How many plants in your main meal today?

[DragonsAndDaffs]

I've been trying to reduce UPF and increase the amount of plants we eat. We try to eat the rainbow and hit 30 different plants a week.

Dinner tonight was a prawn and edamame stir fry containing 8 plants.

Anyone else trying to eat 30?

I've had a healthier day today, with orange juice, bananas, spinach, red chard, red pepper, garlic (I'm counting that as I had 4 cloves) avocado, apple juice and a pear. I also had Hovis seed sensations sliced bread, but does that count? Where do we draw the line?

Dinner is prawn stir fry which had 8 (peppers, onion garlic, edamame, carrots, coconut, brocolli, lentil noodles)

Lunch was home made minestrone soup = some of above veg plus courgette, basil, tomato) and a low carb cheese bread (almond and spring onions)

Eaten some walnuts, a nut bar and will have some cherries shortly as just nipped to Tesco and they looked fab.

So that is 16 today.

Trying to think what other veg we've had with meals this week - cabbage, green beans, avacado, Pear, frozen raspberries, little bit of banana, cashews, potato, kidney beans, chia seeds, sunflower seeds)

That's 27 this week altogether. Will have to see if I can find 3 different ones to make it to the 30

Onion, carrot, broccoli and a bit of tomato puree.
Soup lunch - carrot and coriander.
Have had blueberries and will have an orange and melon later.

Had a stir fry this evening containing onion, garlic, carrot, baby corn, broccoli, sugar snaps and pak choi.

I'm certain we manage 30 a week. We don't eat much meat (maybe once a month, if that), so eat a lot of plant-based foods, and I cook almost everything from scratch, not because I avoid UPFs, but because I like cooking. 😂

Achievable if you have quite a high income, perhaps.

Would one leaf or forkful of each of the hypothetical 30 plants be sufficient, or is there an actual volume of plants that we should be aiming for?

It is totally achievable on a low income!

I feed four adults for under £100 a week.

Pulses, grains, seasonal fruit and veg, frozen fruit and veg.

I guess we all draw our own line, but I don’t count bread or anything that’s already made. For me it’s about individual fresh ingredients. But I could equally see someone else counting the seeds in the bread.

It’s not about volume, just variety. Our gut microbes are very small so even a small portion of something is enough to feed thousands of them.

Theory is that the more different plants you eat, the greater the variety of good microbes that will be fed their preferred foods and go on to live and reproduce - and that the greater the variety of them we have inside us the healthier and more resilient we are.

It's a lot cheaper to buy extra veg to make chicken last for two (or three) meals than it is to get a takeaway for the same period whilst having lunch of a packet of crisps, a cheese sandwich with a Red Bull and pop tarts or a Snickers for breakfast.

The comparison is in the variety, rather than the volume - somebody having small amounts of different plants is consuming a wider range of nutrients and fibre compared to somebody whose weekly menu consists of jarred sauces + meat, toast with spread and every other meal being served with potatoes, peas and sweetcorn.

It's a version of the reasoning following research showing that people eating a traditional Japanese/Mediterranean diet experience on average greater longevity and better health than those who have a more restrictive range of foods and fewer vegetables. A meal in those styles is characterised by multiple vegetables in addition to grains, meat and fish (and fermented products). Japan recommends consuming 350g of veg and 200g of fruit per day to meet nutritional needs, for example - and although it's true that target isn't met for many, even their lower actual consumption is considerably higher; chowing through 350g of spinach isn't realistic or good for anybody, but 250g of multiple types in a day is more likely.

You're more likely to reach a higher intake with encouragement to eat multiple things, as if nothing else, they are attractive and appetite is affected by visual appeal as well as taste and smell. And it's easier to chop up/grate a courgette or some broccoli to add to a tomato based sauce between 4 than it is to get 4 people to eat some boiled green stuff on the side of a plate, fighting for space between the roasties, yorkshire puddings and mash.

I don't have any issue with the angle they're taking - multiple small portions is more likely to increase intake (and volume could well increase over time as people become accustomed to automatically adding extra plants to each meal and enjoy them, thereby reducing consumption of less nutritious meals or components).

I'm under a fair bit of stress right now which makes eating difficult for me, but when i can eat I tend to really focus on maximising nutrients at breakfast. My usual breakfast is porridge with oatmilk, (1), apple sauce (I hate raw apples but love apple sauce) (2), almonds or salted cashews (3) cinnamon (4), maple syrup (5), some sort of berries usually frozen for cost purposes (6), 90% dark chocolate grated in (7) half a chopped banana (8) and occasionally chia seeds if i can tolerate the thought - i hate them getting stuck in my teeth, truth is i usually don't bother.

I like locking that in early

I asked AI and it told me Hovis seed sensations did count, so then I asked it if oats count, and it said 'yes, as long as the oats are plant based'... That was a bit of a head scratcher!!

Ooh, lots today:

banana
raisins
grapes
lettuce
cucumber
cabbage
tomatoes
sweetcorn
pineapple
basil
red onion

Haha. Bless its cotton socks.

Mine today:

Almonds
walnuts
peanuts
hazelnuts
cashews
quinoa
butternut squash
edamame beans
green beans
peas
onions
parsley
peppers
garlic
kidney beans
celery
butter beans
leeks
carrots
blueberries
mango
apple
pear
nectarines
lime juice
pineapple
ginger
black pepper

Does pasta count as a plant...? Must do, it's flour and water...

Bread must count too, right?

Nope and nope. Sorry 😂

But then things like tomato and basil soup can't count...

If I can count ground up cinnamon that's been out in a dish, why can't I count ground up wheat?

Why not? If people are allowed to count ground spices.... Why can't you count ground wheat?

If you picked some wheat kernels and ground them up you could. But by the time theyve been industrially stripped and processed into flour, and then manufactured into bread, I don’t think it much resembles those kernels anymore.

not at all the same as putting some tomatoes and basil in a saucepan pan and cooking them into soup.

Well done you win a prize 🌟

I had chicken gnocchi tray bake and a baked apple with raspberries in.
tomatoes broccoli garlic smoked paprika chickpeas apple raspberries. Blummin lovely it was 😋

Courgettes, mushrooms, broccoli with pasta.

Lunch was homemade soup with onions peppers garlic butternut chilli lime ginger.

Banana and nuts for breakfast.

None at breakfast (usually have at least one).

Veggie chilli for lunch:
Butter beans
Kidney beans
Cannelini beans
Tomatoes
Garlic
Onions
Lime
Chipotle

Buddha bowls for dinner:
Red quinoa
White quinoa
Garlic
Chickpeas (falafel)
Rocket
Sweet potato
Pomegranate

And a hot cross bun (raisins, do they count?).

14 or 15 plants.

A spice is a whole ingredient, like a berry or a seed that’s just been dried. Not the same as the industrial processing that happens to most white flour we see in the supermarket. I suppose an artisanal wholewheat flour that’s been ground on a stone plate by woodland sprites would be ok.

At the end of the day we all make our own decisions on what to count. You seem very invested in being able to count flour, so you do you. You can count lumps of coal for all it affects anyone else!

I had a bar of M&S fruit & nut = 3 plants (cocoa bean, nuts & raisins)