What is a whole foods diet?

A whole foods diet consists of eating foods in their natural state, or as close as possible to it: Fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, nuts, eggs, grains, tubers, legumes, and dairy. Processed foods — foods that have been altered to be hyperpalatable (AKA unnaturally tasty) or have an extensive list of added ingredients — get the boot.

As (intentionally) tempting as potato chips are, we’re wired to eat a whole foods diet. We spent most of our history eating fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, and nuts before modern food production derailed our collective health. Not only are our bodies designed to digest these unprocessed foods, a whole foods diet also brings benefits like weight loss, reduced inflammation, improved gut and heart health, and more stable energy. 

The opposite of a whole foods diet is the Standard American Diet (SAD), an ultra-processed smorgasbord that keeps us overfed yet undernourished. The SAD drives the obesity and diabetes crises, keeping us fat, sick, and tired. 

Eating whole foods is part of the solution. Today, I’ll dig into the nuances of whole foods vs processed foods, share the science behind the benefits of a whole foods diet, and explore three types of whole foods diets you can test to reach your health goals.

The bottom line, though? If you prioritize foods in their natural state and avoid ultra-processed foods, you’re more than halfway to a sustainable diet for health and longevity. A quick note on the word diet. “Diet” is commonly used to connote a restrictive way of eating for weight loss, but what it really means is just “a way of eating.” You can follow a type of diet for a myriad of reasons beyond weight loss goals, including for health goals, performance goals, or simply because you feel best eating a certain way. With that, let’s dig in.

The Details of a Whole Foods Diet

Whole foods are foods that are as close as possible to how they are found in nature. You can think of it on a spectrum: An apple is a whole food, applesauce is minimally processed (the apple is mashed and it’ll likely have a preservative or two), and Little Debbie’s mini apple fruit pies are ultra-processed because they have more ingredients than you can count on your fingers and toes.

It’ll vary by food type, of course. While you can eat an apple raw, cooking your meat doesn’t mean it loses its whole food status. Nor does mixing up ground beef, canned black beans (free of added ingredients), avocado, and baby tomatoes for a taco bowl. Chopping and cooking your food technically counts as “processing,” but there’s a difference between cooking a meal with whole foods versus heating up a frozen meal that’s chock-full of unnecessary ingredients and preservatives.

Halved pecans, bagged lettuce, boxed bone broth, Greek yogurt, olive oil, and frozen vegetables can be considered whole foods, too. These foods are lightly processed before you buy them, but chopped lettuce in a bag is still just lettuce. Some purists may disagree, but the benefits of eating those very lightly processed foods are often the same as getting the food in its fully natural state.

The end goal is to avoid packaged and refined foods high in sugar, vegetable oils (soybean oil, corn oil, sunflower oil, etc.), and ingredients you can’t pronounce. These foods are often ultra-processed and addictive, and they dominate the Standard American Diet. Let’s take a closer look at the SAD now.

Overeating on the Standard American Diet

The Standard American Diet (also called the Western diet) is the default diet in the United States. It’s high in heavily processed foods that are full of refined carbs, sugar, vegetable oils, and food additives. Science suggests widespread adoption of the Western diet drives the American obesity crisis, leading to higher rates of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and other chronic diseases. 

If the Standard American Diet is so unhealthy, why is it so popular? In a word: hyperpalatability. 

Hyperpalatable foods contain carefully calculated proportions of sugar, salt, and fat to hack our brain chemistry so we chow down like a puppy who stumbled on the holiday ham. Overeating these hyperpalatable foods dysregulates our hunger hormones, so we reach for more when we don’t need it — and the supernormal stimulus makes whole foods seem dull in comparison, leaving us less likely to enjoy them. One estimate suggests that 62% of the US food supply is hyperpalatable. 

These hyperpalatable foods are super easy to get. Our ancestors worked hard for their meals of meat, berries, nuts, and tubers. Yet today, sugary, fatty snacks are never more than a few swipes away.

The good news is that you can use food accessibility to your advantage (ordering fresh produce straight to your door is a thing!). And when you swap pseudo-food for real food, benefits follow. 

Benefits of a Whole Foods Diet

There are two main reasons why whole foods diets have health benefits:

1. Whole foods displace hyperpalatable processed foods, reducing overeating (it may take a little time for your taste buds to re-adjust, but they will).
2. Whole foods contain more nutrients (protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals) than processed foods, plus the nutrients are better absorbed (read up on bioavailability here).

Let’s talk tangible benefits now. 

#1: Weight management

The hyperpalatable modern diet drives overeating and weight gain. Switching to whole foods improves satiety (your feeling of fullness) and can promote weight loss, because whole foods are high in fiber and protein.. Protein and fiber are your two satiety superstars, activating satiety hormones like PYY, glucagon, and GLP-1. Drugs like Ozempic, which have risen in popularity, are synthetic versions of GLP-1 to keep you full so you eat less and lose weight. 

