In our previous columns, we have highlighted that the whole foods plant-based (WFPB) diet that METI has been promoting for years, not only helps to control and reverse non-communicable diseases (NCD) like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer but also helps to fight infectious (communicable) diseases by boosting the immune system.

We gave the dramatic example of diabetic patients with a chronic leg infection who were able to save their leg from being amputated by simply following the plant-based diet, chockablock with thousands of health-promoting substances, like vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. There is another important health benefit as the result of a WFPB diet boosting the immune system that has been identified and which we want to bring to our readers’ attention. As was recently reported by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM): persons sticking to a plant-based diet are protected against severe COVID-19 infections.

The COVID-19 pandemic which started in 2020 and is still ongoing (although at a lesser intensity thanks to mass vaccinations), has shaken the world community for the past three years. By the end of last year, a total of over three-quarter billion people had contracted the disease worldwide, with close to seven million having died. In our country, a total of 16780 had been infected, with 31 having died from the virus.

Based on that experience, a recent study published in a British Medical Journal, building on a population-based case-control study in six countries, which monitored the outcomes of patients infected with the COVID-19 virus, concluded that patients following vegan and vegetarian diets had a lesser incidence of severe COVID-19 infection, than those patients following the Western animal-based diet.  

Their conclusion was straightforward: those with the highest intakes of fruits, vegetables, starches, legumes, and nuts, and the lowest intakes of meats and dairy products had the lowest odds of contracting a severe COVID-19 infection. A similar study in 2020, focusing on health care workers similarly found that plant-based diets were associated with a lower risk of COVID-19 infection and moderate-severe disease.

The combined research efforts showed that ‘diet quality’ was important, meaning that a well-balanced plant-based diet like the WFPB diet was of utmost importance. As we have said before, transitioning to a WFPB diet doesn’t have to be challenging. To ensure it is ‘balanced’ it must focus on a variety of plant sources, including vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes (which are beans, peas or lentils, seeds), and nuts, which should make up the majority of what you eat.

As the name of the diet implies, it emphasizes whole, meaning minimally processed foods. Because the diet is used to reverse conditions like NCD that have as their root cause the complications of an animal-based diet, the WFPB diet excludes any type of animal foods, which include meat, fish, eggs, cow’s milk and dairy products. The closer you stick to such a strict plant-based diet, the sooner you will reverse the NCD conditions you might be suffering from.

Let us be clear: we are not ‘fanatics’ about only allowing plant-based foods. Once your diabetes, high blood pressure or heart disease is reversed, you are allowed to enjoy small amounts of animal foods and follow the traditional Samoan diet: mostly plant-based during the week but enjoying animal products -as a ‘treat’- on Sunday ‘toona’i’.

However, there are ‘food taboos’, which should be observed all the time if possible: these are the highly processed, and ‘fast’ or ‘junk’ foods, loaded with salt, oils, sugars and chemicals. They should be avoided at all costs as they will undo rapidly all the benefits that the WFPB diet will have brought you. When you think of it, day in, and day out, your usual meal plan will not include more than about five to ten different recipes.

The same is true when you adopt the WFPB diet. So, to give you a sample of the average three meals you could eat one day, we suggest -for example: Breakfast: oatmeal made with soy milk topped with fruits in season. Lunch: a large fresh salad made with Laupele or watercress, with added red onions, chopped beetroot, chickpeas, pumpkin seeds, and tofu, sprinkled with tomato sauce, soy sauce and Dijon mustard. Eaten with 2 or 3 slices of wholemeal bread. And for Dinner: starches like taro, or breadfruit, or green bananas etc. with a hearty vegetable soup or vegetable stew composed of several vegetables like eggplant, pumpkin, ‘soko’ (chayote), taro leaves (‘fusi luau’), carrots and tomatoes, with legumes added.

So, get on with it! Just like earlier, you might have said: ‘I can’t live without my eggs and sausage!’, there will come a time you become so used to the WFPB diet that you might explain: ‘I can’t live without my daily ‘fresh salad!’ When that happens, you will have conquered and reversed the NCD condition you were suffering from!

As always, we invite you to visit METI’s Healthy Living Clinic at House No. 51 at Motootua (across from the Kokobanana Restaurant) and attend our weekly Health seminar and cooking demonstration that will help you to become acquainted with METI’s whole food plant-based diet. You can call us at 30550.