For specific brands that we recommend for convenience foods such as vegetable broths, crackers, breads, and more, check out our Whole-Food Vegan Grocery List.

First Things First: What to Toss

We recommend getting rid of all animal products and highly processed junk foods. Be ruthless. With those unhealthy foods no longer at your fingertips, you can’t mindlessly reach for them. This will also create space for more nourishing whole plant foods you’ll be bringing into your daily life.

• White bread, white pasta, white rice
• Cooking oils, oily salad dressings and sauces, margarine
• Dairy products (cheese, milk, yogurt, butter)
• Eggs
• Highly refined sweeteners (pure cane sugar is OK to keep for sparing use in sauces and desserts)
• Meat, poultry, and seafood

The Well-Stocked WFPB Kitchen: Your Plant-Based Pantry List

Once you’ve cleared away the animal products and highly processed foods, take a look at what’s left. You may only need to fill some gaps to have a well-stocked WFPB kitchen. Using the lists below as a guide, take stock of your pantry, freezer, and refrigerator, and make a list of what’s missing. You don’t need to buy everything on your first shopping trip. Use your judgment, choose what you’ll enjoy, and get started.

Pantry

(Tip: When shopping for canned foods, choose low-sodium or no-salt-added options.)

• Aluminum-free, low-sodium baking powder (baking powder can be surprisingly high in sodium)
• Applesauce (unsweetened)
• Arrowroot powder or cornstarch (for thickening sauces)
• Assorted canned and/or dried beans: black beans, chickpeas (garbanzo beans), kidney beans, white beans, lentils
• Canned tomato products: whole, diced, and crushed (including seasoned and fire-roasted varieties); tomato sauce; tomato paste
• Flaxseed meal (mixed with water, it makes a brilliant egg replacer)
• Flours: whole wheat flour, white whole wheat flour, whole wheat pastry flour, oat flour, all-purpose flour (AP flour may be used sparingly in recipes)
• Hot sauce, such as Tabasco
• Jarred roasted red peppers
• Low- or no-sodium vegetable broth
• Natural sweeteners: pure maple syrup, brown rice syrup, fresh dates, pure cane sugar (use sparingly)
• Nuts and seeds: almonds, raw cashews, walnuts, peanuts, pepitas*
• Oil-free pasta sauces
• Popcorn kernels for air-popping
• Soy sauce and/or tamari
• Unsweetened whole grain cereals: shredded wheat, rice puffs, corn puffs, muesli
• Assorted vinegars: apple cider, rice, balsamic, red and white wine varieties
• Assorted whole grains: brown rice, quinoa, steel-cut or rolled oats, wheat berries, millet
• Whole grain crackers: rye crispbreads, whole wheat crackers, brown rice snaps
• Assorted whole grain pastas and noodles: whole wheat spaghetti and couscous, Thai-style brown rice noodles, lentil pasta

Fresh Pantry

• Garlic
• Fresh ginger
• Lemons and limes
• Onions and/or shallots
• Potatoes, sweet potatoes
• Tomatoes

Freezer

Frozen Veggies

• Frozen artichoke hearts
• Frozen carrots
• Frozen corn
• Frozen peas
• Frozen spinach
• Frozen stir-fry blends

Frozen Fruits

• Frozen blueberries
• Frozen cranberries
• Frozen mixed berries
• Frozen mango
• Frozen peaches
• Frozen pineapple
• Frozen strawberries

Frozen Cooked Grains

• Plain brown rice
• Quinoa

Refrigerator

• Condiments: mustard, ketchup, oil-free barbecue sauce, pure fruit preserves
• Dips and sauces: oil-free hummus, fresh salsa
• Assorted fresh fruit (some presliced for instant access)
• Assorted fresh vegetables (some presliced for instant access)
• Miso paste (for adding umami flavor without meat)
• Natural-style nut and seed butters: peanut butter, almond butter, tahini
• Unsweetened, unflavored plant milk, such as almond, soy, cashew, or oat (The fewer the ingredients, the better. For brands we like, see Your Whole-Food Vegan Grocery List: Oil-Free Breads, Sauces, and Other Go-To Products.)
• Tofu: extra-firm and silken (Tip: Silken tofu, which is great for creamy desserts and sauces, is often sold in aseptic packaging in the vegetarian or natural foods aisle, near the shelf-stable plant milks.)
• Whole grain bread and tortillas, corn tortillas

Spice Rack

• Basil
• Bay leaves
• Black peppercorns
• Cayenne pepper and/or chipotle chili powder
• Mild chili powder
• Cilantro
• Crushed red pepper
• Curry powder
• Dill
• Garlic powder (not garlic salt)
• Ground cinnamon
• Ground cumin
• Ground ginger
• Italian seasoning
• Marjoram
• Nutritional yeast
• Whole nutmeg
• Onion powder
• Oregano
• Paprika and/or smoked paprika
• Parsley
• Sage
• Sea salt
• Turmeric

Ready to get started? Check out Forks Meal Planner, FOK’s easy weekly meal-planning tool to keep you on a healthy plant-based path. To learn more about a whole-food, plant-based diet, visit our Plant-Based Primer.

