30 plant-based foods a week, so hard

[ILookAtTheFloor]

I'm really struggling with getting 30 plant based foods a week as per Tim Spector's advice on gut health.

I've counted last week and I can only get to 17! It's hard as I tend to batch cook for both ease and budget.

How can I get more in? I already include lentils, wholegrain rice, quinoa etc. Any tips welcome! Anyone else trying it?

Seeds, herbs & spices also count towards a weekly total

I tend to batch cook different meals and freeze for future weeks

A curry using lentils, curry leaves, tumeric, cumin, coriander and ginger with carrots would count as 7

Porridge made with oats and buckwheat, frozen mixed berries, cocoa powder, maple syrup, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds & top with a banana would count at around 10 and taste delicious. Wash the buckwheat before cooking and soak for half an hour if you like. Just add a teaspoon of maple syrup and cocao powder

Blatant placemarking.

As I get older, I am becoming totally mistrustful of corporations selling food I can’t recognise, ingredients I can’t pronounce, and foods that just strike me as wrong (watermelon in the depths of winter etc). I want to feed my family real food that correlates to the season we’re in. Apple and blackberry crumble in the autumn; stews and soups in winter; lamb and greens in Spring; leaves and berries in summer.

It’s been easy cutting processed food out of our diets. We do eat things like tortilla chips, but figure that’s just ground corn with vegetable oil and salt. I just don’t want the unpronounceables. The issue is always repetition - it can get a bit boring. But we’re all finding we look forward to new seasonal produce arriving, and that’s worth the repetition.

Regarding Buddha bowls, does anyone know if its safe to put cooked rice in the fridge for 4 days? As in, cooked on Sunday and I eat it on Thursday? I'm thinking about my batch prep of work lunches

I wouldn’t use rice more than one day old but would substitute cous cous after day 2.

Oh and I make porridge with water, mix in the frozen fruit so the porridge isn’t all together in a lump - I microwave the fruit to defrost it

I also like soaked oats, I soak with water & add various different topping.

Some toppings like sultanas and carrots with sweet cinnamon are store cupboard items ( I always have carrots in the fridge) and this gives the oats a carrot cake taste - I grate the carrots

Or use frozen mango, desiccated coconut & banana for a tropical feel - again frozen mango is economically more viable and desiccated coconut a store cupboard item.

But butters in the soaked oats with cocoa powder and banana are tasty, £1.79 from Aldi for various nut butters

It looks like you're doing well.

Chuck seeds on stuff.
Poppy seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, crushed flax is nice over hummus, quinoa, couscous etc

I like avocado on a cracker at breakfast time.

There are lots of different nut butters. Nice on bread, crackers or as a dip with crudités.

Pomegranate is nice on hummus, couscous etc
Maybe try buckwheat noodles or buckwheat crisp bread (amiso)
Beetroot is nice at lunchtime in a Buddha bowl type lunch

Vegetarian haggis (basically a nut roast in the shape of white pudding) is quick and convenient for a main meal.

Lentil soup is super easy to make. Add lots of veg.

If you're pushed for time when cooking, some veg cook unbelievably quickly in the microwave, eg courgette and the other squashes including okra which is available frozen as well as fresh in some supermarkets

Herbal teas will be a quarter.

Didn't realise herbal teas counted! Normally have 1 a day.

Breakfast, lunch and snack was the same was yesterday
I think this is your issue, you need to mix it up. Frozen berries with yoghurt and nuts would add 3 or 4 effortlessly

I haven’t read the full thread but noticed that you were worried about waste. Seeds count and aren’t very perishable. So you can get bags of chia seeds, hemp seeds, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds etc and have a handful of seeds on a bowl of porridge in the morning with some blueberries and slices of banana and that’s 7 just with breakfast. Obviously it’s small amounts but if you have the seeds every day then over the course of the week you’ve had a decent amount.

Also if you’re worried about waste you can use frozen fruit to make a breakfast smoothie - avocado, raspberries and strawberries and maybe some almond milk, you could Chuck some seeds in that too.

@Neurodiversitydoctor

Breakfast, lunch and snack was the same was yesterday I think this is your issue, you need to mix it up. Frozen berries with yoghurt and nuts would add 3 or 4 effortlessly

It's definitely my issue. And finding the time to batch cook, I already resent making the same 4 lunches a week.

I don't like yoghurt unfortunately so that's out. I don't like anything creamy or milky. I tried to eat coconut yoghurt with chia seeds for while but had to concede defeat when I just kept gagging!

Do you think you could be calcium or vitamin D deficient if you eat no diary ? Do you take a supplement ?

I generally have leftovers for lunch at least 3 out of 5 days maybe with a bit of salad. Do you never have leftovers ?

@Neurodiversitydoctor

Do you think you could be calcium or vitamin D deficient if you eat no diary ? Do you take a supplement ?

I do eat dairy, I love cheese, the stronger the better. I also take a vitamin d supplement along with another billion supplements in my TTC quest.

@Neurodiversitydoctor

I generally have leftovers for lunch at least 3 out of 5 days maybe with a bit of salad. Do you never have leftovers ?

Leftovers after dinner tend to be tomorrow's dinner haha! Like today, I made lentils and I will eat that again tomorrow evening.

Yes, I think a lot of people would top that up with fruit
How about fruit in a smoothie with spinach?
I would put plant milk in my smoothie.

I see so as well as often having the same breakfast lunch and snacks you have the same dinners too. I can see why getting variety is difficult. In terms of lunches though baked beans in a jacket potato would be 2 with a bit of salad 4 or 5, worth a go ?

I nearly always have some fruit after lunch (hangover from packed lunches as child maybe?) could you not do that ?

I just made tabouleh for dinner, so thats bulgar wheat, onion, tomato, cucumber, red pepper, green pepper, sugar snaps, radish, and huge handfuls of chopped parsley, mint, basil, coriander, olive oil & lemon (not an authentic recipe I hasten to add!). Served with seeded wraps.

I made garlic sauce to go with it, containing, garlic, lemon and tahini
And lastly kohl Rabi and celeriac fries with paprika.

I figure thats 20 in one meal. And it was really tasty!

And finding the time to batch cook,

Double up on the evening meal, or one of the meals you make and freeze 4/6 portions, so that 5 nights and you’ll have a whole freezer of meals

6 today, so that’s 24.25 so far this week.

Spector is a geneticist not a nutritionist, right?

Where is the RCT that shows that 30 different is so much better than, I dunno, 5 different items/week?

@lljkk it was a study by the American gut project on 10 vs 30. I believe they were looking at bowel cancer.

This?
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mSystems.00031-18
Not an RCT.

They're kind of skinny, nobody with BMI > 30.

Where is the related article that shows the >30 crowd have lower mortality or fewer health problems? Does having fewer health problems make it easier to eat > 30? do people who have income & education tend to like eating > 30 items and because of their education & presumably higher social status, have fewer health problems? What is the cause & effect?

Obesity is an independent risk factor for cancer.

Well this one supports the need for diversity pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27110483/

I found it by flicking through the 4 pages of references in Dr Megan Rossi's latest book. She's a registered dietician with a Phd in gut health and recommends the same 30 plant points per week. It's actually a really fascinating read about how your gut health can impact your brain, your hormones, your immune system.

Really the ideal is as many different types as possible but 30 is an achievable target and more than the average meat and two veg eater.