trips so you don’t need to forage in a gas station and keeping food (that you like!) in your desk at work so you don’t have to resort to the vending machine or unhealthy snacks laying around the office.

2. When Decisions Are Needed, Try to Make Them in Advance

The challenge to fully getting out of the “pleasure trap” is that addictive foods can feel good in the immediate moment. That’s why people who create implementation intentions tend to be more successful at creating new habits than those who don’t. This means making a plan with yourself before you get to the decision-making point. Going out to eat with friends on Friday? Look at the restaurant’s menu online and figure out what you’re going to order in advance. When you get there, enjoy the company and don’t spend your energy and time figuring out how to navigate the menu.

3. Change Your Environment to Break Bad Habits

Breaking habits is hard when you’re accustomed to behaving in a certain way in a certain context, but even making changes to your environment that don’t seem food-related can help you in interrupting your typical patterns. When you’re starting a new behavior, try shopping in a new grocery store or rearranging your furniture. These physical changes can help you shift your feeling about what is normal, which can help make other changes seem normal too.

4. Don’t Let Yourself Get Too Hungry

Practicing self-control, and the capacity for it, are both correlated with stored glucose levels in the brain. That means making decisions can make you tired, and it also takes energy and can contribute to getting hungrier. Even cravings can be intensified, as researchers have long noted in the context of studying withdrawal. The moral of the story? Plan ahead and bring snacks so you can avoid feeling “hangry,” the moment when you’re most likely to veer off course.

5. Focus on Supporting Yourself in the First Few Weeks

The good news about diet and habits is that most behaviors repeated on a regular basis turn into habits. While intentions matter at the beginning of a new behavior, they matter less and less as habits become stronger.¹ Plus, simply repeating a behavior will strengthen the automaticity with which you do it—so at the beginning of any dietary change, know that the first few weeks will take some work, but if you can support yourself in as many ways as possible so you repeat the behavior as frequently as possible, you’ll be paid back as it becomes habit that much more quickly. Besides doing the four things listed above, “supporting yourself” could also mean connecting with other plant-based eaters, journaling about your experiences, or using a reminder or scheduling app on your phone. Just do what works for you, and what will help keep you on track.

The longer you eat plant-based, the more automatic and easier it will be, so you’ll need to rely less and less on these strategies to stay on track. Once you’re in a routine of plant-based eating, you won’t have to stop to think about it, and you can just enjoy being a healthier, happier, more effective person in the world!

Ready to get started? Check out Forks Meal Planner, FOK’s easy weekly meal-planning tool to keep you on a healthy plant-based path. To learn more about a whole-food, plant-based diet, visit our Plant-Based Primer.

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Superfood is Neither a Technical Nor Scientific Term

Where are things going awry? In spite of the fact that the word “superfood” is neither a technical nor scientific term, some of these claims about specific nutrients do have research supporting them. However, focusing on any single nutrient or class of nutrients outside the context of the whole, natural foods that contain them is a misplaced emphasis; the total dietary pattern is what most influences health outcomes, even if experimental evidence exists that a particular nutrient may have a given effect on the body. The preoccupation with concentrated food substances is really an extension of the preoccupation with the specific nutrients or nutrient classes.

Popular media defines a “superfood” as a food that contains unusually high amounts of specific nutrients, often antioxidants — substances that combat cell damage due to aging and other factors. It’s easy to fall into thinking that if some is good, more must be better. What we are forgetting here is that eating more of a nutrient doesn’t necessarily mean that our bodies will use it; absorption and utilization are largely determined by the body’s need at the time of consumption along with many other variables. Drinking pomegranate juice or blueberry extract may do no more than put a hole in our pockets, along with encouraging overconsumption of simple sugars without the fiber those sugars are naturally paired with in the fruit. And in some cases an excess can be every bit as problematic for health as a deficiency.

What About Antioxidants?

The example of antioxidants illustrates the misconception around “getting enough” of this class of nutrients. When we’re eating a colorful whole-food, plant-based diet, we don’t need to concern ourselves with antioxidant deficiency. It is when we eat a diet poor in fruits and vegetables (and therefore antioxidants) that we need to worry about getting enough of them. Processed foods contain few antioxidants, because they are stripped during processing. And the antioxidants present in animal foods reside in the animal’s tissues only because it consumed plants during its lifetime. Why not eliminate the middleman and get the antioxidants directly?

