I tried Tim Spector’s advice to eat 30 different plants in a week and was left feeling one thing – Wales Online
Chomping through 30 plants over a week might seem easy enough, right? That’s merely four plants daily, falling just shy of the often-suggested five-a-day quota. However, this “30 a week” challenge throws up a spanner in the works if you’re accustomed to meeting your five-a-day by eating the same few items.
Professor Tim Spector, an epidemiologist, medical doctor, and science writer based at King’s College London, wants us to throw out everything we thought we knew about food. Prof Spector’s interest in gut health stems from scientific evidence that shows our immune system is based in our gut. His research suggests that our gut is linked to almost every part of our health.
The challenge I decided to undertake this challenge to see just how manageable it is to eat 30 different plants in one week. I’m a bit of a fussy eater. I eat vegetables because I have to, not because I enjoy them. I took on this challenge with the aim of not focusing on reaching 30, but to eat what I would normally consume in a week and see how I got on – a more realistic reflection, I thought, of how easy it is to hit the 30 target.
Every meal I consumed was homemade and unprocessed – I’m not going to include any herbs I use in my dishes as they’re dried herbs (processed), rather than freshly picked from a plant. Here’s a rundown of what I ate in a week:
Monday: Coffee, bran flakes, asparagus and cannellini bean soup, with garlic and onion, spaghetti bolognese with carrots and wholegrain pasta. Total: Eight plant foods
Tuesday: Coffee, rainbow salad with sweetcorn, iceberg lettuce, cucumber, carrots, spring onion, naked burger and chips with spring onion. Total: Five extra plant foods takes me up to 13
Wednesday: Coffee, courgette and cannellini bean soup with garlic and onion, apple, same salad as the day before, bran flakes, chicken noodles. Total: Only two new plants today, the apple and the onion, so we’re up to 15
Thursday: Bran flakes, leek and potato soup, jacket potato and cheese, red grapes. Total: Another two new ones, leeks and grapes, so up to 17
Friday: Coffee, banana, boiled eggs and bread, courgette soup, salmon and potatoes with purple broccoli. Total: It’s getting challenging to find new plants but the banana and the purple broccoli take me up to 19
Saturday: Raspberries (20), mushroom and egg omelette (21), crispy beef with peppers and rice (23). Total: Raspberries, mushroom, peppers and rice are all added to the list to take me to 23
Sunday: Veggie sausage with mushrooms, egg and Heinz beans (don’t count as already had cannellini beans this week), Sunday roast with cauliflower, red cabbage, green broccoli, carrots and swede (27), strawberries (28). Total: The fantastic five of cauliflower, red cabbage, green broccoli, carrots, swede and strawberries take me up to 28 different plants for the week.
Do I feel better? Absolutely. My body reacts less to foods now than it used to. I seldom feel bloated or sluggish after eating. I have much more energy and I’d like to say I’m sleeping better but, with a teething toddler, it’s hard to make a fair assessment. I have also become far more knowledgeable and adventurous with plants. I’ve added in a lot more nuts and seeds into my diet, which is great for someone like me who doesn’t tend to enjoy vegetables like broccoli.
Friday did bring a jumper load of extra vegetables for our Sunday roast – another meal where you can increase the total number of plant foods. But every extra item just adds to the total food bill. Until last year, I was a big consumer of processed food – I bought frozen breaded fish or chicken, pizzas, ready meals, and burgers, etc. Now, I prepare everything from scratch and include far more vegetables, which has increased my weekly food shop by around £30. The unfortunate truth is that maintaining a healthy diet is significantly more costly than the alternative. This would likely be even more challenging if I wasn’t already following a diet plan centred on fruit and vegetable consumption.
Prof Spector himself claims he can consume up to 10 plant foods in a single breakfast by adding a mix of berries, seeds, and nuts to his regular full-fat yoghurt and kefir dish. I did miss a trick when I didn’t throw any vegetables into my chicken noodles earlier in the week. Some beansprouts, bamboo shoots, pak choi or other traditional Chinese veg might have added some variety and bumped up my numbers. However, my fridge was running low on veggies ahead of my Friday morning food shop. Meals like a Sunday roast and stir fries are also ample opportunities to pack in the vegetables, and they aren’t too adventurous either.