Dr Tim Spectre - aim to eat 30 plants a week

[Footgoose]

Other than maybe the obvious , please share with me your list of what plants you would include in your weekly diet . Maybe even a suggestion of how you would prep them .

anyone who has followed him for a long time , what would you / he not include .

Thanks! But… what’s GABA?

But surely we need at least 5 portions of vegetables a day - irrespective of the 30 spices, coffee, chocolate etc. In fact, many nutritionists believe we need as much as 9.

If Spector's theories lead people to focus on these auxiliary foods at the expense of nutritious foods, they will end up with an unhealthy diet, irrespective of gut microbiome.

I'm envious, my mild IBS would be chronic on some of these plants.

Exactly @FlowerArranger - 5 a day is guidance specifically about fruit and veg to do with optimal health. It should still be aimed for even if the 30 plants is easy to hit otherwise. The 30 is all about gut diversity.

I mean @Catspyjamas17 isn't wrong. It's hardly a revelation that a varied diet rich in plants is good for you and the benefits of probiotics like live yoghurt have been known for a long time. My mum used to make live yoghurt in the eighties and insist we ate it everyday at breakfast and I still do.

My dad's family are farmers and always had a diet full of fruit and veg (a lot of the extended family are fruit farmers so we had access to a lot of free and cheap fruit) and food cooked from scratch. Coupled of course with huge amounts of daily exercise.

They are without exception very long lived and healthy. My grandparents lived until their nineties in good health. My dad and his 4 brothers are now aged 70 - 81 and beyond the general wear and tear of old age (farmers are buggers for needing hip replacements) the only real health issue they have is my dad has started, at the age of 76, to get mild arthritis in his fingers.

Sorry!

It’s a neurotransmitter in the brain that blocks impulses between nerve cells. Low levels of it can be a cause of anxiety.

Thanks @Ginmonkeyagain 😆

He isn't doing that, but people on this thread are, I guess to make themselves feel better that actually their diet is ok. Someone included ketchup and nutella on their list so I would take this thread as a jumping off point to look into Tim Spector rather than a guide itself.

Having a variety of food, mostly plants, does seem to make sense. I'm trying to consciously increase the range of veg etc we eat as I can't see it doing any harm...

I am ending first trimester, so I can start looking at vegetables without gagging. I think this week I ate and planning to eat:

tomatoes
lettuce (although someone said iceberg lettuce doesn't count :()
cucumber (same :()
courgettes
bell peppers
chives
potatoes
carrot
cauliflower
brussel sprouts
red lentils (do these count?)
prunes
apricots
apples
bananas
kiwi
oranges/sweet clementines
avocado
raddish
almonds
pumpkin seeds
strawberries and other berries
oats
buckwheat (very healthy grain, I think it counts, right?)
brown rice (also counts?)
kidney beans
sweet potato
olives

It's 28. I didn't include spices like oregano, basil etc. as I don't know if they're relevant.

This way of eating is one of my new year's resolutions. I already ate a lot of fruit and veg, but tended to rotate the same ones so the 30 per week idea is encouraging me to increase the variety.

In addition to listening to various Tim Spector podcasts I've borrowed Dr Megan Rossi's book from the library as her Diversity Diet is essentially the same idea.

My food today:
Breakfast - Porridge with blueberries and mixed seeds
Lunch - Vegetable soup (tomatoes, carrots, onions, red lentils, kale, celery, garlic, herbs), greek yoghurt with passion fruit and pomegranate
Dinner - Vegetable Curry (cauliflower, courgette, aubergine, red pepper, ginger, spinach, chilli, spices [onion, garlic and tomatoes again but can't count twice]) with wholegrain rice.

Have also had coffee and some dark chocolate, but am not really counting them.