Professor Tim Spector is a leading professor of genetic epidemiology, medical doctor, and science writer, working on the relationship between nutrition, the gut microbiome, and health. He is a co-founder of ZOE, an app and project aimed at helping users make smarter food choices, and has published four books: best-selling Identically Different, The Diet Myth, Spoon Fed and Food for Life.
Spread olive oil on your toast
I drizzle and spread extra virgin olive oil on my toast rather than butter, for greater health benefits. This is what they do in Spain, and it tastes delicious.
Upgrade your breakfast
Instead of quickly reaching for cereal, have full fat Greek yoghurt topped with nuts, seeds, and berries. It contains less sugar, and the toppings will help you reach your 30 plants a week. Research shows people who eat 30 different plants a week tend to have a more diverse gut microbiome than those who eat 10. A flourishing microbiome can help the body fight infections, reduce the risk of autoimmune disease, and regulate appetite and body weight.
Consume plenty of colours
Eating the rainbow not only supports your gut health and reduces the risk of disease, it also enriches your diet with a greater range of flavours and textures (and will help you reach your 30 plants a week target too). A simple and cheap way is to buy pre-mixed combinations; packs of multi-coloured peppers are a good example, as are combinations of other root vegetables, or mixed nuts and seeds.
Add celery to your onion and garlic
Most good recipes begin with onion and garlic, but try adding some celery too. It doesn’t taste as flavoursome on its own, but chopped celery, garlic, and onions sweated in extra virgin olive oil is a great way to routinely introduce more flavour, polyphenols and fibre to your meals. Studies have shown that combinations like these release even more healthy polyphenol chemicals for your microbes than when they’re used individually.
Let your chopped veg sit for five to 10 minutes
Rather than chopping and then throwing your garlic and onion straight in the pan, wait for five to 10 minutes. Onion and garlic, as well as cabbage and broccoli, are good sources of sulforaphane, a chemical that has been shown to improve glucose control and cholesterol levels. Cooking destroys the mirosynase, from which sulforaphane derives. But if you let your vegetables sit for five to 10 minutes before cooking them, the sulforaphane is activated and survives the cooking process.
Brush your tomatoes with olive oil
There’s evidence that you extract more nutrients from tomatoes when they’re cooked with extra virgin olive oil.
Swap stock cubes for miso paste
The former are ultra processed and high in salt. While miso paste is a pure food that contains protein and has a depth of flavour from the fermented soya beans.
Don’t remove the skin from fruit and vegetables
If you’re worried about pesticides or bugs, it’s usually best to wash your fruit and veg, although this won’t remove all the chemicals. Try not to peel them either if you can; for many plants, most of the nutrients, polyphenols and fibre is on the outside layers.
Make your own oven chips
Replace your oven chips with chopped potatoes drizzled in a little olive oil, seasoned, and baked. For an even healthier version, try sweet potato. And for an even better one, replace oven chips with roast carrot, celeriac, or cauliflower – the greater the mix, the better the diversity.
Make easy carb swaps
Simple things like swapping plain white rice for bulgur wheat, and white pasta for wholegrain or chickpea pasta, make a huge difference. The alternatives are less processed and contain more gut-friendly fibre.
Bulk up with beans
Beans and pulses are one of the most nutritious plants we can eat in terms of fibre, protein and nutrients, yet we’ve been eating less and less of them over the past 30 years. Swap out the minced beef or lamb in a chilli or bolognaise for black eyed beans, kidney beans, or lentils.
Swap ketchup for kimchi
Incorporating fermented foods into your meals can introduce beneficial live microbes in food, enhancing gut health. The best way to do it if you haven’t tried it before is to just add a tablespoon to a meal and build from there. Mix kimchi or sauerkraut with cream cheese and put on toast. Swap crème fraiche for milk kefir, which is less processed with gut friendly microbes. Swap a sweet chutney for kimchi, which has less sugar, pickled gherkins for sauerkraut, or ketchup for spicy kimchi sauces.
Try this cheap version of smashed avo
For a cheap version of mashed avocado, mash up some peas instead. The health benefits are similar, but it’s a lot cheaper. Cover frozen peas with boiling water from the kettle and leave for 1 minute to defrost. Drain and add to a blender, adding some finely chopped spring onions, herbs, green chilli, lemon juice and olive oil if desired. Season and blitz until smooth.
Don’t forget the vinegar
It doesn’t need to be expensive or even apple cider vinegar, as it seems to be the acidity level that is important for balancing blood sugar. There is now some recent evidence in small studies to suggest that you can blunt your body’s blood sugar responses short-term by using vinegar on your salads before the main course.
Have salad before carbs
There is emerging evidence that eating salads or other vegetables as starters 10 minutes or so before you have a carbohydrate-rich meal can help to keep you fuller for longer and reduce blood sugar spikes from the starchy food. We also know from our work at ZOE on blood sugar levels that combining starchy foods with fats and fibre will slow the absorption and make the meal more satiating. This is why in France and Italy you’re often served vegetables, such as crudités, as a first course.
Eat more nuts and seeds
They’re an important high-fibre, high-omega-3 fatty acid and high-polyphenol addition that has been shown to improve heart disease risk, so think about ways you could up them. Add a handful to a salad, or some mixed seeds to your breakfast granola and yoghurt. Whole seed spices like coriander, cumin, fennel and caraway are all nutritious – and delicious.
Have two teaspoons of herbs and spices
Spices and herbs count towards your 30 plants a week, even though they are traditionally eaten in much smaller quantities than leafy greens, because they have an extra high concentration of plant chemicals. A study known as ‘the Singapore trial’ showed how powerful a couple of teaspoonfuls of mixed curry spices per day can be for the gut microbiome.
The Food For Life Cookbook by Tim Spector, with Dr Federica Amati, is out now
As told to Maria Lally