When are plant-based “superfoods” good for us? When they are whole and part of a low-fat diet comprised of foods eaten fresh, as grown, then yes — absolutely! A diet that includes potatoes, rice, beans, bananas, apples, spinach, kale, corn, cucumbers, kumquats, squash, quinoa, lettuce, tomatoes, sprouts, nuts, strawberries, and whatever else you want to throw on the plate is a great program! Eating colorful foods is beneficial, as long as they are whole foods and not extracts, powders, or concentrated individual nutrients. Eating for variety and color is a strategy that will deliver all the nutrients we need (with the possible exception of vitamin B12), as long as we are consuming adequate calories. We need not worry about whether or how we are getting enough of certain single nutrients or classes of nutrients.

It might be easier to just call a whole-food, plant-based diet a “superdiet” and leave it at that.

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For a special-occasion dessert or brunch, top crepes with vegan chocolate chips and fresh strawberry slices. For an everyday recipe, skip the chocolate and use whatever fruits you have on hand; berries, peach slices, banana, and kiwifruit also work well. 

More Topping Ideas: For a savory vegan crepe, try topping with plant-based nut cheese, greens, and toasted walnuts or pecans, or use it as a burrito-style wrap. For kids, try rolling them up with plant-based yogurt and a little maple syrup, or slice a banana lengthwise, drizzle it with lemon juice, and roll it up in a crepe, like a “banana dog.” Leftover crepes also make great wraps for peanut butter and jelly or hummus and avocado. Inspire us with some of your creations in the comments below!

For more inspiration, check out these tasty ideas:

• Chocolaty Black Bean Pancakes
• Vegan Palacinky (Czech Sweet Crepes)
• Sweet Moroccan Pancakes with Chocolate Banana Sauce
• Potato Waffle Sandwiches with Herbed Tofu Cream

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From A Plant-Based Life: Your Complete Guide to Great Food, Radiant Health, Boundless Energy, and a Better Body

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1. Focus on foods without labels.

Let’s get this out of the way right now: Our goal is not to eat a lot of foods that require packaging or labels.

Picture your refrigerator full of green kale, yellow lemons, red apples, and a rainbow array of fresh fruits and vegetables, and your pantry brimming with whole grains and red, yellow, orange, black, white, and brown legumes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and a sampling of nuts and seeds.

Most of these items can be purchased without packaging (unless the package just functions to hold a single ingredient, like raisins or beans), because they are intact, whole natural foods … and we want these to comprise the bulk of our diet. However, there are a variety of prepared and lightly processed foods that make eating a whole-food, plant-based diet a lot easier to maintain—for example, whole-grain products like crackers, wraps, and pizza crusts; canned products like beans, tomato paste, and tomato sauce; boxed products like plant milks, and of course frozen fruits and vegetables.

2. Don’t believe anything you read on the front of a package.

Food packages tend to be plastered with bold, exciting, and mostly meaningless, unregulated assertions. Rule number one, as registered dietitian Jeff Novick likes to say, is “don’t believe anything you read on the front of a package.” In other words, be wary of deceptive marketing hype that makes junk foods appear healthy.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the regulatory body that sets the standards for health claims on food packages and labels. However, the FDA’s ability to regulate unfounded claims is severely limited, both legally and practically, due to limited resources for investigation and enforcement.

(For those of you who want a more detailed explanation of food packing claims, see my breakdown below.)

3. Read the ingredient list.

Reading the ingredient list is key. Aim for shorter ingredient lists with recognizable ingredients, and watch out for words ending “ose.” That signifies the substance is a sugar. Ingredients are listed in order of descending volume, so if you see wheat flour first followed by glucose, high-fructose corn syrup, and maltose, it’s likely the total sugar from those three (by weight) adds up to more than the amount of flour.

In addition, don’t fall for any promises that a flour is made from whole grains unless the ingredient listed is “100% whole wheat flour” or “100% whole grain spelt flour,” or the like.

