In the United States, the #1 risk factor for death is the American diet,

associated with more deaths than any other risk factor,

responsible for like half a million mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers,

friends, and family dying every year because of what they ate,

mostly from cardiovascular disease.

That's where plant-based diets can come in,

associated with lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease,

lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease,

and, in fact, a lower risk of dying from all causes put together.

Progressively increasing the intake of plant foods

by reducing the amount of intake of animal foods

may enable us to live longer, healthier lives.

And it doesn't take much.

If you look at the largest cohort study on diet and health in history,

the NIH-AARP study, they found that replacing just 3% of energy

from animal protein with plant protein was associated

with a 10% lower overall mortality in both men and women.

Of all the animal protein sources, eggs were the worst.

Swapping in 3% plant protein for egg protein was associated

with twice the benefit, exceeding 20% lower mortality in men and women.

The researchers concluded that the study provides evidence

for public health recommendations regarding dietary modifications

in terms of choice of protein sources that may promote health and longevity,

and plant protein is preferable.

Now, healthy plant-based diets are associated

with lower risk of all-cause mortality, but with an emphasis on healthy.

When individuals increase their consumption of plant foods

while decreasing their intake of animal foods,

there could be an increase in their consumption of less-healthy options:

highly processed plant foods like Coke and Wonder Bread.

One cannot assume that simply avoiding animal foods

will necessarily produce such a healthy diet.

In order to distinguish between healthful and unhealthful vegan diets,

the term "whole food, plant-based diet" is attributed

to Cornell Professor Emeritus in Nutritional Biochemistry,

Dr. T. Colin Campbell.

If you look at India, for example, you see a decreasing

in whole plant food content of their diets,

along with increasing risk of obesity

and noncommunicable chronic diseases.

This may help explain why disease rates are on the rise

even in a country with a large vegetarian contingent.

This may help explain why health-wise vegans in the US

do better than vegans in the UK.

The #1 reason people in the US eat plant-based is health,

and so they eat more plants, more fiber, vitamin C ---

only found concentrated in whole plant foods.

Whereas the #1 reason given in the UK is animal welfare reasons,

and so they may be more likely to just switch over to vegan doughnuts.

You can't know if vegans really have to eat more plants though

until you put it to the test.

An evaluation of an 8-week whole food plant-based

lifestyle modification program

in which two dozen were already eating vegetarian or vegan,

but not necessarily whole food plant-based.

And after 8 weeks, even those who already started out

vegetarian or vegan experienced significant weight loss

and reductions in cholesterol.

They lost ten pounds and dropped their LDL cholesterol 15 points.

So even a short-term whole food plant-based dietary intervention

may provide significant benefits

for non-vegetarians, vegetarians, and vegans alike.

We have a food supply in which "junk" is a food group,

willfully engineered to maximize eating for profit,

and the industry will happily make all the vegan junk we're willing to buy.

In fact, if you compare the consumption of ultra-processed junk

across different eating patterns, vegetarians and vegans were found

to be eating the most junk, like potato chips and cookies.

Not all plant-based foods exert the same health effects.

But what about animal food?

These researchers separately scored

the quality of different plant-based foods

with a plant-based Diet Quality Index,

and also various animal foods

in an animal-based Diet Quality Index.

For example, if you'd consider processed meats and red meats

as unhealthy animal foods,

but fish, seafood, dairy, and poultry as healthy animal foods --

and you throw eggs in with the unhealthy, too,

based on the most recent evidence --

they found that the higher quality of plant foods,

the longer you live, the lower all-cause mortality.

But no independent association was found for the quality of animal foods,

meaning they all seemed just as bad in terms of cancer mortality,

heart disease mortality, and all-cause mortality.

In light of the expanding global threat of cardiovascular disease,

large-scale shifts toward healthy plant-based diets are imperative

to ensure future human health.

But all plant foods are not created equal.