Plant Variety & Gut Health – Made Easy

You may have noticed that gut health is becoming more and more topical, which is great! But, it does tend to lead to more and more confusing messages to sift through, which is where we come in – we’ll sift through the sh*t so you don’t have to. 

Firstly, let’s be clear, gut health doesn’t need to be complex (or expensive), in fact, you’re probably already doing some of the key things to support your gut without even trying. Think sleep, movement and you guessed it, what we eat … 

Research now shows that what we eat, affects the microbes in our guts, unsurprisingly, ‘healthy’ dietary patterns including plant-based foods are linked with those ‘good’ gut bugs. Even better, we now know the more variety of plant-based foods we eat the better for our gut microbiome. 

So how does it all work?

Firstly, variety is key – think eating the rainbow! Why? All of these wonderful fruits, veggies and plant-based foods are high in fibre and polyphenols, which act like fuel for your gut bugs, resulting in them producing beneficial compounds for your health. 

It’s not just fruit and veggies, its all plant-based foods, think nuts and seeds for those healthy fats and omega 3 fatty acids, to legumes for prebiotic fibres, and whole grains (more fibre) leading to a more diverse gut microbiome, and also lowering your risk of chronic conditions – win win. 

That Magic 30

We know, variety is a bit of a broad term – currently the recommendation is to get 30 different ‘plant points’ a week. As with all things gut health, we feel particularly passionate about this, having taken part in the research that resulted in the ‘30 a week!’ (thank you the American Gut Project!). Why 30? The research showed those who ate 30+ different types of plant-based foods per week (vs less than 10) had a more diverse mix of gut microbes. 

We get it 30 sounds like A LOT, but don’t despair, we gut you … 

Here’s some of our fave tips to hit that 30 (that don’t need to break the bank!): 

• Try allplants 30 in 3 meals – designed to provide you with an easy (delicious) solution to get to those 30 plant points 
• Buy frozen mixed bags of fruit and veggies to reduce cost and prevent waste
• Get mixing – think mixed bags of seeds, nuts, salad, veg and fruit – every version counts as 1 plant point 
• Rainbow – get different colours of the same veggies, think mixed peppers, tomatoes and carrots 

Keeping Track 

We get it, this all sounds great, in theory – but HOW on earth do you keep on top of how many plant points you’re at at any given time!? We gut you … 

Enter the gut stuff app! We’ve designed a digital gut diary on the go for you – you can tally up your plant points as you go and at the end of the week, we’ll let you know where you’re at as well as providing tips and tricks on how to keep goin’ (& increase it if you need too)! We don’t do things by halves so there is A LOT more to it … (you can read more here and try it out for free!). 

Written by The Gut Stuff Nutritionist – Annabel Sparrow