The post How to Give Your Kitchen a Whole-Food, Plant-Based Makeover appeared first on Forks Over Knives.

Stasher Starter Kit 7-Pack Reusable Silicone Storage Bags | $93 $65 at Stasher

Cut down on plastic use with these food-safe silicone storage bags in a rainbow of colors and sizes. Stasher estimates that this 7-piece set could replace 1,820 bags every year. Great for travel or home use, Stasher bags are leakproof and safe to use in the dishwasher, freezer, and microwave. Stasher is offering 30% off select styles for Black Friday.

The reBoard and (mini) reBoard |$35 AND $25 from Material Kitchen

You use a cutting board every day; it should be a good one. Material’s high-style boards come in two sizes and a bunch of great colors, and they’re known for being stain-resistant. Made from 75% recycled kitchen plastic and 25% renewable sugar cane, these boards are dishwasher-safe, and a portion of the proceeds go to charities.

Jrk! Bonnet Hot Sauce |$42 $34/3-pack (with code FOK20) at Sauces by Jrk!

If you’re gifting someone who puts hot sauce on everything, this awesome sauce brings the heat with scotch bonnet chiles sourced directly from Jamaica. Created by the folks at Miami’s popular Jamaican fast-casual (and vegan-friendly) eatery of the same name, this low-sodium flavor bomb is made with just six natural ingredients. For FOK readers, Jrk! is offering a 20% discount for a limited time.

Ninja Foodi 8-in-1 Digital Air Fryer Oven | $240 $200 $160 at Target

Cramped kitchen? Ninja’s simplest oven-style air fryer is a convection oven, air fryer, and toaster oven all in one. It’s roomy enough to accommodate a 13-inch pizza, 9 slices of toast, or a sheet pan meal. It comes with a 13-inch square sheet pan and air-frying basket, and the price has dropped twice.

Le Creuset 5.25 Qt. Deep Dutch Oven | $380 $199 at Le Creuset

With a slimmer base and taller sides than Le Creuset’s classic French Oven, this heirloom-caliber pot would work great with an immersion blender (less spatter) and takes up less space on the stove. Le Creuset enameled cast iron is the gold standard for even cooking, and the pot can go from stove to oven to table with grace. You’ll find the most color options (18 colors!) on the Le Creuset site, but this $199 deal is also on offer at Williams Sonoma, Sur La Table, Macy’s, and other retailers.

Great Jones Sweetie Pie Dish | $50 at Great Jones

This vintage-inspired 20-inch ceramic pie dish comes in three colorways—the royal blue shown below, as well as dark green and a sunny yellow. Microwave-, freezer-, and dishwasher-safe, it has a wavy rim that facilitates perfect crust crimping around the edges of your pie.

Pyrex 9-Piece Portables Easy Grab Set | $64 $44 at Amazon

My mom always called this “food luggage,” and she gifted me a few Pyrex Portables pieces for Christmas in my 20s. They’ve all lasted decades and still get regular use when I need to bring a dish or three to potlucks, BBQs, or big Thanksgiving get-togethers. You can use the lidded glass casserole and containers for every day and bring out the insulated carrier and hot/cold packs when it’s time to venture out.

Melissa’s Exotic and Tropical Fruit Sampler Box | $68 at Melissa’s

One of our favorite purveyors of fresh produce will deliver a 7- to 8-pound box of exotic goodies, including (based on availability) fresh baby pineapple, Asian pear, kumquats, blood orange, specialty bananas, lychees, papaya, passion fruit, and starfruit, to name a few. This is! just one of Melissa’s fantastic fruit- and veggie-forward gift options.

Snapware Total Solutions Pyrex Glass Food Storage 24-piece set | $55 $31 at Macy’s

Inspire loved ones to get their meal prep on (or build a salad bar in their fridge) with these sturdy, hassle-free glass containers. The leakproof snap-on lids are made of BPA-free plastic, everything is top-rack dishwasher-safe, and the containers stack nicely in the fridge and let you see what you’ve stored. Macy’s has a great discount with the code FRIEND.

