Whole Foods Diet

Whole foods are those which have not been refined or processed by the commercial food industries. This may exclude much of the food we buy from grocery stores, but whole foods can also be obtained from other sources including health food stores, farmers markets or better yet, from our own gardens. Growing food and herbs really doesn't require a lot of space or resources, especially if animal products are eliminated from the diet. One acre of land would be sufficient to feed two vegetarians all year long.

The Truth About Vegan and Vegetarian Diets

It has been said (and promoted by those who may benefit financially) that vegetarians risk malnutrition because supposedly some nutrients such as protein, calcium, iron, zinc, vitamin D and vitamin B12 are only found in animal products, except in very minute and imbalanced quantities, unsuitable for complete and balanced nutrition. Not only is this completely and provably untrue, but death rates in fact rise with increased consumption of animal products and it is actually animal products, not plant foods which contain imbalanced or insufficient amounts of nutrients. All of the nutrients we need can be obtained from plant foods except for vitamin B12, which does not come from animal products either! (Most animals do contain vitamin B12, however it is not their own bodies, but rather bacteria on the plant foods they ate which produced it).

Vegan diets only include plant foods (i.e., nuts and seeds, fruits, veggies, grains, beans and legumes), while some vegetarian diets include animal products such as dairy or eggs, however all vegetarian diets have in common the exclusion of animal flesh. Even with the elimination of animal products as well as refined and processed foods however, the variety of recipes from which vegan foods may be prepared at home need not be limited.

Nutrino Foods

There are five foods which together contain significant quantities of virtually all essential nutrients (except for vitamin B12), and some non-essential nutrients. I refer to these foods as "nutrino foods", which include alfalfa, barley, carrot, soybean and sunflower. Based on a 2000 calorie diet, 1C alfalfa (leaf), 2C barley (grain, sprouts and grass), 1C carrots, 2C soy (beans, sprouts and grass) and 2C sunflower (seeds, sprouts and grass) would provide all of the nutrients a person needs (not including vitamin B12) for one day. With the addition of live probiotics, one could eat nothing but the nutrino foods and meet all the nutritional requirements, and then some. To help prevent food allergies however, healthy diets should include a larger variety of whole foods because any food eaten too often can become an allergen to the consumer.