Plant Variety and 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.

TOP TIPS TO HIT THAT 30

• Try allplants Gut Health Booster Bundle - 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 
• Eat the rainbow - get different colours of the same veggies, think mixed peppers, tomatoes and carrots, the lot.

STUCK WHERE TO START?

We've collected the best dishes from our menu that deliver the goods when it comes to gut health, without skipping on flavour to create our Gut Health Booster Bundle. All packed full of the fibre and variety we need to keep our gut bugs happy.

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.

We've done the hard work for you and have broken down how to calculate your plant points here. Not to forget, every dish on our menu with 8+ plant points has the total plant count called out on the product page.

Want to track your plant points on-the-go? Say hello to The Gut Stuff app; a digital gut diary for you to tally up your plant points as you go (you can read more here and try it out for free!).

Written by: Annabel Sparrow | The Gut Stuff Nutritionist

Annabel is a Registered Associate Nutritionist with a personal and professional interest in gut health. With a BSc degree in Psychology and MSc in Nutrition and Behaviour, she is passionate about building healthy relationships with food and understanding the connection between food, mood and health. Annabel applies her psychological background in combination with her knowledge of nutrition to help people manage and improve their health without restriction.