This collection of resources is a place to get started or dig deeper into the subject of whole food plant based nutrition. The information and research can be challenging to find through the overwhelming clutter of popular diet-of-the-month websites and an industry that has financial interest in keeping our health status quo.
It’s easy to see why. Human habits and cultural lifestyles are not easily changed. Corporations have been built on our existing health issues. Government entities have the unenviable, schizophrenic task of protecting the interests of both people and profit.
Historically, our country is spending more on managing chronic disease than at any other time.
Trillions of dollars are spent promoting pharmaceuticals, procedures, organizations, research and cause marketing (charities).
But, our obesity and chronic disease rates are increasing, not decreasing.
What’s the solution? A fad-ish new diet? Improving the same one we’ve always had?, the Standard American Diet (SAD)?
Is there any groundbreaking news yet?
Where’s the cure?
It’s there. However, it’s so simple it’s not promoted. It’s a shift in nutrition. For many, it’s a major shift.
This list of resources include most of the pioneers of the whole food plant based industry who have challenged our status quo. Many are medical physicians who sought to heal patients instead of help them manage disease.
They saw that disease always wins, either by taking a life or taking it’s quality.
In their search for the truth, they discovered that the best tactics to conquer disease are to prevent it in the first place or reverse it. As leaders, they have had the courage to stand up to powerful industry forces.
They were inspired to seek out or create their own scientific evidence when none existed.
For the average person, online searches for answers to critical health and nutrition questions on the search engines tend to show the same results. Like the food of the Standard American Diet (SAD), it’s processed and fairly void of the real nutrition (information) we need. Many times, it promotes just partial information or misinformation. Or, easier to spot, a for-profit silver bullet solution. Today, many of us are inspired by glimpses of success on social media. We digitally and figuratively follow someone who had success losing weight, achieving more energy, reducing pain and so on. Rarely, do we see the real information to make a decision based on critical thinking and facts. Factors like their long term success rate or their blood markers or any monetary benefit received are omitted. Anecdotal case studies with no information combined with powerful industry forces equal a populace that continues to struggle with less than optimal health.
This list is a good starting place to begin your fact finding journey. Please let us know if something needs to be added or of any feedback you have.
| Documentaries | ||
| Primary Subject | Description | |
| Eating you Alive | Nutrition/Health | Interviews with doctors and researchers on curing chronic disease with a whole food plant based diet. Personal success stories. |
| The Game Changers | Nutrition/Health | Explores plant based athletes and diets in the field of sports |
| Forks Over Knives | Nutrition/Health | Makes a case for controlling or reversing common chronic diseases through plant based diets |
| What the Health | Health/Politics | Researches the challenges of big business, industry and politics behind our traditional American diet |
| Eating, The Documentary | Nutrition/Health | One of the first documentaries that summarize all the issues: Nutrition, Environment, Animal Welfare |
| Vegucated | Nutrition Heath | Explores lifestyle of three people who go vegan |
| Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead | Nutrition/Health | One man’s journey to improve his health through a 60 day exclusive diet of fruit and vegetable juice |
| Plant Pure Nation | Nutrition/Heath | Overview of eating plant based with three people on a quest to spread the message. From producers of Forks Over Knives |
| H.O.P.E. What you Eat Matters | Health/Environment | Showcasing the positive effects of a plant based diet on health and environment |
| Eating you Alive | Nutrition/Health | Experts and subjects discuss the causes of chronic disease and review solutions |
| Food Choices | Nutrition Heath | Explores the impact that our food choices have on human health and environmental health |
| Unsupersize Me | Nutrition/Health | Inspiring journey of a woman who adopts a WFPB and exercise lifestyle and loses 200 pounds. |
| Vegan: Everyday Stories | Health/Lifestyle | Follows four people who share their stories to a vegan lifestyle transformation |
| Fast Food Vegan | Lifestyle | Is it possible to eat a healthy, vegan diet with only fast food options? One man finds out. |
| The Invisible Vegan | Nutrition/Heath | Explores unhealthy diets in African-American communities |
| Diet Fiction | Health/Politics | Follow filmmaker as he investigates popular diets and misconceptions about weight loss |
| Live and Let Live | Lifestyle | People who have transitioned careers from the meat industry to vegan lifestyles (some translated from German) |
| Dominion | Animal Welfare | Undercover footage of the meat, dairy, egg, clothing and entertainment industries |
| Earthlings | Animal Welfare | Investigates the exploitation of animals across multiple industries |
| The End of Meat | Animal Welfare/Planet | Imagines a world without animals for food |
| Lucent | Animal Welfare | From the producer of Dominion, undercover at Australian pig farms and standard practices |
| PlanEat | Environmental | Following the story of food production for a growing population and the impact on the environment |
| Cowspiracy | Environmental | Explores negative environmental impacts of animal agriculture and the political/industry challenges in making change. |
| Books | ||
| Author | Description | |
| The China Study | T. Colin Campbell, PhD | Groundbreaking study of effects of plant based diets over a 20 year partnership with Cornell University, Oxford University & Chinese Academy of Preventative Medicine. |
