Why you should eat 30 plant-based foods a week to optimise your nutrition

I enjoy a sweet, frothy cappuccino to balance out the bitterness of my third piece of dark chocolate, and I can’t help but wonder why people complain so much about healthy eating. I love this one.

OK, so it probably won’t help me lose weight, but scientists say it will definitely improve my health, my digestion, my immune system, and my state of mind. There’s just one problem: it’s not just chocolate and coffee. It’s much more complicated than that.

Forget “five a day”: this is the 30 a week diet, a diet designed to increase the variety of plant-based nutrients you need to feed the billions of microorganisms living in your gut; a community of bacteria, viruses and fungi collectively called your microbiome.

The state it is in can have a huge impact – positive or negative – on your body, brain, nervous and immune systems, as well as your overall well-being. Each type of bacteria does a unique job, and each likes different types of plant-derived nutrients. So while five a day isn’t a habit to sniff at, it won’t make your microbiome as happy as 30 a week.

Plants contain compounds called prebiotics, which provide fuel for friendly insects in your microbiome. They also contain polyphenols: chemicals with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that are essential for proper gut function and all the benefits that come from keeping your gut functioning properly.

In 2012, 11,000 volunteers took part in the American, British and Australian Gut Project. They provided stool samples and detailed information about their diet. At their conclusion in 2018, the researchers found that people who ate more than 30 plant-based ingredients per week enjoyed better gut health than those who ate ten or fewer.

The UK research was led by Professor Tim Spector, co-founder of respected health website Zoe (joinzoe.com). “Increasing the variety and amount of plants in your diet doesn’t have to be difficult,” he says, “especially once you expand your idea of ​​what counts as a plant-based food to include spices, herbs, nuts and seeds.”

Professor Spector makes it sound easy, but if many of us find the five-a-day diet a challenge, how on earth are we going to handle the 30-a-week diet? The good news is that it’s not as hard as it looks. While each of your five should weigh at least 80g, one of your 30 can be just a pinch, spoonful or pinch of, say, a spice or herb. As long as it comes from a plant, the microscopic bacteria in your gut will thank you for even the smallest serving (although you should try to consume it regularly). That means tea counts as one, as does coffee, tarragon, chili powder, turmeric, and yes, chocolate, because it’s derived from a bean grown on the cacao tree. Likewise, nuts, seeds, fruits, legumes, and grains all count among your 30s.

The downside is that they only count once, no matter how many times you consume them in a week. The advantage? Different colored varieties of the same ingredient each count as one, as their hue is determined by different polyphenols – so green, red and yellow peppers count as three.

I tried and expected to struggle – but even the first week was a breeze. Day one is the easiest, because everything you have counts. I racked up points from apple juice, poppy seeds and millet on my bread, and a cup of tea for breakfast.

I made a soup for lunch, with zucchini, onions, potato and garlic, with white pepper. For dinner, I ate a chicken salad made with lettuce, tomatoes, dill pickles, capers, thyme, cilantro, and tarragon. That’s 16 plant-based ingredients in one day. But on the second day, you realize everything you can’t count: the tea, the juices, the herbs and spices you used yesterday, the seeds on that bread, the onions, the potatoes and the tomatoes. New on day two were a banana and pumpkin seeds in yogurt, and watercress with salad – but I had eaten all the other salad ingredients on day one, so they didn’t count.

So that was 19 ingredients after two days, but all my staples were already used up. I was going to have to get creative. Day three brought dark chocolate, coffee, an orange, carrots and roasted beets (as part of separate meals). It was 24 ingredients and I wasn’t halfway through.

Bridget Benelam, nutrition scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation, told me I was fine and offered resounding support for the diet. “Thirty a week brings together a lot of existing knowledge that tells us it’s a good idea to eat more beans, legumes, and whole grains,” she said. “We shouldn’t lose sight of this five-a-day intake, but encouraging people to expand their plant intake beyond fruits and vegetables can only be a positive message.” Unlike five a day, which is official government advice, 30 a week is so far based on research. This shows that a wider variety of plant foods can be good for gut health and means there are no rules when it comes to weights and volumes to eat. The bottom line is that it encourages us to seek out more plant foods and that will be good for us,” Benelam told me.

Days three through seven saw me expand my plant food net. Sweet potato, cashews, fennel, butter beans, dates, and lentils have all found their way onto my menus and led me to the 30 Magical Plant-Based Lunchtime Ingredients of the Fifth day.

By then, what I had started to think of as a “challenge” had become a good habit rather than a chore, and one that made me feel healthier mentally, physically, and mentally. As a newcomer to the 30 times a week habit, I can’t rule out the placebo effect yet, but I feel more alert, sleep better, and – perhaps because of the extra seeds and legumes, which provide a slow effect. release energy – I’m not hungry between meals.

Of course, after every seventh day it’s time to start all over again, but that’s not a pain, it’s a pleasure. After all, we don’t say “variety is the spice of life” for nothing.