WFPB emanates from decades of modern scientific research into the relationship between nutrition and disease. The term WFPB was coined by Dr Colin Campbell in 1982. Colin Campbell later rose to prominence with the publication of the book The China Study in 2006, and later with the success of the documentary Forks Over Knives (96 mins, 2011). Since the term WFPB was coined, 37 more years have passed and scientific knowledge has increased.

Plenty!

High Level Overview: For videos, books, cookbooks and websites by all prominent WFPB doctors, see

Details: A good book is How Not To Die (576 pages, 2015) by Dr Greger. Among all WFPB books, 'How Not To Die' has the maximum of 5-star Amazon reviews and the maximum number of pages with citations to research papers. Dr Greger also posts informative, short videos and articles at NutritionFacts.

Details for specific diseases may be found in some other WFPB books as well. But How Not To Die is considered the best book for general overview — it's the proverbial 'mother all WFPB books' for exploring the science behind WFPB.

Since 2010, several large medical and governmental organizations have okayed WFPB guidelines or embraced them fully or have gravitated significantly in that direction. These include Canadian government, AMA (American Medical Association), AICR (Americn Institute of Cancer Research), ACS (American Cancer Society), ADA (American Diabetes Association), Canadian Diabetes Association, AACE (American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists), Kaiser Permanente (a major healthcare provider in USA), and so on. For details, please see

Food for Thought: An estimated 6% to 8% of US and Canadian populations are vegetarian. An even smaller percentage are vegan. What has prompted Kaiser Permanente (a major healthcare provider in USA with millions of subscribers), Whole Foods (the largest health food shop in USA), the Canadian government and the state governments of California, Oregon and New York to adopt WFPB guidelines? Since WFPB runs counter to the intuition and eating habits of the vast majority (92% to 96%) of US population, how much volume of research would be needed to get this research accepted and adopted? What kind of scrutiny would such research have had to go through?

Can we win Olympic medals and break sports world records on WFPB? Yeah!

Check out Plant-Based Super Athletes. In this article, "super athletes" are defined as athletes who have set world records or won Olympic medals. Many of these athletes report faster recovery from workout-related fatigue and inflammation after switching to a plant-based diet. They also report mental changes: athletes feel 'lighter and brighter', they feel 'clear headed' and report having more energy during the day.

In 2019, a documentary The Game Changers (88 mins) showcased top athletes who follow WFPB.

WFPB is helpful in prevention, and in many cases, the reversal of many modern chronic lifestyle diseases! See

WFPB guidelines in terms of broad food categories are at Thankful2Plants

How to make sure that we are getting various macro- and micro-nutrients like proteins, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and so on?

Finally, here are hundreds of delectable recipes! Meal Prep, Whole Grain Recipes, Beans & Lentils Recipes, Tuber Recipes, Fruit Recipes, Leafy Greens Recipes, Mylk & Yogurt Recipes, Misc Recipes.

Summary: From 2012-2018, I followed Whole Food Plant-Based (WFPB) guidelines. I never consumed Animal Products since 2012 — no meats, no dairy products. In terms of SOS Extracts (Salt, Oil, Sugar), my adherence has been weak. My workplace serves free meals and I have access to a plethora of vegan options which are sugar-free. However, finding oil-free and salt-free vegan meals was challenging. So I compromised on oil and salt. Also, about 5 time since 2012, I gravitated towards sugary foods and Procesed Foods. Each of these occasions was marked by stress in my personal life and feelings of low self estee. And every time, I broke the cycle of stress → unhealthy eating → stress by doing a fast (juice fast or water-only fast). Such fasts have reset my taste buds so that I can revert to my healthy eating habits. For details, see

In 2019, I shifted to WFPB-SOS, where SOS means no-Sugar, no-Oil, no-Salt. I started preparing all of my meals at home! A few months later, I started experimenting with raw foods! This was difficult. I share my personal experiences here:

From 2012 onwards, I have also dabbled in some fasts, some were easy and some were difficult. Described here:

And over time, I developed recipes for myself that I routinely prepare at home!

Mental Health (Peace and Joy): The impact of food on mental health has received almost no attention in the West. However, ancient wisdom from the East tells us that 'sattvic food' promotes positive states of mind whereas 'tamasic food' promotes negative states of mind. My understanding is that foods prepared with WFPB guidelines are very close to sattvic foods. Hopefully, over the next 50 years, some resources will be devoted towards scientific study of the impact of food on our emotions, our state of mind.

WFPB means Whole Food Plant-Based. Turns out that those who follow WFPB also use the terms LF-WFPB, WFPB-NO and LF-WFPB-NO to describe the same food system. LF stands for Low-Fat. NO means No Oil. All of these acronyms refer to the same concept: WFPB.

Why No Oil? has references to videos and articles by WFPB doctors who unanimously agree that oils are not healthy for us. In practice, the No Oil guideline is difficult to follow, especially for those who don't prepare meals at home. Thus many people (mistakenly) call themselves WFPB compliant even though they consume some oils regularly.

The 'No Oil' guideline is strictly followed by those who are curing themselves of some disease, especially heart disease. The 'No Oil' slogan was popularized by Dr Caldwell Esselstyn — in his talks, he often has a slide with only the words 'No Oil' in big bold letters. Dr Caldwell Esselstyn is a former heart surgeon, so his audiences are often those recovering from heart disease.