| How Not to Die (Also, read the complementary book How Not to Diet) | Michael Greger, MD | Presents scientific evidence behind preventing and reversing many chronic diseases and causes of premature death. |
| The Plant Based Solution | Joel Kahn, MD | Cardiologist presents scientific evidence and case studies for preventing and reversing heart disease (and other diseases) |
| The Starch Solution | John A McDougall, MD | Emphasizes starch as the basis of a whole food plant based lifestyle |
| Prevent & Reverse Heart Disease | Caldwell Esselstyn Jr., MD | A challenge to conventional cardiology based on the results of his 20 year study that demonstrated remarkable improvements and reversal of heart disease |
| Diet for a New America | John Robbins | The heir to Baskin Robbins takes a deep dive into the consequences of food choices for our health and planet from a unique perspective. He walked away from a fortune for moral reasons. |
| The Food Revolution | John Robbins | Explores the impact of food on our environment |
| Eat to Live | Joel Fuhrman, MD | Explains his concept of “nutrient density” and specific advice to overcome obesity and chronic disease |
| Mastering Diabetes | Cyrus Khambatta, PhD Robby Barbaro | A step-by-step plan proven to reverse insulin resistance – the root cause of blood glucose variability – while improving overall health and maximizing life expectancy. Armed with more than 800 scientific references. |
| Goodbye Lupus | Brooke Goldner, MD | How this doctor healed herself from an aggressive autoimmune disease and now practices lifestyle medicine for others. |
| Undo It! How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse… | Dean Ornish, MD | His most recent best seller summarizing how lifestyle changes can reverse most chronic diseases |
| Proteinaholic | Garth Davis, MD | Obesity specialist explores the obsession on protein |
| Own Your Health | Chef AJ/Glen Merzer | Nutrition advice from long time vegan author Glen Merzer and Chef AJ a culinary instructor and successful weight loss advocate. Noted for humor and easy readability. |
| The Plantpower Way | Rich Roll / Julie Piatt | One of the world’s fittest men details their family lifestyle and diet, includes recipes from Chef/Wife Julie Piatt |
| Healthy At Last | Eric Adams | Story of reversing diabetes (after waking up blind) and one man’s quest to tackle chronic disease in the African American community |
| The Blue Zones Solution | Dan Buettner | A study of the longest living, healthiest people on the planet |
| The Omnivore’s Dilemma | Michael Pollan | Deeper insights into where modern food comes from |
| Website Resources | ||
| NutritionFacts.org | Founded by Michael Greger. Non-commercial, science based website with hundreds of short videos breaking down the latest nutrition studies and research | |
| https://nutritionstudies.org/ | Science-based education and advocacy to increase awareness of the impact food has on the health of people, communities and the planet. Founded by T. Colin Campbell | |
| https://pmri.org/ | Preventive Medicine Research Institute founded by Dean Ornish. Conducts and publishes research regarding lifestyle medicine. First to prove that lifestyle changes may reverse progression of chronic diseases. | |
| https://www.pcrm.org/ | Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, founded by Neal Barnard. An organization of 12,000 physicians who want to change the way doctors treat chronic disease. | |
| http://plantbasedresearch.org/ | Research database on plant-based nutrition | |
| https://www.doctorsfornutrition.org/ | Doctors for Nutrition’s mission is to inspire others to adopt a WFPB diet through evidence based education. (Austrailian) | |
| https://plantbasedfoods.org/ | Association for Plant Based Food companies with information and data about the industry | |
| Videos on WFPB Subject | ||
| The Food We Were Born To Eat | Ted Talk by John McDougall about his experience as a physician and desire to heal his patients | |
| Plant-Strong & Healthy Living: Rip Esselstyn | Ted Talk by Rip Esselsytn, an athlete and fire fighter, creator of Engine 2 diet. Summary of results of firefighters who ate the diet | |
| Uprooting the Leading Causes of Death | Focusing on research, practical advice on diet | |
| The Pleasure Trap | Understanding the psychology of our response to food. | |
| Getting Started Ideas & Plans | ||
| McDougall’s Quick Start Program | ||
| Plant Based Primer: The Beginner’s Guide to a Plant Based Diet | ||
| Daily Dozen App and Chart Download | ||
| Plant Based Kickstart | ||
| A Couple Cooks: 28 Day WFPB Plan | ||
| One Meal A Day for the Planet | ||
| Oprah’s One Plant Based Meal a Day for 30 Days | ||
| Specfic Topics | ||
| Low Carb Diets | https://nutritionstudies.org/does-the-ketogenic-diet-really-work-for-weight-loss/ | |
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26278052/ | ||
| https://empowertotalhealth.com.au/low-carb-deja-vu/ | ||
| Protein | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5DBXQZUfvA | |
| https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/when-it-comes-to-cholesterol-levels-white-meat-may-be-no-better-than-red-meat-and-plant-based-protein-beats-both-2019082217550 | ||
| Proteinaholic: Why our obsession with meat is killing us | ||
| https://youtu.be/04o3NgFFIQQ | ||
| Diabetes | https://youtu.be/ktQzM2IA-qU | |
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM-PopH0waU | ||
| Heart Disease | https://www.pcrm.org/health-topics/heart-disease | |
| http://www.eatingwell.com/article/7834305/vegan-manage-heart-disease/ | ||
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hlZxiYu4Cw | ||
| https://newsroom.heart.org/news/eating-more-plant-based-foods-may-be-linked-to-better-heart-health | ||
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_AASL4tfEY | ||
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC3wRx4vV7g | ||
| Obesity | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3NCwobh4fI | |
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTB0Myga0J4 | ||
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcN2HjOutEk |