4. Check the Nutrition Facts panel.

Now you can move on to the Nutrition Facts panel—something to always check! Here’s an overview of what’s important:

Fat

Although the Nutrition Facts label no longer includes calories from fat, you can find that out yourself with a few calculations. A gram of fat equals 9 calories, so first multiply the total grams of fat by nine. Divide that number by the total calories. Multiply the result by 100 to find the percentage. Aim for the fat calories to be 15% of total calories or less (so that’s fat calories/total calories < 0.15). Doing this calculation will steer you toward foods that have little to no added fats and oils.

Cholesterol

Next, note the cholesterol count. Plant foods don’t contain cholesterol, so if you see anything greater than “0” next to cholesterol, that’s a clue to reread the ingredient list and check for hidden animal products.

Sodium

The USDA has set 2,300 mg as the upper safe limit for daily sodium intake. If you eat only meals like the ones on our recipe pages, with almost no added salt, you’ll still easily get adequate sodium from whole plant foods. So if you eat any packaged or prepared foods, keeping to the 2,300 mg limit (or better yet, 1,500 mg) is possible only by eating foods that contain very little to no added sodium. Jeff Novick’s handy trick is to make sure the milligrams of sodium don’t exceed the calories per serving. 

Sugar

Finally, take a look at the sugars. Remember that whole plant foods will contain some naturally occurring sugar (which, unlike highly processed sugar, comes packaged with fiber and other nutrients). However, you’ll want to avoid products that have a significant amount of sugar added. The new Nutrition Facts label, which completed its rollout in January 2021, discloses the amount of added sugars in a given product, making it easier than ever to check for this. 

2 Nutrition Facts Elements Not to Worry About

Protein: Don’t worry about the protein! If you eat a whole-food, plant-based diet, you will naturally get all the protein you need, without having to think about it. 

Daily Values: The amount of any particular nutrient that we absorb and metabolize can vary widely from person to person and time to time, based on a multitude of factors, including our need at that moment, and what else we eat at the same time, At best, food labels provide ballpark estimates of nutrient content, given the poor quality assurance, inadequate sample sizes, and lack of evaluation standards common in the industry. Another reason not to get too excited about using the Daily Values is that they were calculated only for adults and haven’t actually been updated in decades.

How to Decipher Food Packaging Claims

There are three types of potentially misleading packaging claims: health claims, structure/function claims, and nutrient claims. The FDA is the regulatory body that sets the standards for these claims. However, the FDA’s ability to regulate unfounded claims is severely limited, both legally and practically, due to limited resources for investigation and enforcement.

Health Claims and Structure/Function Claims

To most consumers, all three types of claims look pretty similar, particularly the first two. Here are the technical descriptions of both:

• Health claim: Includes an evidence-backed statement relating a food or food component to a disease or health outcome. These claims have to be reviewed and evaluated by the FDA prior to use.
• Structure/function claim: Describes the effect that a “substance” (rather than a nutrient or food) has in affecting the normal structure or function in the body, without making reference to a disease. No evidence review from the FDA is required; the manufacturer merely has to submit a letter declaring its intent to use the claim and include the disclaimer “This statement has not been evaluated by the FDA” on its packaging. Here are some examples of each kind—can you easily tell them apart? Verbs like “support,” “maintain,” and “boost” are often used in structure/function claims.

Nutrient Claims

The third kind of claim, a nutrient claim, makes a statement about the nutrient content of the food, and for example, may use the words “good” or “excellent.” Use of these two words is based on the daily values (DV) for each nutrient. For instance, a package can claim its contents to be a “good source of calcium” if one serving contains 10 to 19% of the daily value for calcium. An “excellent source” is defined as 20 percent or more of the daily value.

However, as discussed above, we don’t recommend trying to organize your diet around meeting recommended levels of particular nutrients. 

The Bottom Line

Remember, the fewer packaged/labeled foods you eat the better. When buying packaged foods, don’t pay attention to words like natural, wholesome, and optimal—they don’t mean anything. Instead, focus on reading the ingredients list and the Nutrition Facts panel. Following these simple guidelines and finding your go-to brands will make healthy eating a whole lot easier. And know that the more you practice deciphering product packaging, the easier smart shopping will be.

