Are All Vegan Foods Nutritious? | NutritionFacts.org

How does a diet consisting primarily of plants compare to diets comprised of unhealthy plant and animal-derived food when it comes to diabetes risk?
My video about flexitarians explores how the benefits of switching to a plant-based diet don’t occur overnight; rather, gradual steps toward vegetarianism conferring survival advantages can provide long-term advantages that benefit not just one but multiple species of life forms. Researchers refer to such eating patterns as pro-vegetarian; gradually moving in this direction with gentle steps as part of an “earlier and gentle approach”.
If you have an illness like diabetes, however, completely eliminating certain foods is usually easier than trying to moderate their consumption – clinicians would never advise an alcoholic just trying to cut back. Avoiding alcohol altogether can be easier and more effective for problematic drinkers…Ironically, encouraging patients to make major lifestyle changes more quickly may prove more successful than encouraging a gradual approach to change. Diet studies demonstrate the advantages of prescribing more significant changes. Doing this increases patients’ odds of succeeding at reaching them and could replace traditional advice such as, ‘all things in moderation,’ with something like ‘big changes beget big results.’ Success breeds success. After only days or weeks of making major dietary changes, patients typically witness improvements in weight and blood glucose (sugar) levels–feedback that reinforce the initial changes. Furthermore, plant-based diets offer other health advantages which provide further motivation.
As is evident below and at 1:43 in my video Friday Favorites: Is Vegan Food Always Healthy?, those who opt to follow a plant-based diet for their health generally choose this path out of a desire for “general wellness or general disease prevention”, increased energy levels or immune function improvement among other reasons.

Studies showed that most participants felt it was very essential in maintaining their overall health and well-being, giving them control of their own bodies while helping with emotional well-being, overall improvement of overall health, improved mood and general well-being – as displayed below and at 1:48. They reported taking control over their healthcare as the keystone to good wellbeing and general well-being.

Few who used it specifically to address specific health problems – mostly high cholesterol or weight loss followed by high blood pressure and diabetes – reported it helped greatly as seen at 2:14. As can be seen below and in 2:14, most reported feeling its effectiveness greatly helped their situation, as you can see at 2:14.
Some individuals choose plant-based diets for other reasons, including animal welfare or global warming, and it appears as though ethical vegans tend to consume more sugary and fatty food like vegan donuts than those choosing it due to religious or health considerations (as you can see below and at 2:26 in my video).

Vegan desserts could include egg and dairy free cakes covered with frosting, marshmallow fluff and chocolate syrup with Oreos for topping and Doritos on the side – or they might opt for fruit in Pop-Tart form and Krispy Kreme pie form as dessert – neither option being particularly healthy!
Plant-based diets have long been advocated as an effective strategy to decrease the risk of type 2 diabetes (T2D). Unfortunately, not all plant foods provide equal benefit.” At Harvard researchers’ request, I devised an elaborate pro-vegetarian scoring system where points are awarded for eating potato chips and French fries as technically plant-based food items, such as in the chart below and at 3:07 of my video. They wanted to analyze not just an overall plant-based diet but healthy as well as unhealthy variants as part of their study. So they devised the same pro-vegetarian scoring system but this time weighting it towards all types of plant-based foods while discounting animal foods; then created a healthful plant-based diet index in which at least some whole plant foods took precedence while Coca-Cola and similar sweetened beverages no longer counted as plants; finally creating an unhealthy plant-based diet index by assigning positive scores for processed plant-based junk and negative scores for healthier plant foods and animal foods.

Their findings? As seen below and at 3:51 in my video, consuming more plant-based foods generally was beneficial in lowering diabetes risk, and those eating particularly healthy plant-based food did better still, cutting risk by nearly 50%; those who consumed unhealthy plant foods did worse, according to graph below and 4:03.

Does that suggest they were eating more animal products as well? People typically pair burgers and fries together, so researchers assessed the impact of healthier plant foods, less healthy plant foods and animal products on diabetes risk. Researchers determined that high intakes of healthy plant foods were protectively associated with reduced diabetes risks; animal products had detrimental impacts; while less nutritious plant foods acted neutrally when it came to diabetes risk. At 4:32 in my video, the graph below and at 4:17 depicting diabetes risk can be found that shows higher diabetes risks with increasing animal foods consumption and no protection whatsoever with junky plant foods, while healthful whole plant food consumption decreases risks dramatically. Conclusions were reached, which showed that, yes, plant-based diets do reduce risk significantly of T2D. But just decreasing animal food may not suffice – consumption of less healthy plant foods must also decrease.
As a physician, labels like vegetarianism or veganism only tell me what you don’t eat–there may still be unhealthy vegetarian options such as French Fries, Potato Chips or soda pop. Therefore I prefer whole food plant-based nutrition which outlines your eating regimen focused around nutritionally beneficial plant sources.
Do Flexitarians Live Longer? is my most-watched YouTube video on plant-based diets. Below, find links to more videos and blogs related to them, along with related posts that might interest you!!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s).
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