4 Benefits Of Plant-Based Eating

Photo by Kevin McCutcheon on Unsplash

*This is not medical advice. Please consult your healthcare professional before making any significant changes to your diet, medications, etc.

Oat milk lattes. Avocado chocolate mousse. “Beyond” burgers. You name it— ditching animal products is officially en vogue. But is this just another passing fad? Will Time magazine’s infamous “Butter is Back” messaging make its way around again in time?

I sure hope not. While there are always new “diet” trends coming and going, moving to a more whole food plant-based diet (and by “diet” here I mean “way of eating” generally) is scientifically shown to have countless benefits for your health and the planet’s health long term.

Here are four reasons plant-based eating is more than just a passing fad. Plant-based eating can help you:

01 | Manage weight issues.

Many of us have some extra pounds we want—and can afford—to shed. While losing weight should never be the only reason we adopt a new habit of eating, especially if it’s one we want to be able to sustain long-term, it can certainly be a powerful motivator.

Since a calorie deficit is the primary thing needed for weight loss, there are many different ways to achieve success in this area. Keeping the weight off long-term, however, is another story.

Far too many of us have become subject to “yo-yo dieting,” or simply going on and off of different “diets,” watching the scale and our waist size fluctuate with the changes. Eating a predominantly whole food plant-based diet is a more sustainable way to both lose weight and keep it off.

The primary reason for this is that whole plant foods have a few key characteristics that help promote satiety (or the feeling of being full or satisfied) without overconsuming calories. These characteristics include being less calorie-dense, containing more water, containing fiber, and requiring more time (chewing!) to consume them.

If you’re looking to lose weight healthfully and keep it off, consider bulking up your meals with more whole plant foods.

02 | Avoid chronic disease.

Without getting into all the nitty-gritty details here (which you can find on sites like PubMed), plant-based eating has been shown to significantly reduce the risk of developing chronic diseases, many of them the leading causes of death worldwide. Chronic diseases that plant-based eating has been shown to reduce risk of developing include cardiovascular disease, various forms of cancer, and neurological diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s, just to name a few.

What’s more, even if disease runs in your family, you are not genetically predetermined to the same fate. Our genes only account for about 20% of long-term health outcomes. The other 80% or so is determined by lifestyle. In other words, don’t resignedly chomp down on hamburgers, bacon, and butter thinking you’re doomed anyway.

Start making healthful swaps that could considerably lengthen your span of life and health (e.g., swap sources of saturated fat for poly- and monounsaturated fats and meats for legumes). This could look like choosing olive oil over butter and beans or lentils over beef.

(If you’d like to dive more into particular diseases and areas of risk, I highly recommend Simon Hill’s book The Proof is in the Plants.)

03 | Optimize your health & longevity.

In addition to helping us avoid developing chronic disease, eating more whole plant foods has been shown to increase health and life span. Have you heard of the Blue Zones? National Geographic Fellow Dan Buettner studied the world’s populations that lived the longest, terming their locations “Blue Zones.” One of the key characteristics shared between all of these populations is a predominance of whole plant foods in their diet.

Foods consistently associated with decreased life span—aside from ultra-processed foods more generally—shine the spotlight on animal sources (e.g., fatty cuts of meat, processed meat, full fat dairy, and fried/salted fish). On the opposite side, however, foods that have consistently been shown to increase life span are whole plants such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and nuts and seeds.

Lest you think there is no immediate benefit, eating plants is not just for the long haul. Tired of feeling sluggish or unable to focus? Swap the eggs and bacon for blueberry and walnut-topped oatmeal. Skip the hamburger or pizza and whip up a veggie and tofu stir-fry. You’ll feel lighter and more energetic, ready to take on the world.

04 | Care for the earth & its inhabitants.

Lastly, eating plant based is about more than just our own individual health. We need to consider what our food choices mean for our planet and those with whom we share it—plants, animals, and other humans.

While developed nations may be accustomed to eating meat and other animal products, our current level of consumption is not sustainable—neither at present nor for a global population continuing to grow. While animal suffering is certainly something to be considered, even ways of farming and slaughtering that are more “humane” are extremely water- and land-hungry.

Nearly 50% of all habitable land is used for agriculture. Less than one quarter of all farmland is used for growing plants directly for human consumption. That means the rest (about 77%) is used for feeding the animals we raise, either by grazing them or growing feed crops. Additionally, eating meat is highly inefficient. For every 100 calories of grain fed to a chicken, only about 12% of that is converted to meat for human consumption (in other words, 100 calories of grain = 12 calories of chicken). It’s even worse for cattle, who only turn about 3% of the calories they eat into meat.

There is much more that could be said about deforestation, water use, and greenhouse gas emissions not to mention the realities of what is hidden behind the “greenwashing” of the animal products currently on offer. Suffice it to say, the more whole plants we eat, the better off all life on earth is.

In short…

Whatever reason you most identify with, I hope you’ll consider increasing your consumption of whole plants. You can only stand to benefit.

If you enjoy an oat milk latte here and there, I hope you’ll bring plant-based milks into use at home. If you’ve pinned some vegan recipe ideas or made one to support a friend, I hope you’ll get curious and try a few more to add into your own weekly meal rotation. Plant-based eating isn’t just a fad. Rather, it may be key to a healthy and flourishing life.