5 a day - or 30 a week?

We see ‘5 a day’ everywhere - or maybe that’s just me as I’m a Nutritionist and so I’m programmed to notice things like this. But what’s the research behind this number and is that what our target for fruit and veg really should be?

You can read online people saying it really should be 7, or 9 - and veg with less fruit. So what to do? Well I’ve written in another blog post (here: https://www.carolinekeatinge.com/blog-posts/2020/6/30/how-colourful-is-your-diet ) about all the benefits of eating colour, and getting lots of phytonutrients, but there’s also a growing body of science showing the benefits to our gut microbiome from a diet which includes a wide diversity of plant foods. And the magic number seems to be 30 different types in a week.

The American Gut project - a study looking at the effect of diet and lifestyle on the human microbiome, has found that people who eat over 30 different plant foods a week have a more diverse microbiome than those eating 10 or fewer different plant foods a week.

How many do you eat?  I looked at a ‘typical' day for me (OK I did choose a particular high-plant food day 😉) and I was surprised by how quickly you can rack up the numbers:  

Breakfast:  Seeds/nuts and fruit in kefir - 9 -  chia, sunflower, pumpkin, sesame, almonds, puffed quinoa, strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants (i.e. frozen berries… 🙂); Lunch: mixed salad and tinned mackerel in spicy tomato sauce; stewed plums in custard (admission - I’m a custard lover - are you!?!) for dessert: -9- Red cabbage, fennel, carrot, beetroot, tomato, chilli, olive oil, lemon juice, plums; Dinner - 5 -  sweet potato, Bolognese (made with onions and garlic), bobby beans and cabbage. 

So that’s 23 just in one day… and not counting any herbs and spices (do they count?  Think I need to research that.)  - which if I had included would have added another 5 I reckon.  And I usually have a nut or two, or a carrot stick somewhere along the day - so that’s 30.  Boom!!

The learning is that the more different plant foods we eat, the greater the diversity in our microbiome, which is associated with healthier outcomes..  And a healthy gut helps us to have happy hormones!

If you’re interested there is a British Gut project - check it out.  And you can also participate yourself.. and get a snapshot of your own gut microbes.

30 a week - does it scare you or inspire?