People are being urged to eat as wide a variety of foods as possible to stay healthy and reduce the risk of illness
Eating five portions of fruit and veg a day has been a mantra many Brits have tried to live by for years. The idea is that five portions of fruit and vegetables daily will provide you with all the vitamins and nutrients you need for a healthy life.
However, you may have noticed that message is gradually being replaced by a new target – eating 30 different plants a week. If you found five portions of fruit and veg a day difficult, then 30 different plants a week sounds positively daunting.
However, the good news is that, as well as fruit and vegetables, it also includes whole grains like oats and brown rice, legumes such as lentils and beans, nuts, seeds, herbs and spices. The idea is that the more variety in your diet, the better chance of consuming all of the nutrients you need.
It also means there are some curious items on the list, such as coffee and dark chocolate which has 70 per cent cocoa solids or more as they are technically derived from seeds. Tofu – made with soya – counts too. Eating the same food twice does not count, although eating the same food but a different colour does. So, red and green peppers count as two different foods.
Studies still suggest that eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day can have a significant positive impact on your long-term health. The 30 plants a week challenge is backed by Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London and scientific co-founder at ZOE, which says that eating wide variety of foods ‘may even lower your risk of cancer and help you stay healthy as you age’.
It is something chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has also embraced. Speaking on BBC’s Morning Live, he said: “One minute we are talking about five a day, the next minute we are urging people to eat 30 different plants a week. An interesting distinction though, when we say plants, we are talking about plants in the widest possible sense. So that is not just fruit and vegetables, but plant ingredients like pulses, nuts, seeds, lots of store cupboard things, things from the freezer.
“It is worth doing because this diversity in plants in your diet is going to keep you super-well, but we aren’t going to do it if it isn’t fun and delicious.”
Fearnley-Whittingstall, who has a new book out with an introduction written by Prof Spector, explained how the sciene had come about showing that 30 was the magic number of plants that people should aim to consume every week.
“It was a bit of accidental science.,” the chef explained. “The original study was looking at whether vegetarians, vegans or omnivores had the healthiest gut microbiome and the best long-term outcomes, and actually they couldn’t find any difference between them.
“But because 11,000 people in the study had all meticulously kept these food diaries writing down everything they ate, the next level of the study looked at how many plants people were eating. And it did stand out that the more plants people were eating, the more healthy and diverse their gut biome was and the better their long-term outcomes.
“Thirty is the peak number because the benefits keep going after 30 but they plateau a little bit after that. Also, quite a few people in the study were already eating 30 a week, so we know we can do it.”
