The Forks Over Knives Plan: How to Transition to the Life-Saving, Whole-Food, Plant-Based Diet by Alona Pulde

From the creators of the groundbreaking documentary (and bestselling book) Forks Over Knives comes a four-week plan, showing anyone how to transition to a delicious whole-food, plant-based diet.

The trailblazing film Forks Over Knives exposed an entirely new generation to the whole-food, plant-based nutrition revolution and inspired thousands to want to transform their diets, and their lives. With so many people looking for change, the outstanding question became, “How can we put these dietary ideas into practice?” That’s what authors Alona Pulde and Matthew Lederman reveal inThe Forks Over Knives Plan: The 4-Week Guide to Whole-Food, Plant-Based Health—a clear, easy-to-follow plan that outlines the steps to take each week to transform your diet by cutting out animal-based and processed foods.

Forks Over Knives is a leading authority in the “food as medicine” movement, showing how simple dietary changes are proven to prevent, and even reverse, chronic disease such as type-2 diabetes and heart disease and improve your overall health. This is no fad diet; the Forks Over Knives program is backed by original research and has received rave reviews from physicians like Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Dr. Mehmet Oz, to athletes like pro football star Arian Foster and pro basketball player Steve Nash, to healthy lifestyle pioneers like Alicia Silverstone, to name a few. Whether you’re already a convert and just want a dietary reboot, or you are trying a plant-based diet for the first time, The Forks Over Knives Plan makes it easier than ever to transition into this new way of eating.

This book is great for anyone who is ready to or even thinking about changing to a whole-food, plant-based diet.  This is a life-changing process with superb results, as evidenced by the many testimonials placed throughout the pages. 

 As a believer in this lifestyle already, I was excited to read this and learn even more about it.  This informative book is well-written and easy to understand.  It explains everything from the basics (what a whole-food, plant-based diet is) to what to eat, what not to eat, the health benefits, and the consequences of following what the authors refer to as the Standard American Diet.  One of the best things about this book, in my opinion, is that they take the time to give you useful tips to make this transition easier. 

 The tips include how to dine out and make smart, healthy choices; how to stock your freezer, fridge, and pantry; how to eat while traveling away from home; and how to handle social situations.  The recipes that are included are easy to follow and gives the reader healthy options to add some variety to their new menu.  I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants finally make that life-altering decision to get healthy. 

No More Eating for Single Nutrients . . . Focus on the "Package" and the Foods You Enjoy
By Alona Pulde, MD, and Matthew Lederman, MD,
Author of The Forks Over Knives Plan: How to Transition to the Life-Saving, Whole-Food, Plant-Based Diet

The idea of eating a particular food for one nutrient is pervasive in our culture. We have been led to believe we should eat meat for protein, dairy for calcium, fish for omega-3 fatty acids, and even tomatoes for lycopene, among many others. This sort of thinking is misguided and has caused grave harm to human health. The quest for protein, for example, has steered us toward meat consumption. In this quest, we not only consume protein in excess of our needs, but also many harmful substances like dietary cholesterol that are only present in animal foods.

No food is a single nutrient, and we should never think of foods in that way. Any given food has countless nutrients. What matters most is the overall nutrient profile, i.e., the whole package. Whole, plant-based foods contain all the essential nutrients (with the exception of vitamin B12*), and in proportions that are more consistent with human needs than animal-based or processed foods. So our question is really this: Why waste any of what we eat on inferior packages? As long as -- over time -- we choose a variety of whole, plant-based foods, we will easily meet all of our nutritional needs.

Whole, Plant-Based Food Will Provide the Best "Package" of nutrients

When eating fruits, vegetables, tubers, whole grains, and legumes to comfortable satiation, you will get superior nutrition without also getting all the unhealthy elements present in animal-based and highly processed foods. Among other things, you will effortlessly consume:

• A nutrient profile consistent with human needs. All whole foods contain carbohydrates, protein, and fat. These are the macronutrients, which are the source of virtually all calories, or energy. Different foods, how- ever, contain each of these in different proportions. The foods you eat on a whole-food, plant-based diet will most easily get you to a healthy carbohydrate, protein, and fat ratio, which lies somewhere in the range of 80/10/10. We discuss each macronutrient in the chapters that follow.

• Lower-calorie-density foods that will leave you neither underweight nor overweight. Whole, plant-based foods in general are significantly lower in calories per pound (calorie density) than animal products and processed food. Higher-calorie-density foods lead to excessive calorie consumption and overweight bodies. Many chronic diseases are caused by the same foods that result in being overweight or obese. (We explain calorie density and how it affects body weight on page 30.)

• A sufficient amount of vitamins and minerals. Every vitamin or mineral you need to thrive is present in a whole-food, plant-based diet in amounts and proportions consistent with our needs. The only exceptions are vitamin B12 and vitamin D, which we discuss on page 37.

• Dietary fiber. Fiber plays a key role in signaling to our brain that we have eaten enough and is also an essential part of digestion, normal colon function, and binding and removing toxins that would otherwise be re-absorbed into the body. Animal foods do not contain any dietary fiber, so we must get it from whole plant foods.

• No cholesterol. We do not need to consume cholesterol in our diets because our bodies can make all that we need. Avoiding dietary cholesterol is a great way to decrease our risk of developing heart disease. Excess cholesterol is involved in the thickening and hardening of arteries, or atherosclerosis, which leads to serious problems, such as heart attacks and strokes. Animal foods, even the low-fat varieties, contain cholesterol.

The above is an excerpt from the book The Forks Over Knives Plan: How to Transition to the Life-Saving, Whole-Food, Plant-Based Diet by Alona Pulde, MD, and Matthew Lederman, MD. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy and references. 

Copyright © 2014 Alona Pulde, MD, and Matthew Lederman, MD, authors of The Forks Over Knives Plan: How to Transition to the Life-Saving, Whole-Food, Plant-Based Diet 

*I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Sunshine