Whole-Food  Plant-Based (WFPB)


Palate Training

The taste of food is important to quality of life. WFPB isn't about making sacrifices or substitutions but about celebrating a new way to eat.

It takes time to acquire a new taste

Taste preferences are malleable. It takes 4 months to train the palate to a new diet. In that time, people adjust or deal with all the things that influenced eating behavior:

  • taste
  • convenience
  • habit
  • social situation

The time it takes to acquire a new taste corresponds to the recovery phase of the pleasure trap.

Weight Loss Tips with Dr. Doug Lisle - Author of The Pleasure Trap
https://youtu.be/Gc3XfIOxTLU?t=2357

  • 39:17 The palate needs to be more sensitive to good flavors in natural food.
  • 52:46 [end of topic]

For some people, changing diet is initially difficult. Craving unnaturally sweet oily taste is temporary, it will pass. Your brain slowly learns new taste preferences automatically. Be patient with your taste buds. Many WFPB eaters report losing their desire for concentrated oil & sugar after a few months. And they enjoy the WFPB diet as much as any food. Carrots taste so much sweeter, for example.

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/changing-our-taste-buds/
Taste buds change to prefer low fat and low salt.

This Cardiologist [Dr. Montgomery] Prescribes a Plant-Based Diet (16 minutes)
https://youtu.be/mewMLXeUGEA?t=51

  • 6:39 food addiction
  • 7:43 social support for food addictions
  • 10:39 change of your food desires

Testimonials

How Penn Jillette Lost over 100 Lbs (45 kg) and Still Eats Whatever He Wants
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NelIXCuuSZ0
I now eat whatever I want. But what I want has changed profoundly.

People learn to enjoy WFPB
https://www.reddit.com/r/PlantBasedDiet/comments/61hx4e/anyone_have_experience_going_from_being_mostly/

  • Posted by 2comment:
    I was a heavy meat eater from a family of them … Training palate takes time. You might hate diet for a couple weeks. Then tolerate it a few more. Then learn to anticipate meals. I haven't touched meat since… but the first months my diet really varied widely just trying EVERYTHING vegan out before settling on my routine. All type of online recipes, Asian, Mexican, etc. I suggest anyone else new do the same if they can.
  • Posted by BlueEmpathy:
    You have to experiment. Try many different vegetables and for each vegetable try different cooking methods and recipes. Rediscover what you like. There is such a huge variety of veggies that you will find something you love for sure. But it's also a matter of habits, and in particular of how your taste is used to eat. I can assure you that with time you can make it used to eat and like other things. I now discovered I like very much steamed broccoli without salt or oil, and raw plain fennel too. Everyone's telling me that they have no taste, but my tongue is now used to perceive their original taste without condiments or fancy cooking.

I love meats, cheese, sour cream ect ect. I'm looking on some good suggestions on replacing those.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PlantBasedDiet/comments/dlxi9v/im_brand_new_to_the_plant_based_diet_please_help/

  • Posted by binned_alaska:
    Best advice on this is: don't even try. Nothing tastes exactly like meat, cheese or dairy (except maybe for some heavily processed vegan replacement foods that definitely don't have the health benefits you're looking for). So you're just setting yourself up for disappointment if you try to recreate the taste of those things. I mean, it's probably fine to occasionally have a Beyond Burger or something as a treat, but I wouldn't include it in my regular diet.

    You just have to accept that if you are eating different foods now, they will taste different. But they can taste just as good or even better. There is probably nothing more flavourful on this planet than a good Indian curry and that can be made entirely plant based.

    I always find it hard to recommend foods to people when I don't know what they like to eat and/or cook now. I believe it's always easiest if you stay as close to your current habits as possible. So for example if you enjoy Italian flavour profiles, keep making spaghetti bolognese but swap the ground meat for lentils (and maybe some textured soy protein or tofu). The texture and taste is barely different from what you're used to because it mostly comes from the herbs and spices anyways, but you get all the goodness from the plants in there.

    Another important point of advice is that you have to eat enough. A lot of people feel tired in the beginning because they're simply not giving their body enough fuel. The calorie density of plants is much lower than that of animal products, so you have to eat a much larger volume of food to get the same calories/energy.

When a person doesn't believe their tastes can change
https://www.reddit.com/r/PlantBasedDiet/comments/atcst4/mom_prefers_pleasure_over_health/

  • Posted by ChristieJP:
    Food-wise, she has trouble with "different". She does not want to experiment. She wants her food to taste like the food she knows. She's from the Midwest and food she knows is focused on meat and cheese. She doesn't seem to believe that a person's preferences can change and she's doesn't want to go through the discomfort of letting that happen. She doesn't want to cook anymore. Packaged foods and restaurants are a way of life.