Whole Food Plant Based Diets

• Vegan Diet and Athletic Performance

  A 2007 study shows the results of a vegan diet on a sedentary group of subjects. This group is compared with committed long-distance athletes and sedentary omnivores.

  The athletes and the sedentary vegans were matched on their BMI.

  Long-distance slim athletes who ran an average of 48 miles (77 km) per week for 21 years had a blood pressure a significant 17% higher than sedentary vegans.

  The authors' conclusions are that long-term consumption of a low-calorie low-protein vegan diet or regular endurance exercise training is associated with low cardiometabolic risk. Moreover, our data suggest that specific components of a low-calorie low-protein vegan diet provide additional beneficial effects on blood pressure.

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  11 February 2026

• Egg Consumption, B12, Lutein and Zeaxanthin

  According to an article Foods You Should Eat if You Have a B12 Deficiency, published by WebMD on 10th March 2025, includes fish, shellfish, red meat, poultry, organ meats and eggs.

  The results of vitamin B12 deficiency can be devastating. Eggs are a good, natural source of Vitamin B12, with one large, boiled egg providing approximately 0.5-0.6 mcg which covers roughly 19%−25% of the recommended daily value. The vitamin is primarily found in the yolk. Consuming two large eggs can provide nearly half of the daily required intake.

  Vitamin B12 is not made by plants or animals but by microbes that blanket the earth. In today’s sanitized, modern world, the water supply is commonly chlorinated to kill off any bacteria. So, while we don’t get much B12 in the water anymore, we don’t get much cholera, either, which is a good thing!

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  10 February 2026

• Egg Consumption and Diabetes

  A number of popular authors and websites advocate eating eggs as a way of preventing type 2 diabetes. However, this is not substantiated by the evidence. To assess the impact of egg consumption on type 2 diabetes in China, a survey was performed among 2849 adults in Jiangsu Province, China. Jiangsu is a coastal Chinese province north of Shanghai.

  There are many more medical journal articles that associate egg consumption with a greater risk of type 2 diabetes.

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  9 February 2026

• Historical Advocates of Plant Based Diets

  Whilst they are in the minority of the general population, there have been advocates for diets devoid of animal products for centuries in populations such as ancient Rome and the Italian Renaissance.

  In The Republic, Book 2, Plato describes a “rustic picture” of a way of life. The inhabitants “spend their days in houses which they have built for themselves; they make their own clothes and produce their own corn and wine. Their principal food is barley-meal and flour of wheat, and they drink in moderation. They live on the best of terms with each other, and take care not to have too many children. […] They will have salt and olives and cheese, vegetables and fruits, and chestnuts to roast at the fire.”

  Plato continues that those “who want the comforts of life”, will create a state where “living in this way we shall have much greater need of physicians than before. […] Then a slice of our neighbours’ land will be wanted by us for pasture and tillage, and they will want a slice of ours.”

  Sotion of Alexandria was a 1st-century Roman stoic philosopher who is best known as a teacher of Seneca the Younger.

  Sotion believed that avoiding animal flesh was beneficial for the soul and body and that killing of animals is immoral.

  Some 500 years later, in Plutarch’s Morals. Vol. V, Plutarch writes at great length against the mistreatment, exploitation and killing of animals.

  “But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh, we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy.”

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  20 January 2026

• Samoa and a Whole-Food, Plant-based Success Program

  Samoa is small Pacific island nation consisting of 2 main islands with another 2 inhabited islands. Total population is slightly more than 200,000. In 2010, 80% were overweight with 25% diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

  The 2 main islands consist of 350 villages with self-sufficiency being important.

  Matuaileoo Environment Trust Inc (METI) introduced their Taiala program in 2018.

  This program is an implementation of Colin Campbell’s Whole-Food, Plant-Based program based on The China Study.

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  13 December 2024

• PCSK9 Gene – Reduces Cholesterol and Heart Disease Mortality

  High levels of cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol are associated with a higher risk of heart disease.

  Popular commentators frequently claim that cholesterol is irrelevant in causing heart disease and suggest that diets high in carbohydrate such as rice, potatoes, wheat (including whole-grain wheat), yams, millet and buckwheat are responsible.

  PCSK9 is a gene that reduces the life-time level of cholesterol. PCSK9 is an abbreviation for "proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 serine protease" gene which is why it is much more convenient to refer it as the PCSK9 gene.

  The authors' conclusion is the "data indicate that moderate lifelong reduction in the plasma level of LDL cholesterol is associated with a substantial reduction in the incidence of coronary events."

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  28 March 2024

• Additional Reading

  Below is a list of excellent books that examine the advantages (and disadvantages - there are not any) of eating a whole-food, plant-based diet.

  Read John Robbins’s incredible story about The Pig Farmer from Iowa that is moving and transforming.

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  15 September 2022

• Animal and Plant Protein – Leucine and Telomeres

  Leucine is an amino acid that is much more prevalent in animal-based diets than plant-based diets. The leucine is found in the high concentrations, measured in grams per kCal of energy, in beef (0.021), egg white (0.021), isolated soy protein (0.020), poultry (0.018) fish (0.018), spirulina (0.017), lamb (0.014) parmesan cheese (0.010), tofu (0.008), soy beans (0.007).

  Aglets are the caps on shoelaces that stop them from unraveling. Our chromosomes have telomeres that perform the same function - they stop our chromosomes from unravelling. The longer they are, the longer the cells survive and the longer we live. An animal-based diet results in shorter telomeres than those on a plant-base diet. Leucine is the amino acid responsible for this.

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  21 March 2022

• Animal and Plant Protein – Lysine and Arginine

  Lysine is an indispensable dietary amino acid for all vertebrates and is required for protein synthesis.

  The arginine requirement is influenced by many factors that vary between species. There is an antagonism that can occur between lysine and arginine in some species where excessive intakes of one of these amino acids will adversely affect the metabolism of the other amino acid thereby increasing its requirement.

  Lysine is a dietary indispensable amino acid.

  Lysine is the first limiting amino acid in most grain and cereal-based diets so it also defines the protein required to meet the amino acid requirements..

  Human milk is supplied to babies when the need for protein is at the greatest. Babies double in size during the first 6 months of our lives. The ideal food for a baby is mum’s milk where 5% – 6.5% is protein. This should offer reassurance that as long as we a consuming an adequate diet, we do not need a high protein diet.

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  21 March 2022

• Comparison of Dairy Milks with Human Milk

  Milks are complex lipid emulsions in water containing protein, fat, lactose, vitamins and minerals, as well as enzymes, hormones and immunoglobulins which provide initial immunity functions.

  There is approximately 5,500 species of mammals which initially supply their young with milk. There are vast differences in milk composition among the mammal species. Of all the mammals, humans have the lowest protein content.

  Mammals have evolved over millions of years to provide nutrition for their infants in the first stage of life. There are significant difference between species depending upon factors such as rates of growth.

  Proteins in human milk provide sufficient of protein to sustain infants for the first six months without any additional food, as well as supplying the means of establishing suitable environment for the growth of healthy intestinal bacteria and providing the proteins involved in the immune system.

  Human milk is supplied to babies when the need for protein is at the greatest. Babies double in size during the first 6 months of our lives. The ideal food for a baby is mum’s milk where 5% – 6.5% is protein. This should offer reassurance that as long as we a consuming an adequate diet, we do not need a high protein diet.

  Read more ⇒

  18 March 2022