The Whole Food Vegan Food Pyramid
Nuts & Seeds
2 Servings [1 serving = 1oz.]
You can get enough essential fats by including just 1 tbsp of flaxseeds, chia seeds, or walnuts into your diet – the rest is for enjoyment and energy purposes.
Legumes
3+ Servings [1 serving = ½ cup cooked]
This category includes beans, lentils as well as hummus, tofu, and soy milk etc. Emphasize the whole food here as well and increase your servings if wanted.
Fruit
4+ Servings [1 serving = ½ cup chopped]
Enjoy the full spectrum and choose fresh over dried. Limit fruit juices. Increase your servings if you have a huge sweet tooth!
Vegetables
5+ Servings [1 serving = ½ cup cooked or 1 cup raw]
Eat the rainbow! Leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables are especially nutrient dense. Eat abundantly from this category.
Grains
6+ Servings [1 serving = ½ cup]
Emphasize whole-grains like brown rice, quinoa, millet, wheat berries etc. eat them until satiated and increase your daily servings to suit your energy needs.
Foods to emphasize in general
- Calcium-fortified soy products (milk, tofu, etc.)
- Omega-3 rich foods: flax, chia, walnuts
- (Dark) leafy greens
- Cruciferous veggies
- Berries
- Iodized salt
Why plant based foods?
The Environment
Industrial animal agriculture occupies more than half of the worlds arable land resources, expels more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transportation sector and uses the majority of our fresh water stores.
- Eating vegan for one day saves 1500 gallons of water.
- Plant-based foods produce 10x less greenhouse gas emissions than beef.
- Every time we eat we have the power to save the planet by reducing our global demand for meat and animal products.
The Animals
Industrial agriculture slaughters 24 million farm animals each day for human consumption.
- If we keep fishing at the current rate ALL species of wild seafood will collapse within 50 years.
- Hundreds of species of plants, animals and insects are lost to extinction EVERYDAY due to rainforest destruction and illegal hunting and trade.
- Humans kill 11,417 sharks per hour because of unsustainable fishing practices.
- Because of disturbing facts like this, Veganism has grown 600% in US since 2014! Also, Almond Milk and other dairy alternatives are projected to represent 40% of the Dairy/dairy alternative beverage market by 2020.
Health/Humanity
Nobel Prize winner Elizabeth Blackburn found through groundbreaking research that a vegan diet caused more than 500 genes to change in only three months. turning on genes that prevent disease and turning off ones that cause breast cancer, heart disease, prostate cancer and other illnesses.
- Based on the association of cancer and heart disease to animal products, If everyone was eating a plant-based diet we could save trillions of dollars in healthcare cost and hundreds of thousands of lives every year.
- A major study of nearly 300,000 Canadians found that greater fruit and vegetable consumption was associated with lower risk of depression, psychological distress, and anxiety disorders.
- Google Trends has shown a 488% increase in vegan searches over the past decade, which means people are educating themselves with the overwhelming amounts of research and health facts available on the web.