Eat Plant-Based, Live Healthier: Expert Tips from Pioneer Brenda Davis!

Welcome Brenda this friend colleague scientists really needs no introduction I think most you need her Brenda has been in this business for longer than I have and she’s World R now she’s a plant-based nutrition Pioneer and international claim speaker she is authored and co-authored 13 books with nearly a million copies of print in 15 languages her latest book plant power protein was hot off the crass in April 2023 Brenda was the lead dietitian in diabetes intervention research in the Marshall Island she also developed a nutrition education curriculum for kindergarten through sixth grade kids and trained teachers in all public schools was inducted to the vegetarian Hall of Fame in 2007 and 2022 she received the ptici projects luminary award well I’m excited to share this uh presentation with you what I was asked to talk about really was plant-based nutrition Essentials I want to just very briefly review what is an optimal plant-based diet and it’s essentially a diet that promotes health and minimizes the risk of death and disease and so that we’ll give a quick overview of that and number two is nutritionally adequate at every stage of life and that will be more our focus of this evening so let’s start with plant-based diets and disease risk in Epic Oxford es schic heart disease was 22% lower among the lacto vegetarians and vegans hypertension was actually 55% lower among uh lacto OVO vegetarians in the Adventist Health study too and for vegans it was 75% lower diet quality matters so Whole Food plant-based diets are high quality diets they’re rich in protective dietary components like fiber and phytochemicals diets rich in ultra-processed Foods fast foods and fried foods are low quality diets whether they’re plant-based or omnivorous and so ensuring adequacy is about choosing high quality food providing a sufficient quantity of food ensuring a a wide variety of food and including reliable sources of all essential nutrients and sometimes that means the addition of supplements and and for some fortified Foods protein first of all of course anyone who is consuming a plant-based diet will have been asked at some point by someone can you get enough protein from plants or where do you get your protein so how much protein do people actually need teens need about 085 and adults need about 08 this is the RDA for protein and this is based on a specific reference body weight shown in red to the left here and and what a lot of people don’t realize is that the number of grams of protein we need per day is actually based on your healthy body weight not your actual body weight many people wonder do we need more if we’re eating a plant exclusive or vegan diet and there is no separate RDA for vegans but fiber and other components in Plants such as as you know tannins and and and uh trips and Inhibitors and things like that can reduce protein digestibility so for those eating very high fiber Whole Food plant-based diets some experts suggest adding 10% to the RDA one of the other things people often are surprised by uh is that plant-based athletes can meet protein needs just by ensuring a variety of protein Rich choices with meals and snack and sufficient calories and studies actually show that plant and animal protein sources are equally effective in promoting muscle gains or muscle hypertrophy when plant protein ingestion is sufficient and that’s usually about 1.5 gram per kilogram per day many doctors will say well I I’ve never seen a case of protein deficiency I can tell you I have many many times and and the symptoms of protein shortfalls are skin fragility hair loss brittle nails muscle weakness fatigue inability to fight infection poor wound healing long recovery times and mood changes getting enough protein really means including one protein Rich Choice with each meal it could be beans lentils or split pece tofu Tempe edamami or other soy Foods uh veggie meat nuts or seeds we want to include some lower fiber choices in the mix like tofu soy milk peanut butter uh and select plant-based milks with more protein if possible like soy milk pors them omega-3 fatty acids are another nutrient that people uh are concerned about and many people wonder if they need fish for omega-3 fatty acids and the answer is not necessarily their actually other omega-3 sources that we can rely on so for alphal linolenic acid which is the parent omega-3 and the essential omega-3 fatty acids we get alphal linic acid from seeds like Chia flax and hemp seeds from walnuts and from some novel sources like the AI flour Gilla or eum seed oils and then we can get DHA and EPA from microalgae these are tiny plants in the ocean that’s actually where fish get their EP and DHA from as well we’re culturing it in clean environments so we don’t have to worry about all of the environmental contaminants and heavy metals in fish for macro algae and eggs provide uh some DHA for lacro oal vegetarians moving on to calcium uh how much do we need well adults women up to 50 and Men up to 70 need uh the RDA is a th000 milligrams a day uh it’s 1,200 for women over 50 and men over 70 so how can we get enough calcium without dairy well we need to eat sufficient calcium rich plant Foods some of the best sources of calcium are low oxalate greens chia seeds are an amazing saral calcium almonds tahini H various beans so let’s take a look at how much vitamin D is in food you get about a 100 IUS from a cup of milk you get about the same from a cup of non-dairy milk you get a little bit less from fortified orange juice or cereal or other fortified foods that you probably don’t want to be eating anyway and then you get you know similar amounts from egg yolks or liver but you get considerably more from fish about 70 to 600 I use for 2 and a half ounce uh serving but the most concentrated source of vitamin D in the entire food supply is mushrooms exposed to UV light they can provide between 350 and 1,110 IUS per top so vitamin B12 the RDA is 2.4 micrograms per day sources well supplements are the most reliable sources for plant-based eaters and what’s recommended is a th000 micrograms two to three times a week for adults and 500 to 1,000 micrograms daily for seniors or people 65 plus secondly would be B12 fortified Foods if you use those or consume those and for lacto oval vegetarians who are under the age of 50 they could also rely on animal products iron is a nutrient that that I think is is worth mentioning because I think people will tend to fall short especially people who are eating raw diets who may not be consuming very many legumes may fall short in protein iron and zinc so how can we ensure sufficient iron on a plant-based diet well first we want to select iron rich foods from each food group so in the legume group the best source of iron is actually lentils and that’s followed by beans and chickies and tofu and other legumes so and then nuts and seeds seeds are more concentrated than nuts in the nut category it would be almonds Brazil nuts cashews and pine nuts grains amaran Taff ginoa wheat and fortified grains and then veggies and fruits so zinc uh recommended intakes are between 8 and 11 uh milligrams for adults less for for women a little more for men to boost zinc we want to include zinc rich foods at each meal we want to limit very high phate Foods use food preparation techniques that reduce Phat ensure sufficient calories and if you’re using a multivitamin mineral supplement choose one that’s a very high quality quity supplement with zinc and so how much zinc is in food well the richest sources are shown in red and then and then the next rich is in purple but you can see at Zuki beans and tofu at the top of the list here pumpkin seeds are one of the most concentrated sources of zinc uh in in the plant sources of zinc and finally iodine so so a lot of people again don’t realize that iodine deficiency results in cognitive impairment is actually the number one cause of preventable brain damage in the world and Mild deficiency in pregnant women can lower IQ points in their infants by 10 to 15 so how much do we need about 150 micrograms but people who eat plant exclusive diets are at increased risk unless the regular seaweed consumers iodine and sewe does vary a lot and regular moderate intakes can pretty easily exceed the you the upper limit generally you want to avoid hijiki or use it very rarely because it is very high in Arsenic the take-home message of the presentation is well-planned plant-based diets do reduce the risk of chronic disease and support healthy weights they’re nutritionally adequate at every stage of life and they are the most ecologically sustainable and comp passionate ways of eating that exist today well fantastic thank you very much ben as always it’s a pleasure I feel very honored to have been invited and and thank you all for being here and I’m so grateful for what you’re doing and all the the knowledge and you just continue to add to your repertoire as always it’s a pleasure thank you very much good night thank you everybody good night everyone.