What is Whole Food, Plant-Based Living: Getting Started?
The Whole food, plant-based (WFPB) lifestyle is becoming increasingly popular as more people discover the evidence showing the ability of whole plant foods to prevent and reverse disease. However, the steps to adopting this lifestyle can sometimes seem overwhelming. You may wonder where to start, what to eat, or how to get your family on board. The T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies (CNS) is here to help. We have many resources to ease your transition to a WFPB lifestyle, and we created this free course to help you navigate the journey.
Whole Food, Plant-Based Living: Getting Started is designed to guide you through the essentials of a healthier, more sustainable way of eating. This self-paced course offers straightforward guidance, practical resources, and access to CNS Kitchen, a free CNS community providing members the tools they need to maintain a successful WFPB lifestyle.
After completing this course, you will:
- Have the skills necessary to adopt and sustain a whole food, plant-based (WFPB) lifestyle.
- Know the significance of Dr. T. Colin Campbell’s research and why a WFPB lifestyle is best for you and your family.
- Appreciate the impact of WFPB nutrition on personal, communal, and global health.
- Have the tools necessary to make the best food choices for you and your family.
- Understand the basics of meal planning and grocery shopping.
- Navigate social situations confidently to make healthy decisions away from home.
- Be able to talk confidently with your healthcare provider about your lifestyle choices.
Course Overview
4–6 hours of content
20 versatile recipes
Sample meal plans
Self-paced
Who Should Enroll?
Who Should Enroll?
This course is for anyone interested in exploring a plant-based lifestyle or enhancing their current efforts. It offers practical tools, science-based guidance, and community support to help participants improve their health, live sustainably, and make informed, confident choices.
Course Modules
We will guide you through many topics that are important to this lifestyle. You will learn why a WFPB diet is important, which foods to eat and avoid, how to know you are on the right track, the basics of meal planning, and so much more. Best of all, you don’t have to go it alone. You will have support from responsive peers and hosts in the community plus access to Chef Del Sroufe during weekly office hours.
Why a Whole Food, Plant-Based Lifestyle?
In 2005, after a long career in biochemistry, toxicology, and epidemiology, T. Colin Campbell, PhD, coauthored The China Study with his son, Dr. Thomas Campbell II. This book explores how whole food, plant-based nutrition supports health and fights society’s deadliest diseases. Whereas CNS’s Plant-Based Nutrition Certificate program delves into this research, Getting Started focuses on key insights, practical guidance, and delicious recipes to help you embark on a sustainable journey to better health.
What Do I Eat?
Many people think that adopting a WFPB lifestyle is restrictive, focusing on what they have to give up instead of what they gain. The good news is that by adopting this lifestyle, you will discover a whole new world of culinary possibilities. In this section we share the foods to eat and avoid. Then we show you how to use these new foods in different ways to make great-tasting dishes that won’t leave you feeling like you have sacrificed anything.
How Do I Know If I Am Doing It Right?
If you flip to chapter 12 of The China Study, “How to Eat,” you might expect meal plans and recipes with portion sizes. Instead, the message of this short chapter is to “keep it simple, just eat plants.” Easy, right? But where are the calorie counters, the scales, the portion sizes? Dr. Campbell says that eating should be an enjoyable experience, and he is right.
Meal Planning 101
You may feel overwhelmed when you create your first WFPB menu. You may be unfamiliar with some of the ingredients in a recipe, or you may not know how much food to prepare for you or your family. Some of the recipes you find may seem alien to you. But there are several things you can do to make the transition easier. We provide ideas for putting it all together and teach you the basics of meal planning.
The New Grocery Store
Once you have created a menu for you and your family using your newfound knowledge of a WFPB diet, your first trip to the grocery store may seem daunting. Take your time, explore, and ask the store employees questions. They are there to help you find unfamiliar ingredients. Eventually, grocery shopping will be second nature. The remaining lessons in this section help you better navigate your local market by anticipating questions that may arise as you shop.
Family, Friends, and Community
Your decision to adopt a WFPB diet likely involved careful consideration of the possible effects. But it’s also likely your family, friends, and neighbors will not know or understand all the information that went into your decision. Being able to share that information can be really helpful when people are not as supportive as you would like them to be. This section will offer tips and guidance for talking to your family, friends, and community about your lifestyle changes.
Building Your Foundation of Knowledge
Explore the diverse learning opportunities offered by CNS. Our self-paced certificate programs—the Plant-Based Nutrition Certificate and the Food & Sustainability Certificate—provide in-depth knowledge and are taught through Whole Communities, the sister community of CNS Kitchen. If you’re looking to enhance your culinary skills, consider our self-paced cooking courses: WFPB Cooking: A Beginner's Course and WFPB Cooking: Meal Planning Made Easy. Both are taught in CNS Kitchen.
Instructor
Del Sroufe is a Culinary Specialist with the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies (CNS) and the co-host of CNS Kitchen, an online community providing support to those looking to adopt a whole food, plant-based lifestyle. Del has owned and operated several plant-based businesses, worked as a plant-based personal chef, and written four cookbooks, including the New York Times bestseller Forks Over Knives—The Cookbook.