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What is Whole Food Plant Based? — Gold Card Vegan
Exactly what is whole food plant-based and why should it matter?
First, let’s look at what the word ‘whole’ means in relation to food. It means that the food is not processed in any way. You eat the entire item only removing the inedible part/s. The reason for this is this is that all the parts work in synergy with each other. So nutrients that are in the skin may be different from those in the flesh, but to get the nutrients from the skin to work correctly it may need something from the flesh.
A number of years ago it was shown that cranberries offered protection against cancer. The pharmaceutical industry is unable to patent any food so they set about trying to discover exactly which part of the berry was the cancer-preventive component. Once they discovered it, they then would be able to make a synthetic version and claim the patent. They spent around eleven years trying to discover the cranberries’ secret and finally had to give up. You see, the cranberry needs all part of it to make it work = synergy.
The other thing that can happen when you extract part of a food item is that it changes its structure and in doing so can turn out to be harmful. The most classic example of this is coconut oil. For a long while, coconut oil was touted as being incredibly healthy…