In a nutshell, WFPB-NO is actually the same as WFPB guidelines advocated by WFPB doctors. But it is harder to implement the 'No Oil' guideline as compared to other WFPB guidelines, so many recipe websites and FaceBook support groups append NO to WFPB to emphasize that they adhere to this guideline strictly.

In addition to WFPB guidelines, if we also eliminate Salt, we get WFPB-SOS, where SOS means no-Sugar, no-Oil, no-Salt. WFPB-SOS is often advocated by doctors like Dr Goldhamer and Dr Klaper at TrueNorth Health Center, Santa Rosa, California, to patients with difficult diseases like autoimmune.

In terms of inclusions and exclusions of food sources, WFPB-SOS guidelines start matching Nature Cure (Naturopathy) guidelines.

WFPB-NO has 3 components: WF, PB and NO. So somebody following WFPB-NO strives to follow all three guidelines: WF, PB and NO. Now if we'd like to relax the guidelines and choose to follow only 1 of them, which is most important? Is it WF? or is it PB? or is it NO? And what would be the 2nd most important guideline? Here is my understanding:

Ethics-Based Approach (sometimes called 'vegan approach' or the 'ethical vegan approach'): In this approach, PB (Plant-Based) is most important. If an 'ethical vegan' also becomes a 'health-conscious vegan', they we gravitate towards WF (Whole Foods) and maybe NO (No Oil) as well. This journey is rewarding in its own right because it's rooted in ethics. Ethics (compassion for other sentient beings) is number 1, personal health (compassion for self) is number 2.

Nutrition-Based Approach (sometimes called 'evidence based approach'): In this approach, WF (Whole Foods) is most important (the primary guideline), PB (Plant-Based) comes next (secondary guideline), NO (No Oil) comes last (tertiary guideline). This ordering is beautifully captured by the name WFPB-NO itself. Some points:

• Colin Campbell: In 1982, why did Colin Campbell choose the acronym WFPB instead of PBWF? WFPB has a comma in between WF and PB (WF is a noun, PB is an adjective). So it doesn't roll as smoothly as PBWF. Is it because Campbell thinks that WF is far more important than PB? His famous book is titled Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition, not 'Plants: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition'.
• Michael Pollan has coined the phrase 'Eat Food, Not Much, Mostly Plants'. Is there some significance in that sequence? Let's see. Eat Food means 'no processed foods; eat whole foods; eat foods that we can recognize'. The 'Not Much' guideline points at calorie restriction and portion control -- two things we need to adopt when consuming non-plant-based meals -- let's not discuss these points as they take us away from the main point of the discussion in this post. Finally, we have 'Mostly Plants' -- this guidelines comes last.
• What's the opposite of WF? When does food cease to be 'whole'? When it's processed.
• What are 'Processed Foods'? This is a super confusing phrase. We need to spend a lot of mental stamina (in other words, 'education') to understand what exactly it means. Not only industrially processed foods but many home-processing techniques are harmful! This may come as a surprise to people because this is where tradition and science collide. For details, see What Are Processed Foods?
• Challenges: Adherence to WF (in other words, elimination of Processed Foods) requires a LOT of effort! We have to tackle sugar addiction and chemical addictions (and refined flour addictions) because these substances are found in abundance in processed foods!
• Paleo Diet: In SAD (Standard American Diet), exactly the opposite of each guideline is followed: (non-WF, non-PB, non-NO). If we tweak only 1 component in SAD — change non-WF to WF — we get something like a Paleo Diet. Even this step improves our health! There are many videos and success stories. I've heard WFPB doctors mention something like this: 'yes, Paleo is good step w.r.t. SAD because it introduces an important change: no processed foods! which means no refined sugars, no refined flours, no chemical foods' ← these changes are good! Now if we move further to Mediterranean and eventually, WFPB, that's better and better. But Paleo is a good starting point w.r.t. SAD: it emphasizes at least one good component: WF, so it's a step in a good direction (where the eventual goal is all 3 steps: WF, PB, NO).
• Mediterranean Diet: Starting with SAD, if we move to Paleo, and then to Mediterranean Diet, let's see what happens. In Mediterranean Diet, we follow WF diligently. In addition, we change non-PB to high-PB (not 100% PB, just a high percentage where the percentage is not defined). We're still non-NO. Now Mediterranean Diet is also wonderful! It's a step in the right direction. It's not the 'best possible diet' but in the grand scheme of things: SAD → Paleo → Mediterranean → WFPB is a great journey!

Coming back to the original point in this section: If we relax WFPB-NO, then which of the 3 components should we relax first: WF or PB or NO? In my opinion, we should relax NO because the other two components (WF and PB) are more important. If we relax further, should we focus on adherence to WF? Or should we focus on adherence to PB? In my opinion, adherence to WF is far more important than adherence to PB.

As described in What is Vegan Diet, vegans come in three flavors. Health-conscious vegans (those who follow WFPB) are motivated by compassion for self. Ethical vegans are motivated by compassion for other sentient beings. Environmental vegans are motivated by compassion for the environment.

Combined, the three types of vegans (health-conscious, ethical and environmental) exude compassion for self, others and the environment!

How wonderful is that! :)