Should we all be eating 30 ‘plants’ a week?

Move over five-a-day; research shows that if you want a healthy gut and a healthy life, you should instead be focusing on getting 30 different plant-based foods each week into your meals.

What is the ‘30 plants a week’ theory?

In 2018, the American Gut Project carried out a study on over 10.000 participants looking at how different dietary patterns were associated with different health outcomes. They found that those who ate a wider variety of plant foods had a more diverse gut microbiome. From this, they concluded that eating 30 or more was optimal for gut diversity, which is crucial for overall health by providing the body with a robust ecosystem to resist harmful pathogens, among other benefits. 

As such, reaching 30 ‘plant points’ by incorporating a diverse range of plants – such as whole grains, vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts and seeds, and herbs and spices – has been seen as an important update to the ‘five-a-day’ public health advice first introduced in 1991. “The key thing here is in the variety of what you eat,” says Marc Pugh, a former Premier League football player who now works as a nutritionist under the Instagram handle @thefoodiefootballer. “There’s no need to repeat the same plant twice, so you can incorporate different things into your diet which will help you cook different meals.”

What are ‘plant points’?

The goal of this method is to reach 30 ‘plant points’ by the end of the week by eating 30 different plant-based foods. Each different fruit or vegetable gives you one point, and different varieties count separately – so, bell peppers and pimento peppers are considered different, but if you have the same fruit on both Monday and Tuesday, it still only counts as one point for the week. Whole grains like wheat, brown rice, quinoa, and oats each add one point and legumes such as chickpeas, beans, and lentils, also earn one point each.

“There are easy ways to pack in these plant foods into our everyday meals; legumes, such as chickpeas, go really nicely with curries for example,” Pugh advises. “I love making a chickpea and sweet potato curry. Legumes are great because not only do they have fibre, they include protein as well.

“There are loads of different types of legumes as well, you’ve got chickpeas, butter beans, red kidney beans, black beans, and they’re high in nutrients as well. I can’t speak highly enough of them.”

Nuts, including almonds, walnuts, and cashews, each count as a single point too, meaning a mixed bag of nuts can easily rack up 4-5 plant points per portion. As we typically eat them in smaller amounts, each different herb or spice counts as a quarter of a plant point. 

Add a little colour to your life

Different colours of the same fruit or vegetable also count as a separate point under this method – a green apple on Monday and a red apple on Tuesday together contribute two points. This is because different colours of plants provide slightly different profiles of vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients, and the impact of polyphenols (a group of compounds which offer a range of health benefits) can vary depending on the colour and type of food. Polyphenols act like the bodyguards of your gut, with antioxidative, anti-inflammatory, and antimicrobial properties that help reduce inflammation and oxidative damage linked to chronic diseases.

“Colours are crucial,” Pugh confirms, “the more colour the better. It’s not just greens you know, you need to get purples, reds, yellows and pairing this with a dish which has plenty of protein and moderate carbohydrates.” 

Your gut will thank you

The ultimate aim of this method is to improve the diversity of your gut microbiome, and subsequently your overall gut health. And your gut will thank you – as the system responsible for digesting food, absorbing nutrients and eliminating waste, it’s got a lot of work to do, supporting many bodily functions such as hormone regulation.

When your gut isn’t happy you may notice symptoms like bloating and constipation, however a lack of gut symptoms doesn’t necessarily mean your gut is healthy – your gut health can influence mental health, heart health, and beyond, without you even noticing. Unlike the heart or kidneys, the gut lacks a standard health test, so following approaches like the 30 plants a week method can help you proactively support it and gain peace of mind.

“One piece of advice I would give people trying to eat 30 plants a week is to eat the skins of your fruit and veg where possible, because that’s where a lot of the fibre is stored,” say Pugh. “You don’t have to eat the thing whole – for example, you can eat the skin of a butternut squash when it’s roasted and it’s absolutely beautiful. The fibre in the skin helps feed your gut microbiome. So just give it a good wash and you’re sorted.”

How can I hit my 30 plants a week target?

Reaching 30 different types of plants a week might seem like a daunting challenge, but it’s more achievable than you think. “I know it sounds like a lot, 30 as a number of plants to eat is quite intimidating, but I genuinely think it can be done pretty easily,” says Pugh. “If ever you find yourself struggling, you can always add some to batch-cooked dishes by reheating with new vegetables or legumes.” 

You can also have different snacks, nuts and dried fruit instead of crisps, or look for quirky pastas (lentil, buckwheat or even pea-based) in your local supermarket.