When Eva Humphries first started working as a nutritionist, she met a client who had just found out he had high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and was on the verge of type 2 diabetes. He had no idea how to change his diet or lifestyle.<\/p>\n
The man broke down and cried for 45 minutes, leaving Humphries with \u201cno idea of what to do\u201d, she says. In the final 15 minutes of the session, scrambling for a quick but helpful message, she finally said: \u201cWhen you look at a plate of food, can you just make half of it veg for me?\u201d<\/p>\n
The client came back two months later and \u201cthe colour was back in his cheeks\u201d, she says. He told her that adding the veg had \u201cstarted to [make him] feel really good\u201d.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a simple approach to eating more plants \u2013 and one we might all need to start emulating, sooner rather than later. Earlier this month, a new report found that<\/a>, due to deteriorating soil quality, crops including carrots, apples and peas are now 20% to 50% less nutritious than they were in the 1960s. So should we be eating double the amount?<\/p>\n When I was a child, the \u201cfive a day\u201d mantra for fruit and veg was drummed into me and, as an adult, I thought I was doing OK. I\u2019m vegetarian, which means that most of my meals revolve around plant-based foods; I subscribe to a vegetable delivery service from a local community farm; and I frequently snack on apples. I actually do eat my five a day, most of the time \u2013 and often exceed that.<\/p>\n But even before these findings, there was research suggesting<\/a> we should aim for 10 portions of fruit and veg per day, instead of five, while some experts advocate for consuming 30 different plants a week<\/a>. Eating \u2013 and affordably sourcing \u2013 that kind of volume can feel overwhelming, and the news about declining nutritional value is potentially demotivating.<\/p>\n \u2018Ultimately, the rule is: get the vegetables in\u2019 \u2026 Lucy Knight, veg-maxxing at home. Photograph: Hannah Cauh\u00e9p\u00e9\/The Guardian<\/p>\n William Summers, senior associate at Deep Science Ventures, which published the new report alongside charity the Mark Leonard Trust, hopes the findings make farmers and policymakers consider and prioritise nutrient density. In the meantime, he doesn\u2019t want people to imagine that there is no point in eating plants. His research has shown that \u201cwhole foods, across cereals, fruit and veg, have definitely got less nutrient dense. That\u2019s a fact \u2013 but they\u2019re still way, way better than eating ultra-processed foods.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are certain vegetables that are known to be more nutrient dense and that\u2019s tied to their genetics,\u201d he adds. \u201cBroadly, it\u2019s leafy greens. So I\u2019d say the more leafy greens you can get in your diet, the better.\u201d<\/p>\n According to last year\u2019s National Diet and Nutrition Survey,<\/a> only 17% of UK adults get their five a day, which can include, fruit, vegetables, beans and pulses. So how can we consume more plants without really trying?<\/p>\n A first step could be switching out meat for beans in meals you already make. Dr Shireen Kassam, visiting professor of plant-based nutrition at the University of Winchester, and executive director of Plant-Based Health<\/a> Professionals UK, suggests swapping a tofu curry for a chicken curry, or a lentil bolognese for one made with mince. Even if you don\u2019t want to lose the meat completely, a \u201chalf and half\u201d meat and lentil bolognese is a good way to sneak in vegetables without entirely changing the flavour, she says.<\/p>\n Matt Beardmore, executive chef at the Italian restaurant Legare, also uses pasta sauces to pack in veg. At his restaurant, the focus is on taste, but at home, to get the maximum nutrition, he will double or triple the amount of sofrito (an onion, celery and carrot base for sauces) that he normally puts into a recipe. As the weather gets colder, Kassam and Beardmore both recommend soups as a way to use up any sad-looking leftovers in your vegetable drawer. With a soup such as minestrone, \u201cyou can just absolutely fill it with veg\u201d, Beardmore says.<\/p>\n His rule of thumb is \u201cfilling half my plate with veg\u201d \u2013 which is what Humphries suggests, too. The approach she used with the unhappy client at the start of her career has become a guiding principle for the way she now works. \u201cIt\u2019s this concept of: if we look at a plate visually, can we just shove a couple more pieces of veg on it, or maybe add some herbs or a handful of greens? I think we underestimate how far little practices like adding an extra portion of vegetables can go.\u201d<\/p>\n A green revolution? Photograph: Hannah Cauh\u00e9p\u00e9\/The Guardian<\/p>\n The next step, says Humphries, is to diversify your intake, to ensure you\u2019re consuming as many different minerals and vitamins as possible. \u201cWe tend to get into a repertoire of eating broccoli and peppers and peas,\u201d she says. One question she challenges her clients with is \u201cwhen was the last time you\u2019ve had watercress? Or, when was the last time you added a handful of fresh parsley on top of your food?\u201d Fresh herbs are quite concentrated sources of nutrients, she says, so you don\u2019t need to eat a lot to receive benefits. The idea is to get people thinking about easy ways to add new vegetables and other plants to the diet they already have.<\/p>\n One plant we could be eating more in the UK is seaweed, says Humphries, particularly because it contains iodine, one of the minerals flagged by Deep Science Ventures as having been lost from our soils. \u201cIt\u2019s got loads of iodine, iron, calcium and magnesium,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those other plant foods that we don\u2019t often think about.\u201d You also don\u2019t need a lot of seaweed in your diet to reap the benefits, so eating a bit of sushi, which often features a dried version called nori, will give you your fill. \u201cI typically tend to use it in seasonings because it\u2019s got quite a salty flavour,\u201d says Humphries.<\/p>\n The way we cook fruit and vegetables matters, too. \u201cTypically, vitamins C and B tend to go from vegetables if you boil them,\u201d says Humphries. \u201cC is broken down by heat, and then a lot of the B-vitamins leach into the water.