Settling down in the kitchen, I began to read over the labels. According to the rules, my salad was off limits.Illustration by Heidi Berton
I’ve been covering health and wellness for more than a decade. During that time I’ve seen diet trends come and go. Low carb. High protein. No fat. High fibre. Only consume raw vegetables. Only consume red meat. Eat like you live in the Mediterranean. Eat like you live in the Stone Age. It’s a lot of information to keep track of, even when knowing about wellness trends is literally your job.
One of the biggest contemporary conversations around diet and wellness revolves around eating whole foods. The advice seems simple: Whole foods are good for us and we should eat more of them. There are statistics to back up the claims.
A study from the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine showed that a diet of plant-based whole foods improved body composition, and helped both blood pressure and total cholesterol. Research out of the University of Calgary suggests that eating a whole food diet can improve your mental health. Research in the Cell Metabolism Journal indicates a regime of ultraprocessed food causes excess calorie intake and weight gain. Among Canadians, ultraprocessed foods accounted for a little less than half of our daily energy intake.]
In depth: My family of five tried to cut out ultraprocessed foods for a week. Here’s what we learned
Wading through the research, I considered my regular meals. Air-fried potatoes and chicken. Protein shakes. Ground beef and rice bowls that the internet has recently dubbed “boy kibble.” All around a solid B+ effort, something I’d be happy to show a nutritionist. Still, I wondered about the changes I’d notice – physically, psychologically and in my day-to-day routine – if I ate only whole foods for a month.
Over four weeks, I dropped nine pounds. I had to reassess my relationship to food, both in terms of what I consumed and how I consumed it. I also learned how desperate a man can get for a bite of chocolate cake.
Week 1: When we say whole foods, what do we actually mean?
Before the challenge, I thought I knew what a whole food is: any food that consists of a single ingredient. Vegetables. Fruits. Meat and fish. But do things like rice or milk fit into the challenge? What about juice? Turns out there isn’t a singular agreed upon definition of a whole food, according to Amy Symington, a chef and nutrition professor at George Brown Polytechnic in Toronto.
“Some people really take the definition of whole food to the nth degree. It all has to be freshly grown. Not frozen. No cans. Food can’t be processed in any sort of way, except in your kitchen,” Symington said.
For her, narrow definitions of whole foods often throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater, as many processed foods can still have high nutritional value and fit within a balanced diet. Symington suggests trying to add more whole foods to your diet rather than cutting out processed foods entirely. For the challenge, I wanted something more streamlined.
I decided to use the framework of the Whole30 diet. Founded in 2009, the 30-day elimination diet allows for meat, nuts, seeds, seafood, eggs, vegetables, and fruits. What’s off limits? Grains, legumes (such as soy and peanuts), dairy, added sugars, alcohol, processed foods and additives. Calorie-counting, weigh-ins and other measurements for body composition are also not allowed. If you eat a food non-compliant with the Whole30, you’re supposed to start again from Day 1.
Supposedly the Whole30 method improves energy and stress levels and can help identify potential food intolerances. There are limited peer-review studies of the diet, and the list of “banned” foods includes pantry staples like beans and whole grains, known to be beneficial for our health.
The first lunch I made on the Whole30 diet was a salad: coleslaw mix, 200 grams of precooked packaged chicken breast, and a homemade dressing of mustard, vinegar and Korean hot sauce. Settling down in the kitchen, I began to read over the labels. The seasoning on the chicken had added sugar and the hot sauce contained soy. According to the rules, my salad was off limits. Maybe I’d bitten off more than I could chew.
Week 2: Can a whole food diet fit into your regular routine?
My grocery bill ballooned by about a third.Illustration by Heidi Berton
After a jittery start, by Week 2 I’d settled into eating some variation of the same three meals. Breakfast was three eggs and black coffee. Lunch was a big salad with chicken breast and homemade dressing. For dinner I’d roast potatoes and cook meat with frozen veggies. For snacks, I reached for an apple or a handful of almonds.
The Whole30 meals kept me full and I slept much better than usual. My energy was lower than average, but more consistent than my regular routine, without any highs or crashes. The only time this caused problems was in the gym, where workouts were a slog. My grocery bill ballooned by about a third – though I saved by not dining out, grabbing takeaway, or stopping at the convenience store.
Still, the major issues during the challenge were about time and convenience. While cooking all your meals at home helps with eating healthy, it’s also really annoying. One day, I went into the office without packing a meal. My usual grab-and-go sushi lunch was not Whole30-compliant because of sushi rice and soy sauce. With limited options and short on time, I found myself picking up two pears and some sunflower seeds from a nearby grocery store. Waiting in line at the checkout, I looked over my sad midday meal. Was this really healthier than a salmon roll?
Week 3: Are whole food diets too restrictive?
While out for dinner with friends, food preparation techniques and ingredients in sauces meant nothing on the menu fit the Whole30 guidelines.Illustration by Heidi Berton
On the third week of the whole foods challenge, I had a dinner scheduled with friends. The dinner took place at a restaurant specializing in rotisserie chicken. Nothing on the menu fit the guidelines of Whole30 because of the preparation or the sauces.
On the weekend, I bought a piece of flourless chocolate cake for my girlfriend, celebrating a milestone at her job. She felt self-conscious eating the cake in front of me, knowing I wasn’t supposed to have any myself.
The internal struggle over a plate of chicken and salad or a bite of cake seemed counterproductive. Mentally I’d started to put labels on foods, thinking of them as compliant or non-compliant. Good or bad. It’s a slippery-slope mentality that I didn’t want to carry on beyond the challenge.
“I think it’s very context-dependent, but it can certainly become problematic,” said Kyle Ganson, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. “We know there’s so much evidence that dieting is the No. 1 cause of the risk factor for disordered eating and eating disorders.”
Ganson’s research focuses on muscle dysmorphia and muscle-building behaviours among adolescents and young adults, as well as disordered eating. When we discussed the whole foods experiment I was conducting, he was quick to stress the nuances of the topic. There are a lot of positives in examining your diet and eating habits. But those ideas taken to the extreme may do more harm than good.
“It can be helpful to support people finding their own hunger and fullness cues and eating in a way that feels good in their body,” he said. “But in the long run, balance and sustainability is extremely important.”
Ultimately, I ate a plate of chicken at the restaurant and had a bite of cake. While technically this meant I’d need to restart the Whole30 challenge from Day 1 (or quit the challenge entirely), I decided to soldier on with the final week of whole foods. The all-or-nothing mentality may help some people comply with the diet, but two off-plan meals shouldn’t feel like a failure.
Week 4: Should you try a diet like the Whole30?
The first half of the whole food challenge, I found myself making a conscious effort to try to make healthy choices and examine how food changed my mood and energy. The second half was mostly making a mental list of the cheese, carbs and desserts I intended to down immediately after wrapping up the four weeks.
Food for Thought: Even a small increase in ultraprocessed foods can harm cognitive function, study suggests
So would I recommend trying something like this for yourself? The Whole30 diet isn’t meant to be a lifestyle. Those completing the diet are encouraged to slowly start eating food from outside the Whole30 framework to see how it changes their mood and energy, then assess what aspects of the diet they want to keep. On paper, I think that’s a really great plan. Practically, the tight restrictions of the challenge had me ready to binge-eat, especially as time went on.
“Perfectionism is where we lose the plot, right?” Symington said. “I don’t necessarily recommend long-term restrictive diets but sometimes, if it gives you a good reset or a kick in the butt, it can be useful.”
