About PEA Pod
PEA Pod is an independent group (“Pod”), created to provide support to people following (or exploring) a whole food, plant-based way of eating. We are affiliated with Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and it's Building Healthy Communities Action Network, and support its mission of saving and improving human and animal lives through plant-based diets and ethical and effective scientific research.
Building Healthy Communities
Watch the short video to learn more about Building Healthy Communities:
The Whole Foods Plant-Based Food Philosophy
Building Healthy Communities advocates a whole food, plant-based diet, without animal products, which consists of:
- Vegetables, including leafy greens
- Fruits
- Whole grains
- Legumes/beans
- Nuts and seeds
There is a school of thought in the plant-based community that salt and sugar, as well as nuts, avocados, and other plant foods high in natural fat, should never be consumed. We don’t subscribe to this.
First, nuts, seeds, avocados, and other whole- plant foods high in natural fat are essential to a healthy diet when consumed in modest amounts. The argument against natural fat in whole, plant-based foods is the same reductionist thinking used by the dairy industry to advocate for milk consumption.
Milk contains calcium and calcium is a building material for bones, so the dairy industry has argued for years that we should consume milk. Yet science shows that increased consumption of high protein foods like milk and other animal-derived foods (coupled with consumption of less plant-derived foods) are associated with lower long-term bone health. Biology is complex — infinitely so. What matters most is not the presence of calcium in milk, but the wholistic effects of milk on the body. Likewise, what matters most with whole plant foods high in fat is the way they are utilized by the body and the effects they produce, and research is increasingly showing these plant foods to be beneficial.
Salt and sugar are in a different category. Adding extra salt and sugar out of their natural context is not essential to our diet. We believe it is important, however, that people should be free to eat food with flavors they enjoy. We will not change the world around the idea of plant-based nutrition if we tell people they must give up the food they love for food that tastes bland.
Our Culinary Philosophy allows for modest levels of added salt and sugar, based on the assumption that /as people experience the benefits of this diet, they will do their best to reduce these ingredients as much as possible over time/. Taste preferences change, so once we become accustomed to a low-salt and low-sugar diet, we discover that these flavors “pop” at low amounts.
The PEA Pod's Culinary Philosophy also allows people the opportunity to have, now and then, a fun dessert and even a glass of beer or wine.
The only ingredient we advocate avoiding as much as possible is added oil. This ingredient is not necessary to the creation of great-tasting meals; it is possible to create flavor without oil. An argument can be made that very small amounts of oil (like a very small splash of sesame oil in a kale dish) is likely to do little or no harm, but the problem is that many people have difficulty drawing the line with oil. A little can easily turn into too much. So we suggest just staying away from it.
Upon the creation of our Pod, our science advisor at the time, Dr. T. Colin Campbell, has long maintained that you get most of the potential health benefit from dietary change simply by moving to a whole food, plant-based diet. Becoming a purist is not likely to create much additional gain, and whatever gain might appear pales in comparison to the gain from going plant-based. In his view, we can gain more than 95% of the potential health benefit by moving to a diet as described above. We can quibble about whether we can add another incremental benefit by becoming purists, but why do this when the cost is a diet deficient in flavor? Our goal is not to motivate a small number of purists, but to launch a revolution that transforms society.
There are two impulses present in many of us. One is the impulse to be “right” and to judge those who are “wrong.” The other is the humble, nonjudgmental impulse to love. We favor the second, knowing that love is the more powerful, more transformational choice. And we love our neighbors and the larger world when we give them a plant-based option that is joyful.