What is meant by “whole” when used in “whole food”?
That would mean unprocessed food: fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains (such as oats, brown rice and barley), nuts, beans, fish, shellfish and eggs.
Unlike veganism, which has yes/no test of "does it contain animal products", with WFPB there's more a spectrum as you move from "no processing" to "minimal processing" to more processing.
And the science supports getting nearly all the benefits by being mostly compliant, even if you don't eat 100% whole-foods or 100% plant-based.
People still have 5% or so processed foods are still having very good results.
Much of the rest of the world but not all.
The UK is following the US in pursuit of a diet consisting entirely of ultra-processed 'food'.
"Ultra-processed foods account for 56.8% of total energy intake and 64.7% of total free sugars in the UK diet. Free sugars represent 12.4% of total energy intake, and 61.3% of the sample exceeded the recommended limit of 10% energy from free sugars. This percentage was higher among children (74.9%) and adolescents (82.9%). Prevalence of excessive free sugar intake increased linearly across quintiles of ultra-processed food consumption for all age groups, except among the elderly. Eliminating ultra-processed foods could potentially reduce the prevalence of excessive free sugar intake by 47%."
If it’s unprocessed beef it could be considered a whole food — but often people don’t bother checking the ingredients for the meat they buy and just assume that it doesn’t have things added.
That said, there is research that points to eating too much beef and other red meats potentially being bad for health.
... sounds like a smartass question; that's probably not where the line is drawn.
Here's a website that describes something they call a whole-food diet: https://www.verywellfit.com/what-is-a-whole-foods-diet-22419...