Just watched What The Health on Netflix, which is basically a documentary on why animal-based diets are the crux of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, heart disease, and cancers.

Who swears by plant based whole food diets here?
Anyone who thought they'd never switch from their animal heavy diets but did and never felt better?

I'm not considering going vegan, but I do plan on balancing towards a more plant-based diet. Tips?

Agree with plant based, but it seems the dramatic increase in all the things listed are highly processed foods full of high fructose corn syrup.

Any "whole food" diet that eliminated those things will be beneficial, whether you include meat or not.

That said, I have known a few people who went vegan and it significantly impacted their health for the better. It's easy enough to try for a month or two and see how it feels.

I did 3 months of near vegan. The only thing that wasn't vegan was finishing up my whey protein that I had leftover that first month or so. After that I had pea protein. I honestly felt pretty amazing. I leaned out a bit. I had pretty stable energy. Lots of mental clarity. I did also avoid processed vegan foods/junk - Oreos, for example, are vegan. But I was eating tons of veggies, fruits, tofu, nut butters, beans and other legumes.

I became a better cook during this time as well. And it's probably far more sustainable of a diet than many other extreme diets.

I will say though, I had a hart time gaining any strength or muscle. In retrospect probably because I wasn't eating enough protein or calories. It's just very hard getting in enough protein without eating absolute tons of food, unless you're having lots of protein supplements.