Limited Edition Liberty Print Cotton Napkin Set of 4 | $40 $28 at J. Crew

J. Crew is doing a limited-edition tabletop collection featuring several cheery cotton prints from the iconic British print house Liberty fabrics. Not just napkins; they have Liberty print placemats and tablecloths on sale, too. Feel-good bonus: reusable napkins are better for the planet. Get 30% off the $40 list price with the code WARMUP.

Our Place Always Pan | $145 $99 at Our Place

This is a cool pan, and it comes in seven really nice colors. The ceramic nonstick surface is free of PFOAs, PTFEs, and other toxins, and the aluminum body keeps it lightweight. It comes with a stainless steel steamer basket and a beechwood spatula that nests neatly on a spoon-rest notch built into the pan’s handle.

Our Place Spruce Steamer Basket | $30 at Our Place

For those who steam high volumes of food, this modern take on the traditional bamboo steamer makes a sweet add-on to the Always Pan shown above. The generous-sized spruce and bamboo basket fits snugly into the ceramic nonstick Always Pan, the cast-iron Always Pan, and the brand’s Perfect Pot. It comes with a pair of cooking chopsticks and 15 parchment paper liners.

Rancho Gordo Desert Island Sampler | $39 at Rancho Gordo

Rancho Gordo is the first name in heirloom beans, and their sampler of founder Steve Sando’s essential six dried bean varieties will be a hit with WFPB home cooks. The box includes 1-pound bags of Colombian cranberry beans, buckeye beans, Domingo Rojos, garbanzos, and midnight black beans. 

The Original Magic Bullet | $50 $38 at Macy’s

A great gift for someone who’s starting out—with their first kitchen or a new foray into WFPB cooking—this small-but mighty blender whips up smoothies, salad dressings, and other small-batch sauces in a flash, and doesn’t take up much space in the kitchen. We know people who travel with it.

Great Jones Sheet Show Sheet Pan Trio | $85 $60 at Great Jones

Who doesn’t need a new sheet pan? This cute set includes one half-sheet and two quarter-sheets that get their nonstick mojo from a Swiss ceramic coating. Made of aluminized steel and reinforced with steel rods to prevent warping in extreme temperatures, they come in four poppin’ colors: Raspberry, Blueberry, Broccoli (emerald green), and Mustard.

Vitamix Ascent Series A2300 | $500 $450 at Vitamix

Yes, it’s a splurge, but this deluxe gift is sure to make someone’s holiday magical. The Vitamix high-speed blender can make cream-style soups in a matter of seconds, blitz nuts into a smooth butter, and transform frozen fruit pieces into a soft-serve “nice cream” treat. We like the Ascent Series A2300 model, which has a shorter, wider pitcher and cutting-edge precision settings that include a digital timer and wireless sensor.

Ninja Professional Plus Blender DUO with Auto IQ | $150 $100 at Target

If you want a high-powered blender but aren’t ready to spend those big Vitamix dollars, the Ninja is a worthy option. This is the same blender we featured in the FOK Blender Guide, but this set includes two 24-oz. single-serve go cups for the same price. Target has it for 33% off the list price.

KitchenAid K400 Glass Jar Blender with Hearth & Hand by Magnolia | $300 $240 at Target

Another model extolled by experts in our FOK blender guide, the Kitchen Aid K400 is a solid high-speed blender with great countertop appeal. This matte dark green shade is exclusive to Target, thanks to a KitchenAid collab with Hearth & Hand by Magnolia. The KitchenAid website is offering K400 blender in seven other nice colors for $230.

Forks Cooking Course | $349 $245 at Forks Over Knives

For anyone who’d like to dial up their plant-based cooking skills, you can give the gift of culinary know-how with Forks Cooking Course. This immersive 90-day online course is led by world-renowned chefs and educators who will show you how to cook 100+ delicious recipes and master a wide variety of culinary techniques—all from the comfort of home! The next course starts on January 4, and Forks is offering 30% off the $349 price starting Monday, November 21.

Editor’s note: FOK may collect a small share of sales from some of the links on this page, though it doesn’t influence our product picks. 

The post 2022 Gift Guide: Serious Treats for Healthy Home Cooks appeared first on Forks Over Knives.

The new study, published in January in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, examined olive oil consumption and mortality using data collected from more than 90,000 health care workers over 28 years: 60,582 women in the Nurses’ Health Study and 31,801 men in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study.

Participants completed health assessment questionnaires every two years. Every four years they answered detailed food-frequency questionnaires that asked how often, on average, they had consumed specific foods in the preceding year, including types and brands of fats and oils used for cooking and added at the table. Over the 28-years follow-up period, 36,856 participants died. 