To learn more about a whole-food, plant-based diet, visit our Plant-Based Primer. For meal-planning support, check out Forks Meal Planner, FOK’s easy weekly meal-planning tool to keep you on a healthy plant-based path.

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From A Plant-Based Life: Your Complete Guide to Great Food, Radiant Health, Boundless Energy, and a Better Body

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Many people mistakenly believe that plant-based eating is more expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. What can get expensive quickly is buying lots of “faux” meats and cheeses (real meat and cheese is already costly), packaged and prepared food, and takeout. A diet composed of simple, wholesome ingredients can actually cost less than one that includes meat. Here are some strategies you can use to keep costs low:

1. Join a CSA (community supported agriculture) program.
2. Buy foods from the bulk section of a store.
3. Place wholesale orders together with other people.
4. Prioritize whole, plant-based food over organic.
5. Shop at big box stores for staples (their inventory is expanding).
6. Start a garden or container garden; you can get free seeds from your local Cooperative Extension.

Given all the sources of affordable plant-based foods, it really is possible not to spend more. This table compares the cost of two plant-based dinners using groceries purchased at Walmart in Pennsylvania in 2015 to the epitome of cheap food—McDonald’s—for a family of four. These meals assume you have a few spices and vinegars at home in the kitchen, but the cost of these is factored into the comparison.

Dinner for Four, Four Different Ways

*Additional research by Kathy Pollard.

_{Excerpt from A Plant-Based Life: Your Complete Guide to Great Food, Radiant Health, Boundless Energy, and a Better Body by Micaela Cook Karlsen. © 2016 Micaela Cook Karlsen}

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1. Know where to find your food.

Not every grocery store supplies whole plant-based foods in the variety you want at the right price. Take the time to check out options near you, including food co-ops, community supported agriculture (CSA) shares, which give you a season’s share of a local farmer’s harvest (often organic and a great value), and bulk sections of grocery stores. Even dollar stores and Walmart are worth checking out, especially if you’re on a tight budget (read about a great example HERE).

2. Treat others the way you want to be treated.

Not everyone wants the same thing, and this is true when it comes to our diets. Some people may be excited to try eating the way you eat, some may just be happy for you, and some may not be interested all. A real friend will respect your choices, and you can return the favor by respecting theirs, whatever they are. Check in with yourself when you’re about to share about how you eat—did the person ask you with open interest, or are they not really looking for an exchange of ideas and a real discussion?

3. Call ahead and speak up in restaurants.

Eating out is getting easier, as more and more plant-based options are cropping up on restaurant menus. However, these dishes are still prepared with oil and/or sugar more commonly than not, so never hesitate to call ahead when planning an evening out. You can also ask your server for suggestions given your dietary preferences. Replacing salad dressing with avocado and vinegar or lemon juice is one tried-and-true method for cleaning up almost any salad. You can also try ordering a variety of sides as your main course, asking that your veggies be steamed instead of fried or sautéed, or requesting the sauce on the side.

4. Rely on planning, not willpower, to stay plant-based.

Willpower most likely developed to help humans navigate social tensions, not so we could prevent ourselves from eating. We are designed to keep eating until we’re full! If you know you’ll be away from home for a while, be sure to plan ahead and bring enough food for snacks and meals, or make a plan of where you’ll stop to grab something healthy.²

5. Stick to the healthy basics when traveling.

If you didn’t have a chance to pack your meals and snacks, don’t worry. You might not normally eat mostly raw fruits and vegetables or make whole meals of fruit alone, but there’s no reason why you can’t throw one in there from time to time! The biggest challenges in traveling are stopping at highway rest areas, gas stations, and waiting in airports, because of their lack of healthy meals. Fortunately, almost every gas station and airport convenience store sells fruit. Need to load up on a quick meal? Just buy 5 or 6 bananas and/or apples—each one runs about 100kcal.³

<sub>References:
1. Baumeister RF, Bratslavsky E, Muraven M, Tice DM. Ego depletion: is the active self a limited resource? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1998;74(5):1252-1265.
2. Gailliot MT, Baumeister RF, DeWall CN, et al. Self-control relies on glucose as a limited energy source: willpower is more than a metaphor. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2007;92(2):325-336.
3. USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 27. 2014.</sub>

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The idea that we are uniquely individual is accurate when it comes to our personalities, our aspirations, our contributions to the world, and to some extent our biology. But it is a big leap from noting that some people’s systems can better handle stress (unhealthy food is one form of stress) to stating that some people require entirely different categories of food than others.

