Health experts have found many common dietary fats (such as vegetable oils) to pose health risks, such as cardiovascular diseases.
Even comparatively healthier oils, like olive oil, are possibly not healthy enough.
Eliminating oil altogether from your diet may be highly beneficial for your health, especially if you combine it with a Whole Food Plant-Based diet.
But, can you imagine cooking without oil?
It may not be as hard as you might think.
Let’s deep dive!
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What is a WFPBNO diet?
The WFPBNO diet is the short form of the Whole Food Plant-Based No Oil diet.
It focuses on:
- Eating whole, plant-based foods, including vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, seeds, and nuts.
- Eliminating all kinds of animal-based foods – dairy, meat, seafood, honey, etc.
- Doing away with processed plant-based foods, like refined flour, sugar, chips, and so on.
- Limiting salt intake.
- Completely eliminating oil from cooking.
In simple words, the WFPBNO diet is a whole, plant-based meal cooked without the use of any oil.
But why not eat oil?
You must already know that eating some types of oil or oil in excess can harm your health. But, there are some other reasons to stop eating oil at all.
Firstly, the way we cook oil can be hazardous to our bodies. Studies have found that overheating oil or repeatedly heating oils can produce harmful compounds that can cause cancer, heart ailments, and many other diseases.
Moreover, oils are too high in calories, and eating excess calories can result in obesity and other potential health problems.
You may also wonder since healthy fats like Omega-3 and Omega-6 are essential nutrients for our body, we’d need to take in these.
Yes, we do. And, you might already be eating the fats your body needs.
The whole, plant-based food we eat regularly has plenty of healthy fat sources—for example, avocado, whole grains, beans, seeds, and nuts.
So, if you take a balanced plant-based diet, you don’t need to worry about fulfilling your body’s dietary fats requirements.
Now, how do you cook without using oils?
5 Tips on how to cook without using oil
Cooking without oil can certainly be challenging, but it’s not impossible at all. In fact, the following tips can help you cook without oil much easier.
1. Try oil-free cooking methods
Many cooking methods do not require oil. You must be familiar with them already. These include baking, pressure cooking, steaming, and roasting.
You may even saute without using oil. Simply sprinkle water to prevent sticking the ingredients you’re sauteing.
2. Invest in some no-oil-friendly cookware
Some cookware can make your life a lot easier in your oil-free cooking journey.
Non-stick pots and pans, and silicone ovenware can prevent the sticking of the food. A pressure cooker or steamer can help you cook hard ingredients. An air fryer can let you cook fried dishes without any oil.
3. Experiment with ingredients that can substitute oil in dishes
A greasy or fried texture is the heart of many dishes. In such cases, you can use other ingredients in place of oil or butter.
For example, you may use plant-based milk instead of oil or butter to make a dish creamy. For a deep-fried crust, you can bake the ingredient after dipping it in cornstarch. You can replace butter in cakes with almond butter or peanut butter.
4. Start with recipes that you can cook again and again
Since cooking with oil is the norm, oil-free cooking is sure to overwhelm you at first. Hence, it’s best to explore and try a few oil-free recipes.
It will help you be mentally prepared as you’ll know the ingredients and cooking method.
5. Take things slowly
Lastly, cooking without oil is not an easy task at all. So, don’t expect yourself to go oil-free overnight. It will take time.
You’ll also have to go through a lot of trial and error before you can be comfortable with the WFPBNO diet.
All the best for your oil-free cooking journey!