r/PlantBasedDiet: rules, karma requirements and posting culture

Who posts here

People one week in ask about bloating, protein and what to buy, and they get long, kind answers. Regulars use WFPB, HCLF and nutrient tracking apps without explaining them, and the FAQ goes into choline and folate. A basic question is welcome here. The sidebar and FAQ cover the most common ones.

• People changing how they eat for cholesterol, weight or gut problems.
• Long-time whole food eaters, many of them oil free, who answer most questions.
• Home cooks sharing dinners and written recipes.
• Vegetarians and people cutting back on meat who are testing the water.
• Shoppers asking which plant-based product is worth buying.

Karma and account requirements

What it takes to get a post through in r/PlantBasedDiet.

What you can post

What happens to a new post

Where the most recent posts ended up. Sample size: 400.

• Stayed up74%
• Removed by Reddit's filters16%
• Held by AutoModerator10%
• Deleted by the author<1%

Reddit counts a removal by the subreddit's own AutoModerator rules as a moderator removal, so that share is not all human. Held by AutoModerator means the post is waiting in the mod queue.

What happened when we posted here

We have posted here ourselves. This is how our own posts and comments fared.

Stayed up

100%

Removed by Reddit's filters

0%

Removed by moderators

0%

Period

December 2025 to July 2026

The rules, in the mods' words

1. 1

   Be respectful and follow general Reddiquette values

   Reddiquette. We enforce a standard of common decency and civility. Please be respectful to others. Personal attacks, bigotry, otherwise inappropriate behavior or content, comments that insult or demean a specific user or group of users will be removed. Regular or egregious violations will result in a ban. Constructive criticism, however, is appropriate and encouraged.

2. 2

   Give Plant-Based Advice

   A Plant-Based Diet does not make use of animal or animal-derived products.

3. 3

   Respect diverse plant-based diets

   Plant-based diets vary from person to person. Do not attack other users for using oil, for not using oil, for using salt, for not using salt, or for engaging in any other cooking style that falls under the umbrella of Plant-Based.

4. 4

   Always post the recipe

   Always post the full recipe in the comments, not just a link.

5. 5

   Pick a SFW username.

   We ask that you pick a username that is safe for work, rather than one with offensive words.

6. 6

   No solicitation

   No personal surveys. No giveaways. No selling of goods/services without prior moderator permission. No fundraising or linking to fundraisers without prior moderator permission. No linking of self-authored blog posts or articles without prior moderator permission. No calls to participate in your research project without prior mod authorization. No advertising.

7. 7

   No Off-Topic Content

   All submissions should be directly related to the plant-based diet. Pictures of plant-based foods are always welcome, as are discussions about the plant-based eating and nutrition. If you are ever unsure, please send us a modmail!

These are the rules as archived in January 2025. Rules change. Check the sidebar before you post.

The culture

r/PlantBasedDiet is about food and health, not animal ethics. The sidebar is a reading list of doctors, documentaries and cookbooks from the whole food plant-based world, and many regulars eat that way: legumes, grains, vegetables, little or no oil. The feed is slow, around six posts a day, and well attended. A typical post gets 19 comments.

Posts are either questions or plates. About 58% are text and 36% are images. The questions run around 80 words: how to get enough protein, what to eat before a medical procedure, which nutritional yeast is any good. The plates come with the recipe typed out, because AutoModerator reminds every poster to do that.

The quiet fault line is how strict to be. One rule exists only to stop people attacking each other over oil and salt. Processed meat substitutes get asked about constantly and answered without sneering, though someone will usually say they are a sometimes food. Vegetarians post here and stay up, even though the rules define the diet as free of animal products.

What lands

• Before and after bloodwork with the numbers and what you changed. A cholesterol result is the top post in our sample.
• A home-cooked dish with the ingredients and method written in the post.
• A new study or news piece about plant foods, shared with a plain summary.
• A photo of a product with a simple question about whether it is any good. One about veggie hot dogs drew nearly 250 comments.
• Practical questions tied to a real situation, like low fat freezer meals before surgery.

What gets removed or ignored

• No moderator removals appeared in our sample. What follows comes from the rules and the filters.
• Posts held by AutoModerator, about 10% of the sample. The trigger is not published.
• Surveys, giveaways, fundraisers and research recruitment posted without permission.
• Links to your own blog or articles, and advertising of any kind.
• Off topic posts. Submissions should be directly about plant-based eating.

The unwritten rules

• Type the recipe out. A link to a recipe page does not count.
• Do not lecture anyone about oil, salt or processed food. The rules protect the range of plant-based styles.
• Health claims get checked. Regulars will question a source or a diet guru's record.
• Say what you have already tried and any medical limits. Answers get much better.
• Comments run about 18 words and almost never carry a link.

Self-promotion

The rule is one of the stricter ones you will find: no selling goods or services, no advertising, no surveys, no giveaways, no fundraising, no research recruitment and no links to your own blog posts or articles, all unless a moderator has given permission first. In practice the recipe rule already pushes everyone to put the content in the post instead of behind a link, and that is how people who run recipe sites take part without trouble. If you want to share something of your own, ask by modmail first.

How people write here

Typical post length

82 words

Typical title length

7 words

Titles phrased as a question

35%

Typical comment length

18 words

Comments that include a link

2%

Top keywords

The words and phrases that show up far more often here than in other communities, from recent posts in r/PlantBasedDiet.

• plant based 56 posts
• vegan 58 posts
• eating 61 posts
• protein 50 posts
• meat 44 posts
• tofu 40 posts
• diet 47 posts
• beans 39 posts
• plant-based 29 posts
• eat 54 posts
• recipe 40 posts
• salt 35 posts
• foods 35 posts
• soy 29 posts
• pepper 28 posts
• cook 30 posts
• food 45 posts
• seeds 22 posts
• oil 32 posts
• recipes 26 posts
• powder 27 posts
• garlic 26 posts
• ingredients 29 posts
• lentils 20 posts
• meal 31 posts
• vegetables 22 posts
• taste 25 posts
• sauce 25 posts
• based diet 14 posts
• milk 24 posts
• onion 22 posts
• cooking 24 posts
• tsp 18 posts
• tbsp 18 posts
• water 34 posts
• chickpeas 16 posts
• bowl 19 posts
• veggies 17 posts
• rice 22 posts
• salad 17 posts

Common questions