Human beings are one species; we are all the same animal, with the same digestive physiology. And, as is true of all species, we do not require personalized nutritional programs unless we are dealing with a specific disease or some other very unusual condition. Even then, our differences are a matter of degree, not direction. One person might be able to handle more fat in the diet without gaining weight or developing heart disease, particularly if they are highly active. Another person might need to follow Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn’s low-fat plant-based diet strictly to reverse their advanced-stage heart disease. But eating a high-fat diet, or a high-protein diet, carries no health advantage for any of us, when compared with the well-documented benefits of eating a variety of whole, plant-based foods, in sufficient quantity to meet our caloric needs.

How Much Protein, Fat, and Carbs Do We Actually Need?

The National Academy of Sciences has actually written a sourcebook for the nutrient requirements of humans and many other species,^[i] including cattle, swine, poultry, fish, dogs, cats, nonhuman primates, and more. These requirements are based on observed symptoms of deficiency at lower levels of consumption. While protein and fat requirements vary a bit depending on gender and life stage (babies and young children need a bit more of each), the recommendations for adults do not vary anywhere near the extent to which we humans currently vary our diets.

According to the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine’s macronutrient recommendations for humans*, we need:

• Roughly 10% protein
• At least 6% essential fats
• At least 130 grams of carbohydrate

The average requirement for protein is set at one basic level for adults of our species: the RDA for protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight^[ii] This translates to around 10% of calories from protein for the average person, a recommendation that is well padded with a safety margin designed to meet the needs of virtually all of the population. A few well-known low-carb diet plans, however, recommend eating 25% of calories from protein—far and away exceeding our requirement!^[iii] This is in spite of the fact that there are a multitude of animal studies^{[iv] [v] [vi]} and human observational studies^{[vii] [viii]} that caution against eating too much protein. (Many well-known medical authorities do as well^{[ix] [x]}.)

Where nutrition is concerned, it’s helpful to ask yourself, “Where in nature can I find an example of this?” And in this example of a very wide variation of nutrient intake, the answer is “nowhere.” In other words, you’ll be hard pressed to stumble upon horses that do better with some meat in their diet because of their blood type, or bears that need twice the protein intake of other bears. If they did, the ranchers and zookeepers would have quite a job on their hands, wouldn’t they? Somehow this logic evades us, when it comes to humans.

Our species has specific nutritional requirements, and we can meet them by eating whole plant foods in sufficient quantity to maintain healthy body weight, just as other animals do, in their natural environments.

_{Sources Cited:
[i] The National Academies Press. Accessed March 14, 2015.
[ii] USDA Dietary Reference Intakes. Accessed March 14, 2015. 
[iii] A Week of Paleo Meals. Accessed March 14, 2015. 
[iv] Appleton BS, and Campbell TC. “Inhibition of aflatoxin-initiated preneoplastic liver lesions by low dietary protein.” Nutr. Cancer 3 (1982): 200–206.
[v] Youngman LD, and Campbell TC. “High protein intake promotes the growth of preneoplastic foci in Fischer #344 rats: evidence that early remodeled foci retain the potential for future growth.” J. Nutr. 121 (1991): 1454–1461.
[vi] Youngman LD, and Campbell TC. “Inhibition of aflatoxin B1-induced gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase positive (GGT+) hepatic preneoplastic foci and tumors by low protein diets: evidence that altered GGT+ foci indicate neoplastic potential.” Carcinogenesis 13 (1992):1607–1613.
[vii] Levine ME et al. Low Protein Intake Is Associated with a Major Reduction in IGF-1, Cancer, and Overall Mortality in the 65 and Younger but Not Older Population. Cell Metab. 2014 Mar 4;19(3):407–17.
[viii] Fung TT et al. Low-carbohydrate diets and all-cause and cause-specific mortality: two cohort studies. Ann Intern Med. 2010 Sep 7;153(5):289–98.
[ix] High-Protein, Low-Carb Diets Explained, accessed January 15, 2015.
[x] High-Protein Diets, accessed January 15, 2015.}

