Choose 30: Variety is the Spice of Life

The well-known mantra to eat 5-a-day is ingrained in the UK psyche thanks to our government’s promotion of the dietary approach and corresponding health education.  However this goal is a minimum, with the number aimed at those who regularly eat less than five portions of fruit and veg a day.  You’ll know from reading my posts that a better daily target is 7-a-day made up of two fruit and five vegetable portions.  However, this may still not be good enough for your gut health, and therefore overall health.

What our guts, particularly the microbiome, like is variety.  Eating five or seven portions a day may give you plenty of nutrients but eating the same items each day doesn’t give you much variety.  This can reduce the variety of bacteria in your microbiome, as well as give you a pretty mundane diet.  Studies have shown that the greater the variety of bacteria we have the better it is for our health.  Aiming to eat 30 portions of DIFFERENT whole plant foods per week helps us to get this variety.  Amongst the gut bacteria that benefit are those that produce short-chain fatty acids which are believed to have anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties.  Evidence even suggests a reduction in some antibiotic resistant genes!

Eating 30-a-week goes beyond fruit and vegetables to include grains, nuts and seeds (sorry, wholewheat bread and wholewheat pasta only count as one item – wheat!).  It sounds a lot but is completely doable:

Think about how you can add plant foods to your breakfast.  I like porridge for breakfast and it can be a great way to pack in nutrients and plant foods.  Oats count as one item.  Add to this some chia seeds and flaxseeds, and you are up to three.  Adding some fruit gives you a fourth item.  The following day swap the fruit and/or seeds (you could add nuts) and you could have five or six of your 30 in just two meals over two days – and you potentially have another 19 main meals plus snacks to go!  I know some people like to add quinoa to their porridge for an extra protein boost – this counts too.

Another key way of improving your variety is to not depend on ultra-processed foods.  These are generally nutrient poor and do not add to the variety count.  Make foods from scratch using wholefood ingredients.  Having a blender and/or food processor may make this easier for you, but you can often mash foods sufficiently with a fork or potato masher for recipes such as veggie burgers.

Choose recipes that you can make in bulk and freeze.  This will mean you can have your own healthful convenience food to save you time on busier days.  It may also mean that family members with fewer culinary skills have healthful foods they can cook easily if they need to.  Make sure you follow any recommended food hygiene and preparation guidance for your particular ingredients when storing leftovers and thawing/cooking foods from frozen.

No, I am not suggesting for a moment that you all follow me into vegetarianism, but there are advantages to a plant-based diet.  And, plant-based does NOT mean vegan!

A plant-based diet is one where the majority of your food comes from plant sources.  You can still add a piece of oily fish to your plate of vegetables, or a palm-sized piece of meat if you wish.  Ideally you wouldn’t have the animal proteins at each meal though, nutritionally you may not need them if you balance your meals right.

Many plant foods such as beans, pulses, nuts and seeds provide protein.  To ensure you get all the essential amino acids* each day, make sure you eat a few different plant proteins through the day (animal sources generally provide all the essential amino acids).  If you experience symptoms of irritably bowel syndrome (IBS) monitor this to ensure the plant proteins you choose do not aggravate your symptoms.

*amino acids are the building blocks of protein.  Essential amino acids are ones that we need to get from our food daily.

Ensuring you include plants at every meal (and even some snacks) can help you to ratch up those variety points.  For guidance on meal balancing, take a look at this link from my registration body BANT: https://bant.org.uk/bant-wellbeing-guidelines/

These are plant foods too!  As we don’t usually eat these in large portions however, each one only counts as ¼ of a plant food point.  You therefore need to eat four different herbs and/or spices in the week for it to count as one plant food.

To give you an idea of what 30 different plant foods could look like, here are 30 of my plant foods for last week.  This isn’t all that I ate but it gives you an idea.   I’ve tried to group the foods so you can see the different types more clearly – it may give you some idea of swaps you can make.

As you can see there are some salad ingredients there – how many portions of vegetables can you get in to a single salad?  Or what about a stir-fry, curry, stew or soup?

You probably have no idea how many different ‘whole’ plant foods you are eating each week so start simply.  Just record what you eat for one typical week and count it up at the end.  Don’t forget to list the herbs and spices you add to your recipes too.  Then take a look at where you can increase your intake – what can you swap?  How can you add a portion to each meal? Set yourself a target.  You may not be ready to go for 30 a week just yet.  Aim for a target that is greater than you have now – may be add seven (that’s just one different plant food per day extra).  Then after a few weeks of achieving that total, add a few more until you reach 30.

Be careful not to increase your veggie portions too quickly (especially the leafy greens) to reduce the risk of digestive discomfort.  Also, if you are prone to IBS be sure to monitor your intake to help you avoid symptom flare-ups.

It is OK to eat some of the same items through the week.  We all do – it’s good for budgets and reducing food waste.  Just don’t eat the same items on most days of the week!  Look to frozen foods to expand your options without increasing food waste, and to help you manage your budget.

• American Gut: An Open Platform for Citizen Science Microbiome Research – https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mSystems.00031-18
• Anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory effects elicited by short chain fatty acids produced by Escherichia coli isolated from healthy human gut microbiota – https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12934-020-01477-z