Why Our Recipes Are Oil-Free (And Always Will Be)

If I had to name one documentary that’s helped the most people switch to a whole-food plant-based diet, it would be Forks Over Knives. If you’re familiar with whole-food plant-based eating, you’ve probably seen the film, maybe more than once. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend having a movie night with all your friends and family because it’s a must-watch.

In 2011, when the film was first released, I was running a plant-based restaurant I’d opened in Berkeley for a doctor who was an avid plant-based advocate. Since Forks Over Knives was an independent film, it was in limited theaters, so we decided to organize a special screening so more people could have a chance to see it. There was a really cool old theater up the street from the restaurant in North Berkeley, so we reserved the location and catered the screening with yummy plant-based food. 

A lot of people showed up to see the film, and they loved it. A lot of people who weren’t plant-based when they walked into the theater were plant-based when they walked out. 

The movie had appearances from a lot of plant-based legends, including:

🥼 Dr. T. Colin Campbell
🥼 Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn
🥼 Dr. Neal Barnard
🥼 Dr. John McDougall

These doctors shared powerful insights drawn from decades of research and clinical experience. Their collective message: A low-fat, oil-free, whole-food plant-based diet can prevent, halt, and even reverse chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers. 

There had been a lot of research done and books written about this before Forks Over Knives came out, but the film brought that knowledge to a much bigger audience in a way that was clear, compelling, and hard to ignore. It definitely had an impact on me, and it reinforced that I was on the right path as a proud plant pusher. 💪🌱 

The doctor I was working for, Dr. Carl Myers, was a board member of the non-profit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. The restaurants we were working on were 100% plant-based, but not oil-free. We agreed that being totally plant-based was enough of a stretch for most people. This was 2010, before the vegan / plant-based movement gained mainstream traction. People who weren’t already eating this way might eat at a plant-based restaurant, but if they knew it was plant-based and oil-free? That might have nudged them to the sub shop up the street. 

Even though I was very familiar with Forks Over Knives, the power of an oil-free plant-based diet, and all the doctors who advocated this way of eating, it wasn’t until the middle of 2014 that I dropped oil from my diet. I did it for the same reasons I do most things, to see if I could. 

I was developing recipes for what would become Clean Food Dirty Girl, and I wanted to see if I could create truly delicious plant-based food without using oil. I also wanted to see how my eating would shift when I stopped relying on processed vegan food, like vegan cheese, vegan butter, and vegan mayo. So, overly processed ingredients, including oil, were out. 

Turns out, creating really yummy plant-based, oil-free recipes wasn’t impossible.

It also turns out that when you drop the processed vegan food and oil from your diet, you end up eating way healthier, and when I say healthier, I mean more whole plant foods. 

For example, instead of making a vegan grilled cheese for lunch, like I often did, I would make a sandwich layered with hummus, cucumbers, sprouts, roasted red peppers, and lettuce. 

Veggies in the grilled cheese? 0
Veggies in the veggie sandwich? 4 

And so it goes. 

The fewer processed foods you eat, the more unprocessed foods you eat.

So when we were deciding on the direction for Clean Food Dirty Girl, we had a decision to make. 

• Would I include processed vegan ingredients?
• Would I include oil?
• Or would it be straight-up whole-food plant-based—veggies, beans, whole grains, fruits, nuts, seeds, and minimally processed plant-based ingredients? 

On the one hand, people might be more likely to try our recipes if they included familiar ingredients, like oil and vegan cheese.

On the other hand, those ingredients are pricey, and they aren’t good for you. Sure, they’re healthier than animal-based ingredients, and they definitely serve a purpose, but there’s an even healthier way to eat. And having gone through the process of taking overly processed foods out of my diet, I felt the difference! I had more energy, and I felt better overall. 

It didn’t take long to make the decision. We would go with a whole-food plant-based oil-free approach and show people that eating a truly healthy diet, like the one in the Forks Over Knives movie, could taste really damn good—no need for oil, no need for vegan substitutions. Yes, our audience might be smaller, but the people who found us and made our recipes would be healthier for it, and at the end of the day, that has always been what matters most. 

Recently, the Forks Over Knives website has changed its stance on oil and is no longer 100% oil-free.

This has stirred up some drama in the whole-food plant-based community. Some people are pissed. Some people are happy. It turns out that the producer of the Forks Over Knives movie, Brian Wendel, is no longer involved with the company. Word is, he’s still an advocate of a whole-food plant-based oil-free diet, though. 

I can understand the website’s stance. It’s easier to appeal to more people when oil isn’t excluded as an ingredient. It’s also easier to cook and make food taste good with oil. It’s not the oil itself that tastes good per se, most oil by itself isn’t all that yummy, it’s the fat from the oil that makes the other ingredients have that satisfying mouthfeel. At Clean Food Dirty Girl, we spend a lot of time and creativity crafting our recipes so they’re just as delicious as their oil-containing counterparts. 

Even though it’s not as popular, and it might be a little harder, we remain oil-free, because like the Forks Over Knives movie so clearly showed us, it’s the healthiest way to eat. And that hasn’t changed. It doesn’t matter what type, all oils are an unnecessary source of empty calories. Sure, they might be healthier than butter, but nothing is healthier than eating whole plants food and avoiding oil altogether. Here’s a recent study that proves just that. 

We’ve been providing handcrafted whole-food plant-based recipes and meal plans for over 10 years. This doesn’t mean I eat 100% oil-free. I have exceptions, but 95% of what I eat comes from our membership, so when I have those exceptions, it’s easy to get back to eating delicious food I know my body thrives on.

If you want to thrive, join Clean Food Dirty Girl Recipe Club today for just $12 per month to access over 5,000 of the best, most flavorful, and enjoyable whole-food plant-based recipes. No ads, no oil, no recipe fails—just pure plant-powered yums.

Talk to me in the comments below. Did watching Forks Over Knives inspire you to go plant-based? What’s your stance on eating oil?

Xo
Molly

More blog posts about oil and a plant-based diet

• Tips for Eating Less Oil
• Clearing Up The Confusion About Oil
• Reasons To Avoid Oil and What Gets Me Hot
• WFPBNO—Whole-Food Plant-Based No Oil, Say What?
• The Coconut Oil Debate. Are You Confused Too?
• 30 Mouthgasmic Oil-Free Salad Dressing Recipes