_{*DERIVING THE ABOVE MACRONUTRIENT RECOMMENDATIONS:
To calculate these numbers, you have to look at the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for protein and the Adequate Intake, or “AI”, set for essential fats in the Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) tables for macronutrient composition (reference #10). These DRIs are developed by the Institute of Medicine, based on the available relevant evidence. The RDA is a specific recommended level of intake that should be adequate for 97.5% of a normally distributed population. The AI is what most people in the population eat on average and is used when there is not enough evidence to set an RDA.
Using the average requirements as target intakes (a strategy even suggested in the DRI tables), a man weighing 175 pounds who eats a 2500-calorie diet would require 63.6g of protein and 18.6g of essential fats per day. The protein requirement is calculated by converting 175 pounds to 79.5 kilograms, and then multiplying 79.5 kilograms by 0.8 grams, the recommended daily protein intake based on body weight. The AI for essential fat is 18.6 grams for adult men. However, because whole plant foods naturally contain fat, if you eat a WFPB diet and don’t overdo the nuts and seeds, you’ll get more than the bare minimum of essential fats – around 40 grams is more likely.
PROTEIN: 63.6 grams at 4 calories per gram = 254 calories from protein.
FAT: 40.0 grams at 9 calories per gram = 360 calories from fat.
CARBS: The remaining calories are carbohydrate, which are calculated by subtraction:
2,500 (total) – 254 (protein) – 360 (fat) = 1,886 calories from carbohydrate.
In terms of percentage of calories, this comes out to approximately 10% protein, 14.5% fat, and 75.5% carbohydrate.}

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1. Make Sure You Like Your Doctor; If You Don’t, Switch!

Your doctor should be your ally. If you are lucky enough to locate a plant-based physician who accepts your insurance, you’ll be among the fortunate few who receive nutritional counseling from their primary care providers (PCPs). Even if you can’t find a plant-based physician, it’s worth searching for a doctor who connects personally with patients, is respectful of personal values and lifestyle choices, and is willing to take the time to explain without a “take my word for it” attitude.

You can check websites like Healthgrades and RateMDs, which provide patient reviews of doctors. Locating a physician who fits on your team is well worth the time and effort you’ll devote to shopping around.

2. Do Your Homework Before Visiting Your Doctor

An informed patient is an empowered patient. Whether you are sick or just have a question, you can make the most of the short time you have by writing down notes to discuss beforehand. Most doctors have less than ten minutes to actually talk to patients during appointments—not by choice, but as a result of the medical insurance wheel. So make the best use of the brief unstructured time with your doctor. And if you don’t have anything to ask, the rest of the world will thank you if you devote a few minutes to sharing some information about plant-based nutrition.

3. Take Advantage of Any Possible Preventative Services or Tax Deductions

While still unusual, corporate insurance coverage of select preventative or alternative wellness services (wellness visits, health coaching, or exercise classes) is slowly becoming more commonplace. Keeping employees healthy is in the employer’s best interest, because it translates to fewer employee sick days and lower employer healthcare costs overall. It’s worth checking with your employer to see if you’re eligible for any benefits that you are not aware of.

If you are not covered by employee health insurance but rather purchase your coverage individually through the government Health Insurance Marketplace, these plans provide certain preventative services (screening tests, counseling, and other services) for all enrolled adults. Finally, some physicians may not even be aware of reimbursement codes for group medical appointments which, depending on the insurance payer, might be used for group nutritional counseling. If you find a group nutritional counseling program you’re interested in attending, you should check with your provider to see if either your doctor or the non-physician provider can bill for these services using group visit coding.

Tax Deductions: Accidents, dental and eye care, medical conferences related to a disease you have, insurance premiums paid out of pocket, and other expenses may be deductible if they add up to more than 10% of your adjusted gross income (7.5% if you or your spouse is 65 or older). Check the relevant IRS page and/or consult your accountant to be sure. And remember to save your receipts!

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