After adjusting for known risk factors and other dietary factors, researchers found that participants who consumed more than a half tablespoon a day of olive oil were 19 percent less likely to die of cardiovascular disease and all other causes. They were 29 percent less likely to die of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, 17 percent less likely to die of cancer, and 18 percent less likely to die of  respiratory disease compared with those who never or rarely consumed olive oil. 

“Our findings confirm current dietary recommendations to replace animal fats with plant oils for the prevention of chronic diseases and premature death,” said the study’s lead author, Marta Guasch-Ferré, a senior research scientist in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard Chan School of Public Health. 

So Is Oil Healthy Now?

An important takeaway for WFPB eaters is that the Harvard study analyzed death rates based on different types of added fat in the diet. They did not examine the benefits of a diet with little or no added oil. Neal Barnard, MD, FACC, addressed the question in the January 20 episode of The Exam Room by the Physicians Committee podcast.  

“Olive oil is better than chicken fat, beef fat, cheese fat, dairy fat. It’s better than all these,” Barnard, president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, told The Exam Room host Chuck Carroll. “Chicken fat is 30 percent saturated fat. Beef is 50 percent saturated fat. But for olive oil it’s all the way down to 14 [percent]. That’s good.” 

Then Barnard offered a big caveat: “But what if instead I get a nonstick pan and I don’t use any fat at all? That’s best of all because every gram of fat, no matter where it’s from, has 9 calories, and our research has shown that when people get away from these fats in general they do best of all. So olive oil: better than animal fats, absolutely. Slam dunk. But learning to really minimize even the oils, even the olive oil, is probably the best road,” he said.

“The researchers have tried to make the case that there’s something magical in olive oil. And there are various plant constituents, just as there are in broccoli and sweet potatoes. However the big issue seems to be you’re not eating the animal fat anymore,” Barnard added.

Indeed, while the new study found that replacing butter, mayonnaise, or dairy fat with olive oil was associated with a lower risk of total and cause-specific mortality, they found no significant risk reduction when substituting olive oil for other vegetable oils.

The study authors also noted that participants with higher olive oil intake tended to be more active than other participants and less likely to smoke. They also consumed more fruits and vegetables than those who ate less or no olive oil. 

The WFPB Case Against Oil

“There’s no question that when you get rid of all those other fats, olive oil—which is monounsaturated—is less harmful. However the point is this: It’s not to get an 18, 19 percent risk reduction when what you’re really striving for with cardiovascular disease is to eliminate it,”  said lifestyle medicine pioneer Caldwell Esselstyn, MD, author of Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease. 

“When has Harvard ever done a study with oil where you take patients who are seriously ill with heart disease and you arrest and reverse it? That’s what we were able to achieve, along with [Dr. Dean] Ornish and others who follow this kind of approach,” Esselstyn said.

In a 2014 study published in the Journal of Family Practice, Esselstyn and colleagues tested a whole-food, plant-based diet on 198 patient volunteers with established cardiovascular disease. Of the 177 patients (89 percent) who responded to intensive counseling and stuck with the diet for a mean of 3.7 years, only one patient had a major cardiovascular event: a stroke. Meanwhile, 13 of the 21 patients who didn’t stick with the diet experienced adverse cardiac events.

In 2019, Esselstyn wrote an editorial for the International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention outlining a range of studies that show oil consumption promotes vascular injury, including research published in 2000 that examined the post-meal impact of olive oil on the endothelium, a membrane that lines the heart and blood vessels and helps control vascular relaxation and contraction. The study found that meals prepared with olive oil reduced flow-mediated dilation, a measure of arterial blood flow, by 31 percent. 

Another concern with added oil is its sheer calorie density and potential to promote overeating and weight gain. 

At 4,000 calories per pound, “oil follows essentially the same model as processed sugar, which is also pressed from plants,” explain Alona Pulde, MD, and Matthew Lederman, MD, in The Forks Over Knives Plan. “Think about what oil is: fat—and nothing but fat. … Oil of any kind has more calories per gram than any other food we know. And without any fiber or water in it, oil lacks the bulk to convey to your senses how many calories you have eaten; this virtually guarantees you will consume more calories at the meal than you need.”

To learn more about a whole-food, plant-based diet, visit our Plant-Based Primer. For meal-planning support, check out Forks Meal Planner, FOK’s easy weekly meal-planning tool to keep you on a healthy plant-based path.

The post New Olive Oil Study Sparks Questions for Whole-Food, Plant-Based Eaters appeared first on Forks Over Knives.

The Exam Room

In this podcast from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, host Chuck Carroll, aka The Weight Loss Champion (he lost 265 pounds), examines nutrition science and the latest medical news with PCRM President Neal Barnard, MD, and chats with people who have transformed their lives with a plant-based diet. Learn more here. 