#2: Improved insulin function

Skipping refined carbs and sugar improves the function of insulin, a hormone that regulates your blood sugar. Better insulin function leads to better satiety, more stable energy, and reduced chronic disease risk. 

#3: Reduced inflammation

Chronic inflammation is excess immune activity in the absence of a specific disease. Higher levels of chronic inflammation are linked to heart disease, diabetes, respiratory diseases, and cancer. 

The Western diet drives chronic inflammation through multiple mechanisms, including: 

• Elevated blood sugar from eating a lot of highly refined carbs 
• Excess omega-6 fatty acids (vegetable oils are especially inflammatory when heated)
• Overeating and obesity (obesity and inflammation are inextricably linked)

Switching to whole foods addresses these problems. It lowers blood sugar by reducing refined carbs, includes anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids (from fish like salmon) to balance omega-6s, and keeps you satiated to prevent overeating — all big wins. 

#4: Gut health

The fruits, veggies, nuts, and seeds on a whole foods diet contain fiber that improves digestion and feeds beneficial gut bacteria. In response, gut bacteria produce butyrate, a compound that fuels colon cells and reduces inflammation in the gut. The gut is an important place to focus on reducing inflammation, since 70% of your immune cells reside there.

#5: Heart health

As it turns out, the human heart does NOT like the modern diet. A 2021 review links the following cardiovascular risk factors to a highly processed diet:

• Higher cholesterol levels
• Impairments to gut health and the gut microbiome
• Obesity
• Chronic inflammation
• Abnormal blood sugar levels and fluctuations
• Poor insulin function
• High blood pressure

Bottom line? Heart disease is the number one killer globally, and a whole foods diet is a sharp tool in our longevity toolkit. 

3 Types of Whole Foods Diets

Let’s get into the sub-types of whole foods diets, now. You can of course focus on all of the foods I listed at the start — fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, nuts, eggs, grains, tubers, legumes, and dairy. But there are a few other ways to structure your whole foods diet, depending on what suits your preferences or health best.

#1: Mediterranean diet

The term “Mediterranean diet” was coined in the 1960s and encompasses eating patterns of ancient cultures from the Mediterranean basin. The diet favors whole grains, fruits, vegetables, legumes, protein (mostly fish), fat (mostly olive oil), and occasional red wine. The science suggests that switching from a Western diet to a Mediterranean diet improves heart disease risk factors in various populations. Is this benefit driven by fish, olive oil, prohibiting sugar and processed foods, or something else? We don’t know, but the Mediterranean diet certainly beats the Western diet. 

#2: Paleo diet 

Eating paleo means eating foods we’re ancestrally wired to eat: meat, fish, eggs, nuts, seeds, healthy fats (olive oil, avocado oil, butter), tubers, fruits, and vegetables. Although the Mediterranean diet movement started before the paleo movement, paleo is the original whole foods diet, invented before fire, the wheel, and kitten mittens. 

Along with processed food, paleo excludes grains, legumes, and usually dairy (these foods can be inflammatory). A 2023 meta-analysis of 59 trials found that paleo improved inflammation and other health biomarkers more effectively than the Mediterranean or the low-salt DASH diet (DASH stands for “dietary approaches to stop hypertension”). Salty corner: The findings from this meta-analysis suggest salt isn’t to blame for the Western diet’s health effects — the more likely culprit is overeating empty calories!

#3: Low-carb and keto diets

Low-carb and ketogenic (very low carb) diets prioritize meat, fish, eggs, nuts, seeds, dairy, and healthy fats, and limit carbohydrate intake (minimizing fruit and vegetable intake, and omitting grains and legumes).

Of all the whole foods approaches, low-carb may be best for weight loss and metabolic health because it limits the macronutrient with the largest blood sugar impact: carbs! Lower blood sugar keeps insulin lower, priming your body to run on fat for energy. This fat-adaptation stabilizes your energy, gets you off the blood sugar roller coaster, and improves satiety. Consequently, folks tend to eat less on low-carb and keto diets, leading to weight loss and better health.

How to Get Started with a Whole Foods Diet

Following a whole foods diet doesn’t require a doctoral dissertation. You know more than enough by now to get started: Avoid processed and hyperpalatable foods, eat when you’re hungry, consume fiber-rich plants, and get enough protein to maintain muscle mass.

It’s also important to not be shy with the salt shaker and electrolyte drinks — whole foods diets are naturally low in sodium, and many folks who begin eating this way without also watching their sodium intake can experience symptoms of sodium deficiency like headaches, cramps, and low energy.

If you want to go a step further, tinker with a paleo, Mediterranean, or low-carb diet. One diet doesn’t fit all, so don’t force it if a particular approach isn’t working for your body. Just focus on the whole foods we’re wired to eat, and you’ll fare well in the long run.