\u201d On the other hand, certain vegetables actually improve when boiled: \u201cSay, for example, iron in spinach. We can barely absorb any iron from raw spinach, but we can absorb it really well when it\u2019s cooked or boiled\u201d.<\/p>\n Neither Humphries nor Kassam recommend getting over-worried about cooking methods, though \u2013 increasing your quantity of vegetables is the main thing. \u201cFor most people, the basic message remains the same: five a day is the minimum,\u201d says Kassam. If you can manage more, that will serve your body well.<\/p>\n To maximise the nutrients you absorb from the food you already eat, choose wholegrain varieties wherever you can \u2013 thereby \u201creducing the reliance on refined grains and going for brown rice, brown pasta\u201d, Kassam says. One surprising thing that Kassam and Humphries tell me is that soaking beans and pulses before you cook them can also increase their bioavailability \u2013 which helps you to absorb more nutrients from them.<\/p>\n Beans might be a great source of selenium and zinc, but it can be hard work for us to actually absorb those minerals if they haven\u2019t been soaked for a long period or cooked very slowly, Humphries explains. This is because beans contain phytates, which are \u201canti-nutrients, and their main job is to bind minerals\u201d, she says. \u201cSo when we eat beans or grains, we can\u2019t fully absorb those minerals because they\u2019re bound to these phytates. So the only way that we can get around it is to do things like soaking beans overnight. Because that tricks the plant into thinking that it\u2019s about to sprout, and it releases the phytates.\u201d<\/p>\n Knight shopping for fruit and veg at Lewisham Market. Photograph: Hannah Cauh\u00e9p\u00e9\/The Guardian<\/p>\n This is great news if you\u2019ve got the time and capacity to think ahead and prep your beans in advance \u2013 but the reality is that most of us buy beans in cans or jars. Most ready-to-eat beans in cans will have been boiled quickly, Humphries says \u2013 so while eating them is still good for you, you\u2019re not maximising their nutritional content that way. For a convenient alternative, Humphries recommends the Bold Bean Co, which sells pre-soaked and slow-cooked beans in jars \u2013 but these are approximately four times the price of supermarket own-branded cans.<\/p>\n The most nutritious option does often come with a cost, says Humphries, who says that she can\u2019t afford to eat 100% organic produce, even though she would like to. Does choosing organic actually make a nutritional difference? \u201cOur data on organic isn\u2019t particularly brilliant,\u201d she says. But she wants people to be aware that \u201cwhen we metabolise pesticides or any kind of artificial chemicals that are left on our food, we use nutrients to detox it\u201d \u2013 so there is actually a case for pesticide-free produce allowing us to retain more nutrients.<\/p>\n If you can afford to buy organic and local, that\u2019s great, says Humphries, \u201cbecause we know that having a farmer down the road who really cares about supporting their local community is ultimately supporting more than nutritional wellbeing \u2013 it\u2019s supporting our local economy. We also know that, when things are picked, they start losing nutrients fairly rapidly. So having access to fresher produce does have merit.\u201d<\/p>\n For this reason, if you are able to grow your own fruit, vegetables and herbs in your garden or on your windowsill, you are likely to catch more of the plants\u2019 nutrients before they start degrading. That is probably \u201cthe one advantage\u201d, nutrition-wise, that has been proven when it comes to homegrown v shop bought, according to Summers. \u201cThere isn\u2019t a huge body of evidence, but from what there is, there doesn\u2019t appear to be any reliable differences\u201d other than \u201csimply freshness\u201d, he says. \u201cThe sooner you either eat or preserve it, the better.\u201d<\/p>\n A shortcut to feeling good \u2026 vegetables at Lewisham Market. Photograph: Hannah Cauh\u00e9p\u00e9\/The Guardian<\/p>\n \u201cUltimately, as a nutritionist, my heart lies with: \u2018get the vegetables in\u2019\u201d \u2013 in whatever way is affordable and manageable \u2013 says Humphries. While Kassam would recommend switching sugary snacks for fruits, nuts and crudit\u00e9s (the third one to pack in even more vegetables outside meals), \u201cultimately we have to recognise that unhealthy calories are cheaper than healthy calories\u201d, she says. She points to the charity the Food Foundation\u2019s most recent Broken Plate report<\/a>, which showed that a fifth of UK households would need to spend 85% of their income on food to afford the government-recommended healthy diet, and that the price gap between healthier and less healthy food is now the widest it has been in over a decade.<\/p>\n Because of this, Kassam says, \u201cpeople don\u2019t always make active choices: their choices are made in the food environment, what\u2019s affordable, what\u2019s familiar. We need to be representing healthier options in our supermarkets and incentivising those purchases.\u201d<\/p>\n There are ways to maximise your plant consumption slightly more cheaply: frozen vegetables still count, and sometimes even contain more nutrients than fresh ones. \u201cThere are cases where rapidly freezing veg will give better nutritional quality than fresh veg that has been sat around long enough to have time to degrade,\u201d says Summers.<\/p>\n \u201cI tend to stash three to four different types of vegetables in my freezer,\u201d Humphries says, so she\u2019s always got a handful of spinach or peas to add to her meals.<\/p>\n If you have room, keeping a store cupboard full of \u201ctins of beans and wholegrains and things that are always going to make a nutritious meal\u201d is also a good, and relatively cheap, way to ensure that you always have plant foods on hand, even if you haven\u2019t got anything fresh in, says Kassam.<\/p>\n But, she adds, any increase in fruit and vegetable intake is beneficial. \u201cWe\u2019re not talking about being perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Eva Humphries first started working as a nutritionist, she met a client who had just found out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":816344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[59,102,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-816343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-gb","tag-health","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=816343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}