Plant Yourself

Howard Jacobson, a health coach, speaker, and writer (he coauthored Proteinaholic with Dr. Garth Davis and Whole with Dr. T. Colin Campbell), proves his considerable interview skills with a range of fascinating guests who are helping to heal the world the plant-based way. Learn more here.

Beat Your Genes

This podcast for “finding happiness in the modern world” captures a weekly live call-in show with host Nate G. and evolutionary psychologist Dr. Doug Lisle, director of research at TrueNorth Health Center in Santa Rosa, California, and the psychologist for the McDougall wellness program. The whole-food, plant-based lifestyle frequently factors into callers’ questions and Lisle’s thoughtful advice. Learn more here.

Nutrition Rounds

Cardiologist Danielle Belardo, MD, is on a mission to educate the world about the power of a plant-based diet to prevent and reverse heart disease, and she’s had a busy few months: In February she launched the Heart Health Challenge, a seven-day event in which thousands of participants tried a whole-food plant-based diet. And in December, she kicked off a brand-new weekly podcast. Nutrition Rounds. Dr. Belardo interviews world-renowned health experts about topics such as disease prevention, plant-based nutrition, and challenges that plant-based doctors face in the medical community. Learn more here.

The Rich Roll Podcast

On his popular podcast, world-renowned ultra-endurance athlete and whole-food plant-based success story Rich Roll interviews compelling figures from all walks of life. In the four years since he started his podcast, he’s often featured plant-based movers and shakers, including vegan bodybuilder Nimai Delgado and Dr. Dean and Anne Ornish. Learn more here.

The Ian Cramer Podcast

Ian Cramer, a plant-powered competitive cyclist who completed a cross-country race in 2015, is passionate about learning and sharing all he can about plant-based nutrition. In his weekly podcast, Cramer interviews medical doctors such as John McDougall and Steve Lawenda as well as plant-based nutrition experts such as Chef AJ. Learn more here.

Brain Health and Beyond

Drs. Dean and Ayesha Sherzai are award-winning neurologists and researchers and directors of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Program at Loma Linda University Medical Center.  Join the plant-based power couple twice a month for a fascinating deep-dive into the science of the human mind and tools for taking control of your own brain health. Learn more here.

Ready to get started? Check out Forks Meal Planner, FOK’s easy weekly meal-planning tool to keep you on a healthy plant-based path.

The post Podcasts With a Plant-Based Twist appeared first on Forks Over Knives.

Choose from 100+ vegan Thanksgiving recipes to create your perfect holiday meal with our Thanksgiving menu builder.

The post 10 Incredible Vegan Sides for Your Thanksgiving Table appeared first on Forks Over Knives.

A stent is a tiny mesh tube that doctors insert into narrowed or weakened arteries to prop them open. The procedure saves lives for people in the midst of a heart attack, but it’s also prescribed for stable heart patients with angina—the chest pain and tightness caused by limited blood flow to the heart. Even pain-free patients with arterial blockages sometimes get stents, and cost of the procedure starts at about $11,000 for people without insurance.

Patients often report relief from the procedure, but the new study, published last week in The Lancet, found no significant difference in pain relief among patients treated with stents compared to those treated with a placebo procedure.

In the randomized, controlled experiment involving 200 patients in the United Kingdom with severe narrowing of one artery, about half were treated with stents, and the other half underwent a placebo procedure. All were given drugs to reduce the risk of a heart attack and prevent blood clots. Neither the patients nor the researchers observing them during the six-week study knew who received stents and who did not.

After six weeks, all the patients reported relief in angina symptoms, and all showed an improvement on treadmill tests—regardless of whether or not they had received a stent.

“All cardiology guidelines should be revised,” wrote David L. Brown, MD, of the Washington University School of Medicine and Rita F. Redberg of the University of California, San Francisco, in an editorial in the same issue of The Lancet.

“Several randomized trials have clearly shown that stents and angioplasties don’t prolong life or prevent heart attacks in stable patients. Now, we know that they don’t reduce angina either,” wrote Dean Ornish, MD, clinical professor of medicine at the University of California of San Francisco, commenting on a New York Times report of the study.

“In contrast, comprehensive lifestyle changes cause a 91 percent reduction in angina in only a few weeks, reverse the progression of coronary artery blockages, and cause a 400 percent improvement in blood flow at a fraction of the costs, and the only side-effects are good ones,” added Ornish, who is also founder and president of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California.

The post Surprising New Study: Stents Don’t Work for Chest Pain appeared first on Forks Over Knives.