30 plants a week...

I add a mushroom powder to my coffee and feel my digestion has changed for the better with that.
I also make teas from loose herbs and combine them for their benefits. Eg nettle for inflammation, elderflower for hay fever/sinusitis, linden or lemon balm as a mood booster and so on, so there is a variety there. I pick them myself where I can so they're organic and grown in soil that isn't a monoculture so as rich in minerals as they should be.
I also have about six months worth of dried wild garlic that I managed to collect that gets chucked into most things, you can do the same with nettle.

Very true! That's the bit I struggle with too.

Well whilst we are on a thread about fruit and veg. I wish to inform you all that I learnt last week that blackberries and raspberries are not actually berries. And cucumbers, pumpkins and tomatoes are in fact berries. 🤯

Yeah, I do the same. I generally use a full little supermarket plant per week of each fresh herb so I count it atm because it's kind of taking the place of other leafy veg and lettuce i can't have just now. I'm really not concerned with serving size either as it's only a rough guide for me. Normally I'd have way more vegetable variety over the space of a week.

I also totally forgot about things like sauerkraut, kimchi and quick pickled onions or cucumbers. We always have one or the other available to add to our meals.

What?

I didn't even know we'd moved from 5 a day

I opened this thinking it would be about someone's addiction to buying plants

Herbs and spices count as a quarter point according to the gut health doctor. But I would use judgement - eg if I make a tabbouleh salad with loads of parsley? I'd count it as a point.

Spices come from plants so yes they count.

Ok, fair enough. I guess you count every little bit of everything then. I assumed it wouldn't be enough to warrant any benefit.

Coffee and tea, herbal and fruit tea, herbs and spices, cereal, seeds and nuts (muesli is great!), rice, salad, vegetables and fruit… it’s incredibly easy to get well past 30 in an average week.

85% + is also a fermented food

wine - yes ish, but any amount of alchohol is now known to be bad. They think the studies that found it good forgot to take into account the socialising aspect. Blue zone diets include wine but they’ll drink a small glass over several hours while socialising

We count everything even if it isn’t even a teaspoon over the week - just make sure we getting as much variety as we can and that healthy and lots of micro nutrients as well as an interesting and high fibre diet

so 5 to 8 fruit and veg for fibre and then lots of variety

@crackofdoom yes - I routinely add carrots or butternut to mash, when I do very occassionally make it these days. I also do my best to introduce alternatives - I LOVE butterbean mash for example. But Ds, who is broadly a very flexible eater, has sensory issues and can't stand it. Ditto - he'll eat chickpeas as part of a bigger meal, but couldn't cope with them as a standalone.

@DiscoBob you absolutely do count them, even if it's not as a full one. because it' snot about fibre. It's about allowing your body to get a much wider range of healthy bacteria etc.

You specifically do count all types of plants - including herbs and spices - in this approach to diet; you're not supposed to be trying to eating fruit or veg sized portions of everything.

I wouldn't count herbs or spices as the amount is too small. Think of a portion of fruit or veg, a portion that size of spices would be both gross and impossible to consume.

Carrot and swede mash can be nice, with an onion gravy.

I'm a vegetarian but admire the Italian way of cooking, where usually they will just add little bits of meat to flavour a dish, and vegetables share equal billing.

I hear you!

Actually, one thing I changed a few years ago that has been so good for us - in so many ways. I realised I'd slipped into this thing where vegetables were present, but very much as a token side. None of us wanted to become vegetarians and while I do try to eat vegetarian a couple of times a week - it can be hard to really create a meal that is quick, easy, tasty and suitably substantial for DH and DS.

But realising we were way too heavy on meat, I started shifting the ratio of meat to vegetables. And it's been amazing. I am so much happier with the amount of meat we eat, it's so much easier to get abroader variety of vegetables and plant based food, and we definitely all feel good on it.

Classic example - if I did bangers and mash, for me, DH and DS (DH has a very physical job and DS is almost 6ft, 14, growing, and insanely active) I'd need to assume probably 3-4 sausages each for DS and DH, and 2 for me. And they'd still want a massive portion of mash too. On Sunday I did an absolutely huge portion of sausage based sauce with Gnocchi - the sauce included spinach, peas, tomatoes and then a bunch of the "smaller" things - garlic, chilli, lemon, fennel seeds. I used 6 sausages and, quite frankly, it was too many. Usually when I make this dish I use no more than 4 because the other 2 in the packet are prepared separately for DD who wasnt home so I just tossed them in as I'd had to defrost the entire pack.

Similarly, we do a mince stir fry thing regularly. If I leave DH adn DS to prepare any sort of mince-based dish, I have to assume that between them they're eating 400-500g of mince! If I do it, I can fill them up on half of that each!

Yeah I also follow Michael Pollen's guidance although the 'not too much' bit is quite hard!

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." This advice by Michael Pollen is all anyone needs to know about food, I think. By food he means what your grandparents would recognise as food, so defintely not highly processed

But the polyphenols!!

When I read the title 30 plants a week, I thought OP was buying 30 plants a week and creating a fab garden or their own nursery 😳[tumble weed is rolling between my ears]😊

Oh! Forgot dark chocolate on my list.

I would say don't overthink it and certainly don't actually count the number you're including. It's just guidance to help make sure your food is varied.

I find it helpful every so often to take a photo of everything I eat in a day, just for my own eyes, then look over it and see how colourful a day's intake has been.

I'm actually limiting vegetables a fair bit at the moment because of digestive issues, but it's still easy to reach the goal.

This past week it looked like this:

Herbs - 5 full points

Spices - 5 points made up of various measures.

Nuts and seeds - 5 full points.

Onion, garlic, spring onion - 3 full points

Coffee, tea - 2 full points (I only count each of these once no matter how many types over the week)

Lentils, beans, rice, potatoes, tinned tomatoes - 5 full points

Oats, popcorn - 2 full points

Very limited intake of vegetables/fruits:

Carrots
Parsnips
Swede
Beetroot
Avocado
Blueberries
Strawberries
Kiwi
Watermelon
Lemon
Lime

I do agree with pp, there's no need to do this officially if you eat a very varied vegetable diet. But sometimes people need a guideline to follow, especially if it doesn't come naturally to them to eat this way.

I don't make a big deal of it but once in a while I count as a little exercise to keep track of how I'm doing.

Broadly speaking, I completely agree with you.

But I do think that with food being so easily and widely available all year round, a lot of people have slipped into the SAME food, week in and week out. And a reminder to make an effort to diversify is a good thing.

My sister has one of those thermomix gadget things. A few of her friends have teased her about it becuase they're like, "but you can do this so easily without the gadget". But my view is that she DOESN'T do the variety without it. Now she's got it, they eat a much wider variety of food. And that can only be a good thing. She admits herself that she was very much in a rut of meat/chicken/fish with carrots/broccoli/corn/cauliflower/peas and potatoes/rice/pasta.